Affiliate Business Trends

Posts Tagged ‘Affiliate Marketing’

If you are new to affiliate marketing, I’m sure you’ve heard of the great “overnight” riches to be made that are fabled in story and song.  And while those stories can be true, the time frame of that wealth is not.

There is great wealth to be made on the internet and affiliate marketing is absolutely one of the best ways.  However, the people that have been successful at it know that it is work.  There are no free rides.  If you need to make or believe that you will make alot of money over night, go clean out your garage and sell the stuff on ebay.

Now that we have the myths out of the way, and you’re still here, you must be interested in the 4 mistakes that I mentioned in the title.  Like any business,  there are some things that you should and should not do.  Sometimes new affiliate marketers just don’t know what they don’t know.  In other words they don’t know what information and products are available to them to help them make their businesses run more efficiently and smoothly.  This is mistake number 1. 

You need to familarize yourself with what is available to you.  That means visit the blogs and websites of other successful marketers.  If they have written about something that you aren’t familar with , ask a question in the comments section.  Many are willing to help newbies “learn the ropes”. 

Become familar with search engine optimization (better known as SEO).  Not knowing how to make your blog or website SEO friendly is common mistake number 2.  If no one can find your website , then how can you make any sales?  Making your website friendly to the Search Engines will help you rank higher on their pages.  Ranking higher on their pages could be the difference between 1 or 2 sales and 100 sales.

The third common mistake, in my opinion, that new internet marketers make is filling their sites with banners for products, but then they don’t provide content to tell their perspective customers any information about the products in the banners.

If you are going to be an affiliate for a product, make sure you have read the product, if it is an ebook or ecourse, or tried the product if it is something tangible.  That way you can tell your readers about it intelligently.  Internet marketing is about trust.  You need to build that trust with people through truthful articles and product comparisons.  If they don’t feel that you are trustworthy they won’t open their wallet to buy from you.

Finally, the fourth and final common mistake that we are going to talk about today is a double edged sword.  New marketers either give their customers too many choices or not enough.  Let me explain.

If your perspective customer arrives at your website and you have 15 to 30 different brands of the same type of item without  offering one or two that is the best brand, (in your opinion), then they may think that they don’t have enough information to make a choice right then and there only to leave your site, maybe never to return.

However, if you have only 1 item, and you don’t make an excellent case for why that one product is the best on the market, they may again think, “What other brand is out there that may be better”, and again click away never to return.

To be able to avoid  these and other common mistakes, you need to remember that successful people, marketers included, never stop learning.  Knowledge is your key to making intelligent decisions and consequentially success.

Yesterday I talked about how blogging can be used as a tool for Internet Marketing.  Today, I’m going to talk about ways to expand your market through Blogging.

Blogging is becoming more popular than email to reach and expand your market.  Mainly because it is alot faster to click on a blog site than to log in and download your email.  But if you use your email marketing wisely it can be a great tool for bringing readers to your website.

Be sure to have an email capture on your blog.  To entice people to sign up, offer them something free.  Don’t make it junk!!  Offer something of value.  Then when you have permission to send them emails, use a short email to tease them into clicking to read more at your site.  Or offer worth while information in your email, possibly a short term free lessons.  Use your email signature to get them to your website if your email has to do with an unrelated subject.

You want to be sure that you use their email address’ responsibly.  No one likes a spammer, besides I think it’s illegal.

Conduct a survey.  That way you can get information right from your readers to help you to understand them, their profiles and advertising preferences.  If you want to know something, want feedback on a post, or a link or a subject that you talked about, ask!!  Let your readers know that you want their feedback.

Use RSS, it’s the fastest growing tecnology on the internet today.  RSS feeds to your blog can add interest to your site.

Use video, You Tube adds yet another dimension to your blog.

Bring in a guest blogger, that way you get a fresh idea and your readers stay interested with a different perspective.

You may even want to run a contest.  Have your readers leave comments and then randomly choose a winner.  it will certainly get people talking.

I hope this has sparked some ideas for you.  If you think of something I missed, leave a comment.     I love to hear from my readers.

I have been reading Nicole Dean’s blog now for several weeks.  Wow!  I am really learning a lot.  Nicole is doing a Rock Star Summer Tour.  She is guest blogging on 15 different blogs all summer long.

One of the blogs she will guest blogging on is Click Newz.  Click Newz is operated by Lynn Terry.  Nicole interviewed Lynn back in April.  The interview was very interesting.  So off I go to Click Newz to check it out. 

Lynn is a Super Affiliate, that means that she makes a darn good living online as an affiliate marketer.  Like Nicole, Lynn offers a lot of really good, useful information on her blog. 

I am learning so much from both of these women, but I feel like there is so much to learn that I will never learn it all.

More later.

After signing up for Jimmy D. Brown’s affiliate program, I met, (actually just spoke through emails) Nicole Dean.

Nicole is Jimmy’s affiliate manager, so she handles all of his affiliates and helps them to succeed, by pointing them in the direction of articles or emails that Jimmy has written for his affiliates to use.  But Nicole is much more than that.

Nicole is an affiliate marketer, but she is also a business woman.  She has many blogs and ebooks that she has written.  So as a result of Jimmy D. Brown, I have now come into contact with a woman I can learn from.  Someone who is doing it all, has a husband, children, and all that goes with that, but also is making a full time living online.  YIPEE!!  Someone like me, except for the online successful business.

So I started reading Nicole’s blog.  Nicole gives away a lot of really useful information, along with her ebooks that are for sale.  And she has an affiliate program also.  I cannot wait to see what I can learn about affiliate marketing from her.

More later.

Right now more and more individuals are finding themselves out of work.  Either because their job has been eliminated, their company is downsizing, or the company has closed completely due to a failing economy.

So there are more people than ever looking to the internet to either supplement their income or completely replace a lost income.  One of the areas of online work that people are looking to is Affiliate Marketing.

To succeed in affiliate marketing, there are certain qualities you must find in yourself.  This is a very competitive industry and to be able to rise above the rest, you need to posess the right stuff.

The first quality you need to possess is to be open to learning and have a willingness to be trained.  A know-it-all-attitude will just cause you to spin your wheels.  You must be willing to learn from those who have gone before.  They can give you an advantage with their knowledge.  So find a mentor to help you.

The second quality is the willingness to invest the time it takes to see results.  This is not a get rich quick scheme.  This is a business, it grows with time and effort.  You must possess the stick-to-it-ness to see the results of your labor.  It may and probably will take months.  Just keep at it!

The third quality is self determination.  If you want to be successful you must be a self motivator.  You need to be able to push yourself.

Which leads us to quality number four, discipline.  There will be no boss standing over you like a task master, saying “Get it done”.  So you must have the ability to set goals and time frames for your work.  Procrastinators need not apply.

Our fifth and final quality is optimism.  If you really have the desire to have your own Affiliate Business, you must disregard the nay sayers.  A negative attitude will never let you succeed.  It will only drag you down and discourage you.  However, if you feel that you can, down in your own heart, no one can keep you from achieving Greatness!

The tools you need to have a successful Affiliate Marketing Business are diverse and exponential.  However, if you have the drive, the integrity and the gumption to succeed, then you will.

The capacity to realize all your dreams lies within you.  Desire is the capacity.