The advantages of affiliate programs is that they are usually free to join and the product owners pay commissions on a regular basis.Depending on the type of product, the commissions can be very high.
However, whilst it is relatively simple to sign up for affiliate programs, there are 7 crucial steps which you must take before you can begin to see huge amounts of cash rolling into your account.
1. Make sure you pick the right product/program
There are many, many, affiliate programs on line, so you can afford to be selective. The selected vendor and its products must have a good reputation in its business field. Never forget that you are in a form of relationship with your chosen partner and how this partner performs will have a direct impact on your own reputation.
The vendor should have, and be first class in the following :-
- a strong demand for its products or services
- support, training and promotional resources
- tracking to ensure that you do not lose any referrals.
- commission structure
A 2 tier program to encourage you to sign up affiliates under you and so earn further commissions is highly desirable.
2. Buy the product/use the service
As an affiliate, your main function is to persuade your prospects to buy the product or service that you are promoting. You will be able to do this confidently only if you have tried the product or service yourself and are happy to recommend it. Believe me, if you haven't tried these things out, you will fail to convince your audience to buy. However, if you do try them, and you become aware of the benefits, your prospects will feel the sincerity, and they will be tempted to see for themselves.
3. Don't join too many programs
Because signing up for affiliate programs is easy, and the lure of multiple steams of income is attractive, many potential affiliates join more programs than they can comfortably promote effectively, given the amount of time they can devote to them.
The end result is disappointing returns in every case.
The best thing to do is select one good paying program (say 40-50% commission), preferably one in which you are interested, and give that all your attention. As soon as that starts to make a reasonable profit, you can then turn your attention to a second program, and repeat.
4. Test, test, and test again
It is vital that you constantly track all your advertising activities, even more so if you use 'Pay per Click' (see point 7)
You must be able to determine your 'Return on Investments' in every case so that poorly performing ads can be discarded and effort made to improve those for which the return is positive.
Tracking services are available (some free) to allow you to do this very necessary work.
5. Get your own list of subscribers
In the introduction to this article, I said that it was unnecessary for affiliates to have their own website. This is certainly the case, but if you want to maximise your income from your prospects, it is better to send them to your own one page 'Landing Page' before you pass them on to your vendor's site.Whilst on your 'Landing Page' you encourage them to give you their name and primary email address by offering them a free incentive such as a report or small ebook relevant to the product or service being promoted. This will enable you to follow up with the prospect, so that further offers can be made.
In order to follow up with your prospects in a properly structured manner, it is important that you use an autoresponder for this purpose. It has been found that up to 7 contacts may have to be made before a sale is completed.
6. Disguise/cloak your affiliate links
One disadvantage of being an affiliate is that you are vulnerable to 'business abuse'. By this I mean that unless you take preventative action, the unscrupulous amongst us (could be your prospect), may attempt to obtain your commissions by changing your affiliate link to their own.
In order to eliminate this risk, you need to mask your link.
There are several ways to do this, namely,
- there are many software programs on the market that will perform this task.
- use a sub domain name.
- use a tracking URL. Again, there are several companies that provide such services.
- use a service that shortens long URLs (free).
7. Visitors.
There are many and varied ways of getting visitors to your site. I would always go for highly targeted visitors by using long tailed keywords in my promotions.(ie. keyword phrases of three or more words).
For those with their own websites, using search engines is a good option, making sure the keywords are targeted and relevant. I suggest that you only submit to about half a dozen of the major search engines.
If you are just starting out on this journey, using 'Pay per Click' will bring in visitors more quickly than the other methods. Again the keywords must be relevant and targeted.
In my view, the best way of bringing visitors to your site is by submitting relevant content filled articles to the popular article directories. The disadvantage with this route is that there could be some time delay in getting results. However, the overwhelming advantage is that it is free!
Ezine ads are also a popular way of generating visitors to your site. Solo ads are the best,but they can be quite expensive, and care must be taken in selecting appropriate ezines.
If you follow these 7 powerful steps in your affiliate marketing strategies, you will quickly see a dramatic increase in your bank balance and in no time you will be joining the ranks of the super affiliates,earning Big, money.
About Author
Almo Shaw invites enterprising business people who’re
interested in building a shockingly easy and profitable
income to Your “No-Selling” Way To Online Riches.
Here's how you can easily make an absurd amount of
cash online by working as much time as you want,
without selling at all.
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Source: ArticleTrader.com
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