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Profiting From Affiliate Marketing

Posted in: Affiliate Marketing Biz Model | June 25th, 2008

If you are internet newbie and have no idea whatsoever what affiliate marketing is all about, here’s a brief overview.

According to Wikipedia, “Affiliate Marketing” is a web based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. See diagram for better understanding.

Affiliate Marketing Diagram

Sounds pretty cool right? No worries if you don’t have a product to sell, just become an affiliate for another company’s product and wha-la you are in business.

Sometimes life isn’t all that simple. Don’t fall for the usual hype that affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money online.

Bet you probably heard the phrase “Just join any affiliate program, slap their banner ads on your website, sit back and wait for the profits to start rolling!” Yeah right!

To set the record straight, Yes, it is true that some people have made tons of money from marketing other people’s products on the Internet, but No, affiliate marketing is definitely Not a shortcut to instant riches.

As with any business, offline or online, to be successful in affiliate marketing, we still need the basic building blocks and foundation modules like market research, business planning, financial budgeting and the most dreaded 4-letter word called “WORK”.

So if you’re thinking of using affiliate marketing as a jump start to your Internet business, there are many different views on how to it should be effectively carried out, but generally all strategies evolve around the following.

Search for the appropriate affiliate products that can help solve their problems and I’m sure you will have a much better success rate.

Strategy #1 : Finding Your Niche Market

Most people don’t bother to conduct market research even though they know it is the single most important aspect of any business venture.

They make the common mistake of choosing which affiliate products to promote based on the highest commission offered or ones that are vastly popular because many people are currently promoting them.

Don’t jump head first into the deep end of the pool, start off by evaluating and matching the following :

What are your interests?

What are your areas of expertise?

What kind of problems & solutions are people searching online that is within your areas of interest & expertise?

Who are your potential competitors and what are they offering to help solve these problems?

Conduct a search on Google and other major search engines to identify which group of people who are desperately trying to a solution to their problems online but without much success.

Strategy #2: Have A Specialized & Easy To Navigate Site

There is nothing worst than a site that is jammed packed with affiliate links promoting everything from car insurance to discount vacations and a whole lot of non related stuff in between and all from the same page too!

These “All On One” websites are a complete waste of time to any visitors who are actively looking for a solution to their problem, nothing frustrates visitors more if they have to navigate through countless links just to find what they need.

Make sure you have a specialized website catering for a particular niche market and that any products you chose to promote are closely related to your niche, and closely related to each other as well.

Otherwise, you’ll struggle to find targeted traffic to your site, and you’ll have an even tougher time writing a relevant sales copy that directly relates to your visitors’ needs.

Worse still, you’ll even risk damaging your credibility in the eyes of your potential customers

That’s because, rather than look like someone who has the interests of your visitors at heart, and really wants to help solve their problems, you’ll look like someone who is out to sell them a product just to make a quick sale.

Strategy #3: Establish An Opt-In List & Build A Lasting Relationships With Subscribers

We all know that email marketing plays a major role in any affiliate marketers ongoing promotion efforts. Having an auto-responder software that help automates this process is indispensable.

Ensure you have a strong opt-in offer containing useful information like a Free E-Book or Report that’s relevant to your visitors.

Then, over time, through periodic emails updates, continue to send your valued subscribers even more Free information to create a “Bond” so as to build up trust and rapport.

The more you can prove to your subscribers that you’re a reliable source of useful information, the more you can train your subscribers to look forward to hearing from you and ultimately the more successful you’ll be!

Not only will you be able to build a rapport with your subscribers, you’ll also establish yourself as an expert in your field, making it easy to recommend your products.

Take note that this may just be the single most important aspect in any affiliate marketer’s career.

Strategy #4: Whatever You Recommend, Make Sure You Personally Use It First

In the offline world, if you were in the thinking of buying a new car, would you be more inclined to purchase a particular model because you saw an commercial for it on TV, or because a friend that you trusted recommended that you buy it?

It’s a no brainer right, you’d likely go with your friend’s recommendation, right? And most people would too.

And in the online world of affiliate marketing, we can go one up and personally use the affiliate product we are promoting and give your first hand experience on how using this product can help solve their problem by becoming a real-life testimonial.

And that is precisely why placing a whole bunch of affiliate banners or links on your website, and then hoping that someone will actually click on them and buy the product will never really work. How can you expect others to buy it if you have not even tried it before.

Remember, you must build a close relationship with your customers gradually over time so that they begin to trust you and regard you as an expert in that field and ultimately be <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”\0027Trebuchet MS\0027″; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-alt:”Times New Roman”; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:auto; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

Susceptible

to your opinions and recommendations

If your subscribers perceive that you are genuine in helping them, they’ll actually appreciate the recommendations, and as a result, your conversion rates will soar!

Although affiliate marketing isn’t the shortcut to instant riches, it is possible to earn substantial profits promoting other peoples’ products if you know the correct techniques and accumulate the necessary experience.