Rich With Affiliates

Let’s discuss in seven reasons.

The celebration of Thanksgiving is approaching and later on will come Christmas, then New Year’s, Saint Valentines Day and so on…

Now, what is so special about each celebration? They all increase the selling of products. There are many reasons why you should consider seasonal marketing to promote your products, including the seven which are listed below:

1. People tend to buy more products during seasonal celebrations than the rest of the year.

2. People are determined to purchase products, so it is easier to persuade them to purchase a product you offer (assuming of course you are doing it the right way).

3. Most purchases concern gifts to others, therefore quality is what matters while price is less significant.

4. The time of celebration is limited and specific. Therefore people cannot leave for tomorrow what they need to buy for the celebration. They must act in a timely manner. This urgency is a huge advantage to marketers trying to sell products.

One other motivating factor for buyers is that seasonal products are limited and something they have in-mind may not be available in the stores at a different time.

5. People connect seasonal celebrations with their childhood. That makes them more emotional and as you might already know emotion is the key factor that makes people buy a product.

6. It is not always necessary to offer a celebration related product to increase your sales. Even a valued Internet product like software or e-books can be a valued gift.

7. Marketers do not have to invent new or never before used methods to create interest in seasonal products. The old traditional marketing techniques are effective and can still be applied. People want to buy because of the "celebration". In fact, many people may not see their purchase as buying at all, but as an act of making someone (including themselves) more happy.

Naturally, seasonal marketing may use different strategies to promote products. Instead of offering a product discount try the following:

- Offer a portion of the price of your product to charities and make people feel they contribute to this charity themselves.

- Try a special offer like "purchase one product and get the other at half price" or "purchase one product and get another free to offer as a gift".

These types of special offers can very easily increase your sales volume.

So, do not hesitate. Start promoting your products (or affiliate products) now. And don’t forget, once a celebration ends, there are many others right around the corner. People are always looking for reasons to purchase gifts for others or for themselves.

Article marketing is nothing new. But applied to affiliate marketing it is the easiest way to make money online. And best of all, you can do it without spending a dime using only free tools available online.

This is all you will need:

- A free keyword research tool
- A free text editor
- A free Clickbank account
- A free Blogger account

Do a quick search on your favorite search engine and you will find these free tools very easily.

Quick cash blue print:

1 - Keyword research:

Using your keyword research tool, search for low competition keywords. Those are keywords that have at least 300 searches a month and that have less than 5000 competing pages in Google (when entered between quotation marks like this "keyword"). Try to find 5 to 10 good keywords related to the same topic.

The idea is to focus on keywords for which you can get a first page ranking in Google, Msn and Yahoo.

Hint: If you have no idea of which market to target, start by checking popular phrases like: how to, purchase, get rid of, help, cure, tips, etc.

2 - Find a digital product to promote

Go to Clickbank.com and find a product related to your topic. Choose one that pays at least $15 to $20. Generate your affiliate link and write it down or save it in a text file on your computer.

3 - Article writing:

Write an informative article (approximately 400 words) focused on each of your keywords. Put your keyword in the title and in the first and last paragraph of your article. Also sprinkle it throughout your copy. You can also throw in a few other keywords related to your topic. This will help you rank well.

Most important, write a great bio box that will make people want to learn more and click on the link to your blog. Put your keyword in your bio box as an anchor text link to your blog.

4 – Set up your blog.

More and more article directories will not let you put your affiliate link in your bio box. So your blog is going to be your landing page. The idea here is to put up a simple blog that will presell (not sell) your product and make people click on your Clickbank affiliate link to go to the sales page.

Hint: set up a blog for every product you promote and give it a keyword-focused name.

5 – Submit your articles to article directories.

You will need to find article directories with a PR of 5 or more. These are the ones Google likes and it will help you get a first page ranking in the search engines and drive tons of free traffic to your blog.

Post one article a day on each article directory and do not post the exact same article to more than one directory.

Hint: Your best choice is Ezinearticles.com. You will need good quality articles, but it is the most powerful directory online. Alternatively you can use Goarticles.com.

6 – Rinse and repeat!

Article marketing is a game of numbers. The more articles your submit, the more money you will earn. But every product is not going to be a winner. Some will do well, some will not. So test a new product every week putting up 5 to 10 focused articles each time.

