Before the introduction of WordPress and Blogger blogs, content had to be created on
websites and message boards. Thankfully this is now not the case and I feel there is not
one person in the world that can’t create their own blog and benefit from it.
You can use WordPress to setup websites, giveaway pages and much more using it’s
awesome theme features. Coupled with Blue Host as a host your business can truly lift
off.
OptimizePress
“Build a website that gets you more leads and sales. OptimizePress is a complete
WordPress tool suite that helps you create pages & funnels that grow your list and
make more sales.”
OptimizePress is a paid for service that provides simplicity and additional tools to make
Wordpress development very very easy indeed. Need a quick squeeze page,
OptimizPress can do it.
Need plugin features at the click of a button? This program can
do it.
For the purposes of affiliate marketing and building websites for reviews and grabbing
leads and email addresses, this is perfect.
The tools explained here will be a great advantage to your business. Add in some
hardware such as a smart phone for video or a DSLR camera, a good headset mic and
some free video editing software such as lightworks and you are ready to take on all
affiliate marketing avenues.
Where Do you Find Things to Promote?
Where do you find products to promote from within your affiliate business channels. I
say channels, because at this point you should have more than 1 affiliate marketing
channel setup to promote affiliate links and your business.
Essentially there are 2 types of promotional links.
1. Stand alone business links - these are the links provided solely by the business
owner to you and affiliate
2. Affiliate companies - these companies manage the affiliate programs for bigger
corporation via a central location
Let’s dig into both right now!
Stand alone business links
Stand alone links require searching for your own affiliate link from the businesses or the
companies you want to promote.
Let’s look at an example - BlueHost web hosting. By now we should all be familiar with
web hosting. It’s a requirement for almost all online businesses especially if you require
a blog or landing pages for your business.
OK, what do they offer?
Here’s an extract from their site:
“Simply promote Bluehost on your website with custom banners and links. For every
visitor who clicks through these links and signs up, you will receive $65. Help others
learn why Bluehost is so great. The more you do so, the more you make!”
So, looking at the extract from their website they offer each affiliate $65 per signup.
Now, looking back at the previous chapters and the ways in which you can promote
BlueHost, via your marketing channels you should see the power of how much you can
make.
Now, imagine, you create a review site and links on your blogs and recommendations
on YouTube etc about how and why BlueHost is the greatest hosting company in the
world. Eventually you will start to see traffic traction and subscriptions via your affiliate
links. It’s with these subscriptions, you will see a flow of $65 payments into your
account.
Now let’s dig into the math.
Imagine you are seeing traction enough for one lead per day (easily achievable), that’s
$455 per week and $23,660 per year! All from one affiliate marketing campaign.
Using an Affiliate Company or Network
The same rules apply to affiliate companies. The only difference is the affiliate company
handles the affiliate account for 100’s of companies and handles the payment links and
payout.
Using a company or network to handle all the affiliate side of your business is a shrewd
move from a company perspective. The vendor does not handle any payouts, links,
banner ads or any side of the affiliate business. They simply pay a small fee for
someone else to act on their behalf.
So what does that mean for you, the affiliate marketer?
In short you can apply to become a promoter of all companies inside the affiliate
marketing network, they will give you the links and tools you need and handle the
payments. Nothing really changes, only the way you get your links and tools and how
you get paid.
In truth it is probably easier to use an affiliate company rather than a stand alone
business because you can centralise your campaigns and payments in one place. They
also supply great metrics and analysis tools to see where your leads are coming from
and how many people are signing up or not.
These analysis tools are a great way to improve your business and make more income.
Some of the main affiliate networks within the marketing space are as follows:
Clickbank, Shareasale, JVzoo, Hotmart, Clickbooth, Ads 4 Dough, Commission
Junction, Amazon Affiliate Program, and eBay Partners Program.
Check them out and apply to become an affiliate. They are all free to join!
Once done, get started with your campaigns
The 3 Things All Affiliate
Marketers Need
Now every affiliate marketer is always looking for the successful market that gives the
biggest paycheck. Sometimes they think it is a magic formula that is readily available for
them. Actually, it is more complicated than that. As we have discussed, it is simply good
marketing practices and working in all channels with hardwork and dedication that
eventually pays off.
