Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing Basics: Let’s Talk About Traffic

When you’re just getting starting in Affiliate Marketing, one of the most important things you need to learn about is traffic – specifically what it is and how to get it.

Why?

Because although it’s become somewhat of a cliche these days, the truth is, “the money is in the list” – but that means YOUR list, not the list of the people whose products you’re selling – at least not if you want to be successful.

Here’s why. As an affiliate, your job is to find people who want to buy the products you’re promoting, right? So to do that, you need to write an ad (or hire a copywriter to write it for you), and send people to a Website where they can buy the product.

BUT – there’s a serious problem with using this method. Do you see what it is?

Anywhere from 60 to 95% of the people you send to the sales page probably aren’t going to buy the first time.

1. Most people want to be certain that they’re making the right decision, so they usually need to see or hear from you between 5 to 12 times before making a buying decision.

2. If you’re paying for the ad and sending people to the seller’s Website, the ones who don’t buy disappear forever. (And neither you nor the seller will benefit.)

3. Of those who do buy, if you’re only sending them to the sales page, YOU still lose them forever because you have no way of knowing who they are.

Here’s the solution:

1. Write your ad and send prospects to a well-written squeeze page – YOUR squeeze page. (A squeeze page is a single page Website that has one purpose – to convince prospects to give you their contact information. Squeeze pages should be simple – no flash, no links, and if you use a graphic or photo, keep it simple and make sure it relates to the purpose of the page. How do you convince prospects to give you their contact information? By giving them information that is what they’re expecting to find and that’s useful to them.)

2. Offer them an incentive to give you their contact information. (This could be a free report, a free newsletter, an audio or video product – just make sure it’s related to the niche or affiliate product.)

3. After they’ve opted in to your autoresponder, send them to your affiliate sales page.

4. Follow up with them on a regular basis – mixing good information, free bonuses from time to time and additional affiliate products.

Lather, rinse, repeat. (Once you’re making money from your first affiliate product, move on to the next and then the next and the next.)

The best thing about this is that you can set most of it up on your autoresponder, so you turn it into a “system” and it runs “almost” on autopilot. (There is NO SUCH THING as a business that runs 100% on autopilot – and don’t believe anyone who tells you differently.) Any business – real business – takes work and effort. But by setting this system up this way, your autoresponder does the majority of the work, and you will only need to do simple updates and make sure you keep fresh information flowing.



Are You Making These Top Three Affiliate Marketing Mistakes?

If you’re new to affiliate marketing, there are a few things that you need to know about marketing your affiliate products – because if you get these wrong, chances are, you’re never going to make more than a few sales.

Affiliate Marketing Mistake #1: Choosing the Wrong Product

This is a biggie, and probably one of the biggest mistakes that new affiliate marketers make. How do you choose the best affiliate products?

There are several ways. You could choose products based on their popularity (check out clickbank to see what I mean.) Or you could choose products based around your current business. (For example, if you run a business such as a beauty parlor, you could find a number of affiliate products…what about a book on hairstyles for weddings, or proms or braids? Or you could sell a beauty book, or a book on skin care. There are also physical products that you could sell. The point is to look for affiliate products that complement what you’re already selling.

You could also choose affiliate products based on how much commission you’ll make – but think carefully before choosing this as your top method of deciding what products you want to sell. Finding quality products should always be your top concern – because if the products you’re selling are garbage, the end result is that while you might make sales, you’re also going to get lots of refund requests – which means you’ll end up in the hole.

Affiliate Marketing Mistake #2: Marketing the Product the Wrong Way

We’ve all seen the ads that say “Make a Million Dollars with No Product and No Website” – those ads are usually about affiliate marketing.

But think about it for a minute. If you could REALLY do that – wouldn’t everybody be doing it? That old saying that “if something sounds too good to be true then it probably is” holds true when it comes to affiliate marketing.

The best way to market any affiliate product is to sell it where the customers are. Which means that you need to know who your prospective customers are. You need to find out as much information about them as possible – what they want, what their greatest fears are, what solution they’re looking for. Then you need to know where they shop – if your affiliate marketing product is for consumers, then you’ll want to know where your prospect shops, what magazines they read or what Internet pages they visit. Where do they hang out? If you’re selling to business owners, then you’ll have to find out where they do business at. And again, market your affiliate products there.