That is all there is to it. This may seem to good to be true, but it really does work. Off course it will take a couple of weeks for money to start rolling in on a regular basis but the magic of this method is that once you write a money making article it will generate residual income for months and maybe even years — without ever costing you a single dime.

As an affiliate marketer you need to set yourself apart from all the other affiliates who may be vying for the same prospects.

This is particularly true in some of the most hotly contested markets such as internet marketing, poker sites, dating and the like.

So how does an affiliate set themselves apart, or better yet, above the competition so as to create more sales?

They do it by using an autoresponder to collect the names and email addresses of their prospects.

Simply sending people to your affiliate page is not enough to create sales. Depending on your market there may be several hundred, if not thousands, of other affiliates using the same pages.

What makes you believe that someone seeing the same page for the hundredth time is going to make them want that product any more than the tenth time?

The key is to offer a special report that focuses on how the particular product can solve a problem or fill a need that the prospect may have.

A simple title like "The 5 Proven Ways Product XYZ Will Make Your Skin Look Younger" on a special report that leads to an opt-in page to an autoresponder will greatly increase your prospect list.

Then take each of those five different aspects that you touched on in the report and break them down even further using each one as a separate follow up email to those that downloaded the special report.

Have each email going out every other day for the first two weeks and you have an automatic sales person working for you hands free.

By staying in constant contact with your prospects you build a sense of familiarity and trust with your list members. People like to buy from someone they know rather than a complete stranger.

These autoresponders can be set up for any niche imaginable.

An easy way to find material for your special report and autoresponder series is right on the sales page for the product you are promoting. Read through it and find the best sales points then combine them into a short report.

Another great way to find info is to just do a search through your favorite search engine, gather some facts from several different sites and rewrite them into your report.

Always remember though not to just copy someone else’s work. That is plagiarism and is illegal. But with a little so called leg work you can quickly compile enough info to keep your prospects coming back, build rapport and eventually grab the sale!

The ideal world of affiliate marketing does not require having your won website, dealing with customers, refunds, product development and maintenance. This is one of the easiest ways of launching into an online business and earning more profits.

Assuming you are already into an affiliate program, what would be the next thing you would want to do? Double, or even triple, your commissions, right? How do you do that?

Here are some powerful tips on how to boost your affiliate program commissions overnight.

1. Know the best program and products to promote. Obviously, you would want to promote a program that will enable you to achieve the greatest profits in the shortest possible time.

There are several factors to consider in selecting such a program. Choose the ones that have a generous commission structure. Have products that fit in with your target audience. And that has a solid track record of paying their affiliate easily and on time. If you cannot seem to increase your investments, dump that program and keep looking for better ones.

There are thousands of affiliate programs online which gives you the reason to be picky. You may want to select the best to avoid losing your advertising dollars.

Write free reports or short ebooks to distribute from your site. There is a great possibility that you are competing with other affiliates that are promoting the same program. If you start writing short report related to the product you are promoting, you will be able to distinguish yourself from the other affiliates.

In the reports, provide some valuable information for free. If possible, add some recommendations about the products. With ebooks, you get credibility. Customers will see that in you and they will be enticed to try out what you are offering.

2. Collect and save the email addresses of those who download your free ebooks. It is a known fact that people do not make a purchase on the first solicitation. You may want to send out your message more than six times to make a sale.

This is the simple reason why you should collect the contact information of those who downloaded your reports and ebooks. You can make follow-ups on these contacts to remind them to make a purchase from you.

Get the contact information of a prospect before sending them to the vendor’s website. Keep in mind that you are providing free advertisement for the product owners. You get paid only when you make a sale. If you send prospects directly to the vendors, chances are they would be lost to you forever.

But when you get their names, you can always send other marketing messages to them to be able to earn an ongoing commission instead of a one-time sale only.

Publish an online newsletter or Ezine. It is always best to recommend a product to someone you know than to sell to a stranger. This is the purpose behind publishing your own newsletter. This also allows you to develop a relationship based on trust with your subscribers.

This strategy is a delicate balance between providing useful information with a sales pitch. If you continue to write informative editorials you will be able to build a sense of reciprocity in your readers that may lead them to support you by buying your products.

3. Ask for higher than normal commission from merchants. If you are already successful with a particular promotion, you should try and approach the merchant and negotiate a percentage commission for your sales.