With these top three affiliate marketing tips and tactics, you will be able to increase your
sales and survive. Remember, not all channels are created even, some may work for
one campaign, you may see better results from another. This is where your analysis
tools come into play.
What are these three tactics?
1. Using unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing
Do not lump all of it together just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have
a site focusing on each and every product and nothing more. So in short, don’t create a
supermarket of affiliate links for all kinds of wonderful commissions. Dedicate your site
to one cause only and promote that niche. This is way more attractive and searchable.
Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial
understanding on what the product can do to those who buy them. Also include
testimonials from users who have already tried the product if the vendor allows you to
use them or supplies them. The more real evidence of a product doing what it says on
the tin is great marketing!
Write articles or blog posts on your sites highlighting the uses of the product and include
them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractive, compelling and
include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to make
them carry on reading and even allow them to contact you as your campaign builds
confidence. Highlight your special points. Doing so will help your readers to learn what
the page is about and push them to find out more about the product.
2. Offer free reports to your readers
If possible try to position a subscription box at the very top of your pages, this way you
can create a compelling offer and grab the subscribers email address. Once you have
the subscriber on your mailing list you can send them direct emails to affiliated products.
Check out companies such as Aweber and Get Response, to fulfill the email collection
and provide the subscription boxes.
Once you have the subscribers on your list, this is now another great channel to build
on. You can now create autoresponder messages that will be sent to those who input
their personal information into your sign up box. Create compelling emails to send to
your new leads explaining the benefits of the products you are promoting and of course
why they need them. Remember, try not to be too ‘salesy’ people should be buying
because they need the product, not because they were told they needed it.
Remember to focus on important points like how your product can make life and things
easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as
possible, avoid using the word “free” because there are still older spam filters that dump
those kinds of content into the junk before even anyone reading them first. Also, try to
convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something
big if they do not pick up the products and services you are offering.
3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product
Think of it like this... if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in
what you are offering, they will move on and never come back. So focusing on your
target customers and niche is exactly what you have to do to grab their interest.
Try writing a minimum of 2 articles per week on your blogs and social sites, with at least
500-800 words in length. Once you write these articles, don’t just move on to the next
one. There is more work to be done sharing and posting them on social media and
content sharing sites. Even go as far as generating ads for the content or sites you write
on or about.
If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, you can
use your analytical tools to study your strike rate and conversions. If you are converting
1 sale in 1000 then you have a problem and your content or calls to action need to be
looked at. A 10% strike rate is a good baseline. But look into pumping up those
numbers to 20% and beyond.
These tips should serve you well for your affiliate marketing programs and websites.
You should maintain a good source of income from your first website. Once this is
established, focus on site number 2, 3 etc etc and as mentioned earlier the other
marketing channels.
Just think of the huge paychecks you will be receiving!
How To Become A Super Affiliate In a Niche Market
In this example we are going to look at a single niche and look into how you can focus
on one subject and promote that particular niche to earn an income. Let’s take a look at
BlueHost again...
Over the past years, web hosting has grown bigger than ever. With more companies
getting into this business and finding the many benefits it can give them, the demand for
web hosting has never been higher. These seem to be the trend of today.
38 million people put up their very first websites online in 2005. Now the number of
websites online is at a staggering 1.7 Billion today!!
Imagine being the sole affiliate for that hosting company? I digress…
This only means two things?
1. Hosting is becoming more popular
2. People are looking at more websites
Both of these options have the potential for an affiliate income.
So how do you become a successful affiliate in the niche markets using web hosting?
If you think about it, everyone who needs a website needs a web hosting company to
host it for them. As of now, there is really no leading hosting industry so most people
choose hosts based on recommendations. Usually, they get it from the folks that
already have a particular host and have had no problems (word of mouth). Alternatively,
they buy the cheapest (not always a good idea).
With the many hosts offering affiliate programs, there is the tendency to find the one
which you think will work best for you and go for the highest commissions. This again,
isn’t always the best option. You need a balance of great service as well as good
commissions. BlueHost has achieved this in spades.
So how did they do it?
Simple, they pay great commissions and offer an extremely low entry price for hosting
and a domain.
They advertise a hosting fee of $4.95 and a free domain, which if you are looking for a
hosting account and a domain for the first time is a no brainer. It’s this combination of
cheap, reliable hosting and company reputation that people sign up for.