Affiliate Marketing Mistake #3: Not Writing the Right Kind of Sales Copy

Although it’s not absolutely necessary to hire a professional copywriter (especially if you’re just starting out and money is tight), it is necessary that you learn the basics about copywriting and write sales copy that will appeal to your market.

One of the first things you need to do is to “Continue the conversation that your prospect is already having inside their head. That means that you need to know what kind of questions your prospect has about your affiliate product – and make sure that you’re answering them. Think about what kinds of objections your prospect might have, and find a way of answering them, too.

Add social proof. (This means you want to show that other people have bought the product and love it.) When you’re selling affiliate products, the really good marketers will provide you with testimonies that you can use, along with sales copy, email copy, etc. (This is great because it’s often been written by a professional copywriter who understands the market.)

However, even if you’re given a sales page or email blasts to send out to your list, you don’t want to use it word for word. Make a few changes it – give it your own original touch. Make it fresh and original so that your prospect doesn’t see the exact same ad somewhere else – you’ll lose credibility if that happens.

If you’re offering a bonus for someone to buy your affiliate product, make sure that the bonus goes along with the product. Don’t give away recipes if you’re selling a book about hair care. Make sure your bonus relates to the product and is useful to your prospect. (For example, you could write your own Ebook that tells how to get the most out of the affiliate product. That’s something that no one else will be able to sell, because it’s yours.

Whatever you do, when it comes to affiliate marketing, it’s easy to avoid making the three biggest marketing mistakes just by doing a little thinking and strategic planning before you get started. And the truth is, you can make a very good living just from selling affiliate products, as long as you do it the right way.




Is Affiliate Marketing a Viable Business Model for Successful Businesses?

Some of the most popular "how to" courses, bootcamps and seminars are built around affiliate marketing as a business model for success. If you do a search on the Internet, you'll find literally thousands of E-books, Homestudy courses, and affiliate marketing products for sale.

But can you really build a business around selling other people's products?

Yes. And no.

The truth of the matter is, there is a specific formula that can lead to success if you decide to base your business around selling affiliate products.

But if you do it wrong, you may never make more than enough to cover your Internet connection and telephone costs each month.

Why is there such a huge disparity between the really successful affiliate marketers (those who make several thousand dollars each and every month) and those who are barely eking out a living?

Like with any business, it all boils down to creating solid systems that are scalable and can be duplicated to bring income from as many different sources as possible.

Here are some things to keep in mind when getting started:

Start with one product. Do your research. Find a market with a product that people want and are buying. Set up a system for promoting that product. (Think article writing, white papers, case studies, product reviews, e-books, workbooks, etc.)
Find additional and complimentary products or services that you can sell after you've started making a profit with the first one.

Create a squeeze page where you can collect names of people who want to find out more about the affiliate product or niche market.

Drive traffic to your Squeeze Page and offer them valuable information in exchange for their contact information.

Create a way to keep in touch with the people on your list, and continue to promote the additional products to them over time – but make sure that you're offering good solid information to them as well, to help build your credibility and their loyalty.

Once you've got your first affiliate product selling well, it's time to start cross selling and upselling. This may take you from a few weeks to several months – but like any other business, it's important that you are willing to spend the time and money necessary to build your affiliate business.

As soon as you've got the first product and cross sells operating at a profit, you can expand. For example, you could go into another complimentary niche. Or, I you want something a little more advance (and this one is a trick used by some of the Internet Marketing gurus in many different niches), go into competition with yourself.

That may sound a little crazy – but think of it this way: by competing against yourself – especially if you're able to grab onto the two of the top five positions – you're really just giving yourself a bigger piece of the pie!

If you're the type who gets bored easily, or is always looking for a new challenge, you might want to go into a totally new niche. Find something that doesn't have anything to do with your first niche.

Whatever you decide to do, just make sure that you're following the proven formula for success. Build each product or niche until it becomes profitable before moving on to the next one.

After that, you can just "lather, rinse and repeat" to your heart's content – and you'll be able to watch your bank balance grow too!

To Your Affiliate Marketing Success...

Doug Champigny,
NichePLR.com

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