Monday 29 December 2008

Learn The Benefits To Affiliate Marketing!!

Affiliate marketing is very beneficial both for merchants and affiliate marketers. It is a popular method to earn profits from the websites and also helps the merchants to increase their sales.
It is the cheapest business on the internet that can make you the highest profit.

Lets us discuss some important benefits of affiliate marketing to affiliate marketers and merchants.

Benefits to affiliate marketer

1. No Need to create a product!

One important benefit of affiliate marketing is that you are not required create or produce any products. It is the duty of merchants to create the products. So you are only required to select the products to sell, get the affiliate links and start your business in ten minutes. You can focus on selling the product as you donít need to do anything with the production or delivery of the products.

2. You Can Start with No Money, or with as little as $100

Another important feature of affiliate marketing is that you can start your business with little or no out of pocket expense. This is the lowest possible investment in today's world to start a business which has a great scope in the market. If you simply donít have any money to invest, you can always use free tools to start your business.

3. The Easiest Online Business

It is the easiest online business due to the fact that the merchants do all the hard work like making products, delivering products to consumers, handling money transactions etc. Affiliate marketers are not responsible for any of these tasks. They just need to focus on promoting their affiliate links.

4. Make Money While You Sleep

As you have your affiliate links on the website which is available on the internet all the time, you are not required to remain online to keep in touch with your customers. People can visit your site whenever they want and can visit your affiliate links. If they like the product they can easily buy it by just by clicking the given links.
Your only concern will be checking your email to see how many sales you have made from your links.

5. Penetrate Hot Markets Fast!

You can select any hot market at any time to choose the products you wish to sell. If you observe that other marketers are making money with pet care related products for instance, just register with an affiliate program to get some hot pet related products, set up an adwords campaign, and in 10 minutes, you can start to make money!


Benefits to Merchants

1) More Sales in Less Time

The products of different merchants are advertised by many affiliate marketers at the same time. The main website of the merchant is also advertising the products. If the page rank of the merchant website and his affiliate marketers are high, tons of traffic, which are your buyers, will visit the product pages. The website of every affiliate marketer will send the people to merchant websites. This results in more sales in less time.

2) Broader Market to Sell Products

Having new affiliates just expands the market of merchants. Donít select the affiliates blindly. Do the research to check if the affiliateís website is related to your business or not. If the affiliate marketerís website is matching your products theme, then there are more chances of sales. The affiliateís website will receive hits for the people who need to know about your products and they are more likely to visit your website to make a purchase.

3) Less Efforts Required

Affiliates are doing the hard work of advertising for your products. If your affiliates are doing good work then you donít need to spend extra time and money for advertising. Just concentrate on improving the quality of your products and launching new products.

Affiliate marketing can provide the easy, fast and reliable money to affiliate marketers. At the same time it gives more sales in less time and money to the merchants.

For more Information please visit:
www.virtualaffiliateassistant.com

Tuesday 23 December 2008

How To Start Affiliate Marketing Without a Website

Having your own website to promote your affiliate products is a good option. But it is not necessary. There are many methods available that can be used to do your affiliate marketing business. The list is long, but the most important methods are email marketing, writing articles to e-groups, joining online discussions etc. Let us discuss some important methods that can be used to promote your affiliate products without having your own website.


Email Marketing

In this method you can promote your affiliate links and you donít need your own website. People can click on your affiliate links present in your emails and can go directly to the merchant website to purchase the products.

Your email should contain the introduction about the product you are promoting and your affiliate links. Try to make your emails interesting and brief.

Try to expand your contact list. Use as many methods as you can to grab the email addresses of new people. Use online forums, chat forums etc to make new friends. Your email list must contain a few hundred contacts, at least. But donít spam. Donít send emails to the people who donít know about you or who donít want to receive your emails. Otherwise they will just block your emails and you will lose your contacts. As I said, your emails should be interesting to get the readerís attention.


Offline Promotion

You can use the offline methods of promotion, like the classified ads, flyers etc. The best choice is the classified ads because its exposure is largest.

Writing free e-books

It is similar to email marketing. But in this method you will write the informative and interesting e-books and will send to the people via their email address. These e-books should be easy to read and helpful for their readers. The topics should be related to your affiliate products so that you can recommend the products in the body of e-books. Alternatively you can add a brief note about your affiliate products and affiliate links for promotion. If the readers like your e-book, they may visit the merchant website and make a purchase.

Writing in Forums

Search for some forums, at least three, that are related to your product and have high page rank. Register on these forums and start some discussion in the forum where maximum people are involved. Just post your questions there or answer some questions of other members. But donít add any promotion text in the body of your posts. You are allowed to put your signature at the end of your post. Here you can write you name and your affiliate links.

When you become an active member of this forum then you may get some traffic from these forums to your merchant website through your affiliate links. This will ultimately result in more sales of the products you are promoting.