It’s the $65 commissions that the affiliate marketer signs up for...
Let’s take a look at another story about a guy who lost his job. Let’s call him
Pat…
Pat lost his job and decided to start a blog about making an income online.
After a short
time his blog started to gain traction, people enjoyed his content, his strategies and the
smart fun project he was undertaking online.
Pat had a resources page on his make money online blog and on this page was a short
YouTube video - Start your own blog in under 3 minutes
This video consisted of Pat signing up for a BlueHost account, buying a domain and
starting his first blog. Simple and highly effective, but nothing really special in the grand
scheme of affiliate marketing.
However, Pat knew if he could push enough traffic to his video and visitors clicked his
link he could create an affiliate income from his quick and easy solution video.
Since Pat’s website was growing and his fanbase increasing, he pushed the video on
his website, his mailing list and his social media accounts. Always remembering that
each subscriber would net his at least $65 per signup.
Now, cast your mind back to this “38 million people put up their very first websites
online in 2005. Now the number of websites online is at a staggering 1.7 Billion
today!!”
You maybe thinking why would so many people need a website? They don’t but the
thought and the opportunity to create one was easier than ever, so simple in fact it could
be done in under 3 minutes.
So what happened next?
Pat crushed it, a Youtube traffic explosion netted him over $20,000 per month on commissions alone from BlueHost.
The best thing about this is he is still getting those numbers today and even more in
other commissions and business avenues.
I hope you can see the power of affiliate marketing and what is possible by simply
creating a business that takes hard work now, but can pay you for a very long time to
come.
☝👉 How do you choose a good affiliate program to promote? Here are some tips you may
want to do your own due diligence on before choosing one:
1. A program that you like and have interest in
One of the best ways of knowing if a program is worthy of a promotion is if you are
interested in purchasing the product yourself. If that is the case, chances are, there are
many others who are also interested in the same program and products as you,
therefore the products you are interested in should be of high quality and offer a good
return as an affiliate. Remember returning customers are worth a lot in recurring affiliate
paycheque revenue.
2. Look for a program that is high quality and pays well.
For instance, look for one that is associated with many experts in that particular
industry, that is high quality and offers good returns for your affiliate promotions.
BlueHost comes to mind as a business model here.
3. Join in the ones that offer real and viable products.
How do you know this? Do some initial research. If possible, track down some of the
members and customers to give you testimonials on the credibility of the program.
4. What’s hot in the market? What are people talking about?
This will ensure you that there will be more and continuous demands for your referrals.
Make inquiries. Use social media, forums and group discussions you can participate in
to get good and reliable feedback on what’s hot in chosen affiliated product niches you
are interested in.
5. Find a program with a good affiliate plan. Remember the BlueHost example of
$65 per lead.
There are some programs offering great compensation. Look closely for one. Do not
waste your time with programs that do not reward substantially for your efforts.
However, always remember quality will also pay dividends
6. Be aware of hidden quotas that you must fulfill or sales targets that are too
hard to achieve.
Some affiliate programs impose prerequisites before you get your commissions. Just be
sure that you are capable of attaining their requirements such as minimum sales and
amounts earned. E.g. you may have to earn $500 before your first payout.
7. Select a program that has plenty of tools and resources that can help you grow
your affiliate campaign in the shortest possible time.
Not all affiliate programs have a wide range of tools. Use the tools at your disposal to
create a campaign. Look out for additional tools such as graphics, email copy, free
guides and reviews. These are a great help.
8. Check out if the program has proven metrics to analyze your performance.
Also check if they have it available online for you to check anytime and anywhere so
you can improve on the fly.
9. Look out for programs that have monthly incentives and subscriptions.
Recurring income is the king of affiliate marketing. If a business can pay you each
month every month for very little work on your part, you earn money in your sleep.
10. Be aware of the payout threshold of your program.
Some affiliate programs have a minimum threshold for affiliate payout. Ensure this is not
too high that you can’t retrieve your money.
Knowing the kind of program you are getting yourself into can prevent future problems
you may encounter when looking for high quality programs to support and earn an
income from.
Use these 10 tips to guide to successful promotions in the future
continue.....
