Affiliate Marketing Basics: Let’s Talk About Traffic

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.

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Is Affiliate Marketing a Viable Business Model for Successful Businesses?

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!

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Viral Marketing Basics

Viral Marketing Basics

Viral Marketing is one of the best ways for you to sell a product or service – in fact, it's one of the best ways to make a lot of sales.

How?  Because thanks to the way that viral marketing works, you don't need to have a big list, or a lot of money to put into an advertising campaign – but you can still have a huge impact.

First of all, let's go over exactly what viral marketing is.  (According to Wikipedia, "Viral Marketing refers to marketing techniques that use preexisting social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even text messages.")

But that sounds a little complicated, don't you think?  To break it down into plain English, basically Viral Marketing is just a way of getting a bunch of people to tell other people about something you've created to build a buzz about your product or service.  And by passing it around to other people, it builds social proof – (because there's a kind of implied endorsement when you send something to someone else.)  Sometimes you get lucky and the more it's passed around the more it takes on a life of its own.

A perfect example is the "Free Hugs" video on YouTube.  It has been viewed by millions of people, and the music – a song written by a group called the "Sick Puppies."  That video was responsible for launching their singing career – even though that was not the original intention.  That video – and the story behind it went viral and caught the attention – and the hearts – of people all over the world.  It even spawned a movement that is still going on.

Although you might not be able to pull off a viral marketing campaign that does as well as the "Free Hugs" video, if you are willing to spend a little time researching your market and your target audience, and can think outside the box, you can create a very successful viral marketing campaign of your own.

What kind of things can go viral?  Obviously videos.  (In fact, if you look at most of the "gurus" in the Internet Marketing field right now, you'll see they're all heavily using videos to promote their launches and create marketing  campaigns that go viral.  However, if you don't have the desire to do videos, you can go with that old standby – the "Special Report."   Podcasts, white papers, even case studies all have the ability to "go viral" and get a lot of people very interested in what you have to say – and sell.

To create a successful viral marketing campaign, it's very important that you find the right mix of media, marketing and audience.  Make sure that your target audience is going to be interested in what you have to say, the way you're saying it and how you're bringing it to their attention.  If you get these three things right, chances are, you'll have a winner on your hands, and your next marketing campaign will go viral too.

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Discover How You Can Now Quickly Create Your Own
Branded Cash Producing Viral Ebooks With Just A Few
Clicks That Spread All Over The Web

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