If the merchant is smart, he or she will likely grant your request rather than lose a valuable asset in you. Keep in mind that you are a zero-risk investment to your merchant; so do not be shy about requesting for addition in your commissions. Just try to be reasonable about it.

Write strong pay Per Click ads. PPC search engine is the most effective means of advertising online. As an affiliate, you can make a small income just by managing PPC campaigns such as Google AdWords and Overture. Then you should try and monitor them to see which ads are more effective and which ones to dispose of.

Try out these strategies and see the difference it can make to your commission checks in the shortest of time.

Most people starting out looking to make money from their own home based internet marketing business are drawn towards the affiliate marketing arena with claims of easy money.

But is it really as easy as just sending prospects to your affiliate link? In a word, no. Nothing’s that easy. There is work involved. There’s no such thing as a free ride.

And most people that fail at affiliate marketing are the ones that enter it with that mindset. You, as an aspiring affiliate, need to realize that it is still marketing and as such you will need to hone your skill set to achieve any level of success.

As with any product or service you must advertise to make prospects aware of what you have to offer. You can’t just join a program and hope that your link will be clicked.

A successful affiliate applies many different strategies. Most of these can be used in any niche with a little altering to fit that particular niche’s parameters.

Here are a few tips on how to grow your affiliate earnings.

*You’re the expert

Get to know the product you’re promoting. Research it as thoroughly as possible. If it’s feasible, buy the product and use it. This gives you the advantage of working from a position of superior knowledge. Write your own testimonial or review. This instills confidence in the buyer because you’ve already purchased it yourself.

*Your own website

You have to have your own website. This is imperative to your affiliate success. Why? Because every other affiliate will be using the exact same sales pages as you. You must stand out from the crowd. Differentiate yourself.

With your own site you can create custom landing pages to pre-sell the product. You can also write a special report and set up an autoresponder to capture the name and email address of curious individuals and follow up with them.

Always check with the affiliate agreement before creating your own ads and landing pages as this may be against the rules for that particular program.

*Forums and discussion boards

Participating in online forums and discussion boards gives you two advantages. It not only allows you to drum up business for your products but it also gives you input from a customer’s point of view.

By asking and answering questions you’ll get a better feel for what exactly your prospects are looking for. What problems do they have? What do they feel would be the best way to solve these problems? Which do they think is the most pressing problem that needs to be addressed?

*Your own newsletter or ezine

There are a tremendous amount of free newsletters and ezines on the web today, and for good reason. People who are passionate about a certain subject will always welcome more information on it as long as it’s well written and presented.

By building a relationship with your readers you build their trust too. This is when you can start recommending products and services and when your affiliate profits will soar.

Simply send out an email every other week with an article written by either yourself or another expert along with some tips and possibly a famous quote and you’ve got a winning formula for a newsletter.

Capturing someone’s email can also be applied to giving away a special report or product review so long as you let the person know that you will be sending additional emails.

All in all, these tips should help you greatly increase your earnings in any affiliate program in any niche.

Affiliate marketing’s one of the quickest methods to generate cash flow on the web today.

Among its many benefits is the fact that you don’t have to spend time or money researching and developing a new product. All of this has been done for you by the product owner.

This is a tremendous burden lifted off your shoulders because this is usually the most costly aspect of any business venture.

A word of caution though, you should still do a little research yourself as to whether the market wants the product you are looking to promote and whether the price point is fair and reasonable enough to attract a big audience.

Once this is done and you have found the product or service you want to promote and are satisfied with the affiliate program you should set up what is referred to as a squeeze page.

Simply put, a squeeze page is a one page pre sales letter that entices the prospect to leave their name and email address in order to receive more information on the product or service of choice.

There are several points to be made for this superb sales tactic. Number one, you set yourself apart from all the other affiliates promoting the same product. Number two, you build your own opt-in list that you can promote other products to.

So what do you need to use this tactic? A few basics and a little skill.

The first thing you need is a web hosting account and domain name. These are very inexpensive these days and are a must have for anyone who is serious about doing business online.

Second is an autoresponder. These too are fairly inexpensive. Many hosting accounts will now offer free autoresponders with their service.

Third is an HTML editor. There are several free editors out there that are easily found through a quick search. Nothing fancy is needed, just a simple user friendly application.