Writing Articles

You can write articles and publish them in the free article directories. You can embed your affiliate links in the text of your articles. If your articles are well formatted, informative and the article directory has large traffic then you can expect some good traffic to your affiliate links. And you know that more traffic on your affiliate links will result in more sales through your affiliate links.

Conclusion

The use of a website to promote your affiliate products is a good idea but it is not necessary. You can use the alternate methods to promote your affiliate products and links. The most popular among these methods are email marketing, writing to forums, article writing and offline promotion like classified ads. The main idea is that instead of promoting your website you will directly promote your affiliate links and people will directly go to the merchant website by clicking your affiliate links to purchase the products. This way you do not have to pay extra for your website creation and maintenance.

For more Information please visit:
www.virtualaffiliateassistant.com

Wednesday 17 December 2008

How To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing in 6 Easy Steps!!

Affiliate Marketing is easy to get started but you will need to focus your attention in order to be successful with it. Here are 6 useful steps you will need to get your Affiliate Marketing Campaign off the ground..........

1. Pick a Market

Why to choose a market instead of product? The reason is quite clear that you would like to put more products in your pipeline. You have to choose a market which suits you. You must obtain detailed information about it.

2. Pick a Product

When you have picked a specific market, now it is time to select a product. You will definitely want to add all the products at the beginning, but it is advised not to do this in the start. If you choose more products in the beginning, you will not be able to focus. Your attention will be diverted to different products. So it is better to choose one product to get best out of it. When you have started getting the sales then you can add more products.

3. Build an Autoresponder Series

After you start your business, you must create a follow up series, which is also called an autoresponder series. This series must have the information about your product. There you can add contents of your product. If you are selling golf clubs, you can build a series having some basic information about it. There you can tell your visitors how they can purchase golf clubs. You can also add some advantages or the profiles of some major golfers in the world. You should try to be more and more creative. It is observed that during the period of first few months affiliates do not get reasonable sales. But after six months, they expect to gain much better sales.

4. Build a Page to Capture Emails

Create a page in your website where you will capture information about your prospects so you can send them your follow-up series. If you are building a business, having your own web site is a necessity. This website will be needed to show your affiliate products to the website visitors. You will grab the visitorís emails to promote your email campaigns.

5. Use Traffic Generation Techniques

Once your website is up, use some traffic generation techniques. After applying the traffic generation techniques, you should wait for some time to get the results. Try different techniques and see the results. Then on the basis of your experience, continue with the technique that shows best results.

6. Find additional related products

Once you have started to make a good and reliable income with a single product, then you should add some new products to your products list. But you must carefully select new products to put them in the list.

You should start off with one HOT product and really concentrate on marketing that one either on your own web site or through email marketing. it is important to build a large list of potential customers who will be eager to buy your product and indeed any other products you decide to market in the future.

For More Information Please Visit:

www.virtualaffiliateassistant.com

Friday 12 December 2008

Affiliate Marketing Success Checklist!!

Hi Guys and welcome back.......

This week I would like to talk to you about creating
a check-list for your Affiliate Marketing Success.

If you are not yet making a full time living online,
and want to, then you will like what this article
offers - practical advice to help you build a rock
solid foundation for success.

It all starts with something you have heard about, but
might not have yet mastered ... affiliate marketing.

Do you understand affiliate marketing?

Do you know what is required to succeed as an
affiliate?

Most people don't, which is a shame because this method
of making money online is very powerful indeed.

The reality is this - making money as an affiliate is
the easiest way to get started making money online.

After 10 years of working online I believe that
affiliate marketing is the foundation of most true
success stories, and can quite easily create a full
time income with little or no overhead or technical
skills.

And that is just too good a situation to pass up!

So let's look together at what affiliate marketing is,
and then I will share my own "affiliate marketing
checklist" and provide a few resources to help
you.

Sound good? Then let's get started.

>>> WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING ANYWAY?

Being an affiliate simply means that you sell someone
else's product and earn a commission when you do so.

Webster's Dictionary defines the word 'affiliate' this
way...

Affiliate: [verb] To associate as a member "affiliates
herself with the local club"

That's exactly correct. When you become an affiliate
you are associating with the product or service you
will be selling.

You are loaning them your reputation.

Please don't forget that.

Every email you send, every contact you make, reflects
on you. And the company's action will reflect on you as
well, so choose wisely.

So, being an affiliate is simply a fancy Internet way
of saying that you are going to be a commissioned
salesperson.

>>> DOES IT REALLY WORK?

Yes, it does. It is true that you can make very good
money with affiliate programs, but it is not automatic.

You must still understand the PROCESS of marketing and
do the work.

But if you choose great programs, do some of the work
(and take advantage of the tools they offer) you can
grow a powerful income in a short period of time.

It's equally true that you can waste tons of time and
money on them and your reputation can suffer if you
don't choose carefully.

That is why it is vitally important that you understand
as much as you can about any program you join online.
If it makes sense to you, it will make sense to others
to whom you offer the product or program.

If it does not make sense to you (and especially if you
are confused) the by all means *wait* until you fully
understand what they are offering.