And the final ingredient is a little copy writing skill.

Here is a tip on what to write on your page: Go to the product sales page. Pick out the highlights, the biggest benefits you can see offered. Think about what other benefits there are that may not be stated already and jot them down.

Now go into your HTML editor and put together a small sales page using a good headline, subhead and bullet points listing all the benefits you gathered. This is where the copy writing skill comes in.

Put the email capture form generated from your autoresponder on the bottom of the page. Let your prospect know that by leaving their name and email address you will then reveal this highly coveted tool, piece of information, service or whatever it is you have and they so desperately want.

Do not mention the name of the product or service on the capture page, just the benefits. The reason for this is because they may have seen this product or service before and were sitting on the fence about it and you want the prospect to purchase through your link. You are going to nudge them over the fence with your presentation.

All you are trying to do is build interest, pique their curiosity and whet their appetite for more information.

Set up your autoresponder with 6-7 emails that go out in 3-4 day intervals, each building on one of the benefits mentioned on your squeeze page.

Then add in other related services or products that you are an affiliate of. Repetition is the key and your squeeze page gives you that advantage over other affiliates.

Many people make a serious income from marketing other people’s products. Unfortunately, many more spend time and effort in this area and see little or no reward. The good news is that not much usually separates the successful affiliate marketer from the novice. In this article we will look at some strategies to improve your results selling affiliate products.

1. Pick the right product
Generally you want to pick a product that has a higher affiliate commission and a higher price. However, it is Return on Investment (ROI) that is more important. In other words, if you spend $5 to make $10 you have a 100% return. If this scales up well you may just need to increase your advertising spending to get a large amount of money. On the other hand, if you market an expensive product that gives a large return, but it costs you more to advertise than it does in commissions then you are going to lose money.

As well as price and commission you need to examine the potential conversion rate. A product with a great sales letter and other benefits may be much easier to sell.

Timing is also important. If you can find a hot product before the majority of the market you are going to do well. If the product has already been flogged by your competition you may struggle to make any sales.

2. The money is in the list
You have probably heard this over and over again but the question is - Have you taken any action in this area? It is much easier to sell to existing customers than create a new one. Rather than sell one off products you should look at getting sign ups to your OWN list. From here you can continue to sell over and over again. However, you also need to provide good content or add value in other ways otherwise the unsubscribe rate will be high.

3. Spend money to make money
Sometimes you can get free advertising that works, but more often than not you have to spend money to make money. For example, you could run an AdWords campaign to send people to a sign-up page for a free 5-day course you set up using an autoresponder. Every subscriber is going to cost you something but over the long term as long as the ROI is positive you are going to make money.

4. Test, test, test
You need to continually test your ad copy, your traffic statistics, your sign-up rates etc. In particular, you should try a small-cost advertising campaign to see if it is going to be successful before putting a large amount of money into it. Find out what other successful marketers are doing. Read articles, participate in forums and if you can, get a mentor.

Who knows, using these strategies you may turn from a novice affiliate marketer to the next ’super’ affiliate.

If you have a small advertising budget, but you want a proven way to spread the word about your affiliate products or services, article marketing is the perfect solution. By offering informative, easy-to-read content that appeals to the search engines, you can drive significant traffic to your web pages for affiliate profits.

The key to effective article marketing is to offer useful and interesting content that is optimized for the search engines.

To start the article, choose a topic that pertains to your affiliate offerings and find the best keywords related to the topic. You can use a free resource such as Keyword Playground to research the popularity of certain words and use Google to research the competitiveness of the keywords.

Informative, well-written content with a keyword density of three to five percent is a good step to getting your article ranked in the search engines. Do not, however, overuse keywords or else your articles will be ranked lower due to the spam flag.

Make sure to research the topic you are writing about through Google searches, encyclopedias and/or library research so you offer meaningful content.

Choose an attention-grabbing title to raise interest, such as posing a question or a challenge to your readers. As you write the article, check your spelling and grammar so your writing has a professional appearance.

If you find the process difficult, you may choose to invest in a program such as Fat Content that guides you through SEO writing step-by-step and includes an optimized search engine browser for outstanding research.

Unique articles providing outstanding information will bring the most traffic to your affiliate pages. Once you prepare an original, well-written article, proofread your work or ask someone else to read your article so you know it makes sense.

Once the article is perfect, it’s time to submit it to article directories such as Ezine Articles, Article City and Go Articles. You can also feature your article on blogs, forums and newsletters. Make sure, however, that your bio box includes the link to your affiliate website before you submit to the directories.

Although it can be time-consuming, writing great articles is an affordable way to boost your affiliate profits even if you have a small advertising budget. And if you’re able to to write an over-the-top article that goes viral, you’ll be amazed at the traffic it will bring you.

This article is written specifically for the masses that have tried without much or any success to compete with the multi-thousands on the internet in selling products or services through affiliate programs.

Even those who have made a few dollars here and there selling products or services through affiliate programs will find this of great interest if not having the results and making the kind of money desired or as so many have claimed.

While it is true that big money can be made with affiliate programs, it is also true that just as much or even more money and time can be lost promoting products and services through affiliate programs as the masses stand as living proof of this fact.

It is often said that only two percent of affiliate marketers make 95 percent of the money that is made through affiliate programs. So what does that leave the other 98 percent to do in making money through affiliate programs?

It is a widely known fact that most of the people that get involved with affiliate programs do so in order to try to sell to others that try to sell to others with the same interests and so it goes on and on down the line.

In most affiliate programs, the originator sells as much of their products or services on their own, then pass on the affiliate promotion rights to their closest pals and associates whom in turn pass on the promotional rights to the subscribers on their massive lists.

These individuals, the originators, and their pals and associates make up the two percent of those that make the 95 percent of the money made from the products and services promoted through affiliate programs.

In staying with the focus of this article, isn’t it about time that you who are among the masses of the 98 percent start looking at the internet and affiliate products and services in a different way that gives you as much chance of profiting as anyone else?

Okay, great, so let’s start thinking location. It is pretty safe to say that most everyone that markets products and services through affiliate programs live in different locations. Given that fact, wouldn’t you stand a better chance of profiting from affiliate programs if each and everyone sold in their exclusive location?

Logically speaking, yes, everyone would make some good money selling affiliate products and services. However, this is not the main gist of this article. So let’s step it up a notch to a different and higher level of profits - a level of profits that go way beyond selling affiliate products and services.

There are affiliate products and services that will teach you how to do many things from repairing rods and reels to restoring and cleaning headstones in cemeteries. Now just with those two products in mind, think about how many people fish and own rods and reels, and how many cemeteries and headstones there are in your particular area or location.

If there are only ten thousand people in your town or city, it would be safe to conservatively say that at least ten percent of them fish. On average, each person that loves to fish owns at least two rods and reels. Given the conservative figure of only ten percent of the population of your town owns two rods and reels… that equals two thousand rods and reels that will be in constant need of repair or service.

With an average repair rate of thirty dollars per rod or reel repair… we’re talking about an annual income of sixty to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars you can make annually doing simple rod and reel repair or service… which you learned how to do from an affiliate product. And this is only part-time.

Now, let’s think about the number of cemeteries and headstones in your particular location that require restoring, cleaning, and maintaining that no one is doing. Did you know there are a few smart people who are making a small fortune restoring, and cleaning headstones only twice a year in their area?

It is nothing for these people to easily command a hundred to four hundred dollars for cleaning or restoring a headstone. Most only do this twice a year on Memorial and Veterans Day however, that is not to say that one can not do this full time all through the year because the demand is there, and the service is needed by families of deceased loved ones.

Suffice to say, you would not need to restore or clean too many headstones to make a small fortune… working only twice a year. And, this is something you learned how to do from an affiliate product.

Now you should be getting the idea that you should look for affiliate products or services which will teach you a marketable skill or something that you can learn and earn money teaching others. A good example of an affiliate product that teaches you something you can make good money teaching others is “How To Generate Real Estate Leads.” How many real estate agents are there in your area that would pay you big dollars to learn how to generate real estate leads… which is the lifeblood of their business?

This, my friend, is how you use internet affiliate programs to make money offline, and you can do it without competition, web sites, blogs, search engine optimization, pay per click, AdWords, or any of the other hundreds of obstacles which have prevented you from achieving the financial results you desire with affiliate products and services.

Now that you know this little known money maker, use it to find those affiliate products and services which you can learn and teach others, or those which give you a marketable in demand skill for making the big money at last.