Over the years I have developed a checklist of 10
things people need to know before taking the plunge
into the world of affiliate marketing.

This checklist has proven invaluable to my clients and
friends, and I hope it helps you as well.

--------------------------------------------------
MY AFFILIATE SUCCESS CHECKLIST
--------------------------------------------------

1. MAKE SURE THE PRODUCT BEING OFFERED MATCHES YOU

If your passion is embroidery, you probably won't do
too well with car parts sites. Stick with what you know
at first and, once you learn how to promote on the
Internet, move on to different products.

2. CHECK IT OUT

Don't just jump in because it's easy. Ask yourself this
question; is the product or service you are affiliating
with something you would bring to your best friend? If
not, you may want to keep looking.

3. TALK TO CURRENT AFFILIATES

Ask for a list of happy affiliates. Ask them some key
questions such as did they get the help and support
promised? Are they being paid on time? You get the
idea.

4. THINK LONG TERM

If your first arrangement doesn't pan out, don't give
up. Many people on the net are making excellent incomes
with affiliate programs. You can too.

5. GO FOR QUALITY

Make a checklist of everything you want, find two who
meet the criteria, and go all out with those two.
Remember that it will be your reputation on the line.

6. HOW WELL DO THEY SELL?

You need to ask how well the product or service you
will be promoting 'converts'. Conversion is simply the
number of people per 100 who buy something.

For example, at the Directory of Ezines we convert 8 of
every 100 visitors to buyers. We know this because we
do the hard work of analyzing our traffic and sales,
and have for 10 years now.

This is the hard work that affiliates never have to do,
which is why being an affiliate is so much fun! You
make the money but don't have to do the copy writing or
figure out conversions or any of the back-office stuff.

For most established products you will promote you can
expect this number to range from .5% to about 10%.
Anything higher or lower and you need to be careful
about them telling you the truth.

Also, be aware that 'hot' products convert well while
they are hot but conversion drops with time. So be sure
to get *current* conversion figures.

7. WHAT IS THE COOKIE DURATION?

Most affiliate programs track using 'cookies' that are
set on the visitor's machine. You need to know how long
this cookie lasts and if it can be overwritten.

The reason this is important is that it will change how
you market.

If a company has a short cookie duration then you want
to focus on ads that make the sale now. If they have a
long duration you can use other methods (like banners)
that are more passive.

You also want to know if the cookie can be overwritten.

If it can, then someone who first learned about product
X from you, but clicks another link to buy, will not
earn you the commission you deserve.

Neither of these factors are good or bad (Amazon has an
incredibly short cookie but people still make fortunes
as affiliates for them) but are worth knowing.

8. DO YOU EARN 'BACKEND' COMMISSIONS?

This means do you get paid when someone you refer buys
a second product? This is vitally important. People
often buy two, three or more products from one site.
You should earn commissions for every product they buy.

9. DO YOU EARN RENEWAL COMMISSIONS?

If you send someone to a site where they pay a monthly
or quarterly fee, do you get paid every time or just
once? You should get paid every time.

10. DO THEY SUPPORT YOU?

Most people don't know, or have the time, to write ads
and create banners or graphics. You should expect the
program you join to provide these tools as well as some
training on how to sell their products.

>>> WHERE TO FIND GOOD AFFILIATE PROGRAMS <<<

My favorite tool for finding great products to sell as
an affiliate is Affiliates Alert.

They offer a free version, which does an excellent job.
As soon as you've earned some affiliate income, you
might want to consider the Pro version, as I did.

You can get the free version here ...

www.directoryofezines.com/affalert.html

Forums are excellent resources to learn what really
works. Here are my top three forum choices.

1. Anthony Blake's Marketing Forum

www.ablake.net/forum

2. The Warriors of Internet Marketing.

www.warriorforum.com

3. Michael Green's Marketing Forum

www.howtocorphelp.com

--------------------------------------------------

Here are THREE ADDITIONAL RESOURCES that will help you
succeed as an affiliate fast.

Allan Gardyne of Associate Programs.com. Great advice
from a guy who has been there.
www.associateprograms.com

A great site to learn and earn is Ken McArthur's site.
www.affiliateshowcase.com

Without a doubt, using ClickBank to find products is
the smart choice for a serious affiliate.

It costs nothing to become an affiliate and they offer
over 11,000 products. Many a real-life fortune has been
made promoting ClickBank products.
www.clickbank.com

--------------------------------------------------

If you are committed to quality, and only offer your
people quality resources, time will become your ally
and your affiliate commissions alone can quite
literally pay for the lifestyle of your dreams.

The best way to start is to choose three programs that
meet your criteria, and let them teach you how to be
successful with their program.

After all, when you win, they win.

And that's a beautiful way to make a living online.


Charlie Page helps people succeed online with products
that educate combined with personal support. To see all
that Charlie offers, including a chance to work with
Charlie personally, visit ...
www.RealWorldTactics.com