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Tuesday, June 5, 2012


Want to chat with some people in the know of Affiliate Marketing? 

3 Things All Affiliate Marketers Need To Survive Online 


Every affiliate marketer is always looking for the successful market that gives the biggest payback. Sometimes they think it is a magic formula that is readily available for them. Actually, it is more complicated than that. It is just good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication.
There are tactics that have worked before with online marketing and is continuing to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today. With these top three marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales and survive in the affiliate marketing online.

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.

Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do to those who buys them. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.

You can also write articles 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 try and read more, even contact you. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and will want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very top side of your page so it they simply cannot be missed. Try to create autoresponder messages that will be mailed to those who input their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect.

Only two things can possibly happen with the web page alone: closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never return again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified period, you will remind them of the product they thought they want later and will find out that the sale is closed. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch.

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 dumps those kind of contents into the junk before even anyone reading them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not avail of your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that is focusing on your target customers and what you have put up might just grab their interest.

Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day.
Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, that means you can made 10 sales based on the average statistic.

The tactics given above does not really sound very difficult to do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part.

Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You can end maintaining a good source of income and surviving in this business that not all marketers can do.
Besides, think of the huge cash you will be receiving!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Launch your own Home Business within retail


Have you thought about starting your own home based business like those found on Ebay?

You had a great idea when you decided to open a home-based Internet retail business. You became a "power seller," as people in the online retail business world call you. Your goal is to move tons of merchandise through Web auction sites and classifieds services without ever leaving the comfort of your home office. Drop shipping gives you the opportunity to accomplish your dreams and more. The sky is the limit if you know how to get your business off the ground.

Drop shipping can launch your business into successful orbit, but it isn't rocket science. With this unique way of doing business, you enlist the services of a wholesale merchandise company. The wholesale company takes care of the stockpiling and storing of your product. It even covers the shipping and handling charges when one of your customers orders an item.

This means you don't have to rent thousands of square feet to warehouse your inventory, and you're free from the liability that comes with direct delivery to your customers. Your only expenses are the membership fee of your particular wholesaler, along with the fees and percentages you lose to advertising and auctioning online. If you play your cards right with these fees, you can build yourself a very cost-effective-and most importantly, profitable-home-based business.

Experienced online retailers have learned the tricks of the trade to do just that. Here are the key secrets that they, your competitors, don't want you to know. These three tips will stack the deck in your favor, helping you to grow your clientele while avoiding the pitfalls of doing ecommerce.

Get sold on your wholesaler. Nowadays, wholesalers are a dime a dozen, so don't settle on the first one that comes your way. Let wholesalers compete for your business, instead of the other way around. Many companies may offer specials to new prospective retailers. They may waive the minimum order requirements, credit check, and prepayments if you sign up with them. Top-notch wholesalers could also offer international delivery or special net payment options. Avoid high expenses at the get-go by taking advantage of such specials, and turn a profit a lot quicker.

Sniff out whole-scammers. For every honest wholesaler looking to build a successful relationship with you, there's a crook out there looking to do nothing but build his bank account at your expense. Avoid any wholesaler, for instance, who demands you pay an advance fee before you sign up with them. Be wary of wholesalers who claim to have thousands of items in their selection. These might not be wholesalers at all, but middlemen who are trying to bluff you. Instead of actually stocking these thousands of products, they actually buy them from a wholesaler, or another middleman, and resell them to you at a jacked up price, thereby cutting into your profits.

Get wired to the Web wisely. You now have a trusted Wholesaler and outstanding products to move, but so do thousands of other Internet retailers. How can you stand out to attract customers and save money doing so? One way to make a mark online is to design and write your own ads for your products. Many wholesalers provide complimentary stock product photos and descriptions that you can use in your online ads and classifieds. Then again, they provide the same thing to all their retailers. Most retailers use them. So you shouldn't.

Another effective way to sell on the Web is to find new and innovative sites to sell on. The main auction sites are often crowded with retailers who are eager to undercut your prices. Plus, these auctioning sites tend to have high fees and shorter listing durations. Avoid competition and high prices by trying the next generation of premiere selling sites, such as free online classified sites.

Free online classifieds services work as powerful avenues to sell your goods. They offer attractive features your business needs to take off, such as:
  • No sign-up, registration, or transaction fees.
  • Free listing (text description and image upload).
  • Up to 60-day ad listing. This listing duration is light years longer than most other sites and renewals are free as well.
  • Distance calculator. This function comes in handy if you're concerned with locality.
These free online classified sites can be the ace up your sleeve, whether you're just launching your home-based Internet retail operation or trying to shoot for the stars with an established business. Strap yourself into your chair and count down to ignition.

Making Money from home

Many individuals, from all walks of life, are making the decision to work from home. There are an unlimited number of work at home business ideas; however, the internet has the most potential.

Internet websites are often developed for personal or business use. What once may have been considered a personal site may now even be used to make money. Affiliate programs, commonly referred to as associate programs, are a way for website owners to make money through internet marketing. Affiliate programs work by connecting people to another website. There are a wide number of well known national companies who use affiliate programs to increase the traffic to their website. 

Individuals who have their own website will generally display a banner or link to a certain website. The linking website is often a business that sells something. Affiliate programs are profitable to website owners because whenever an internet user signs up for something or buys a products, they are paid commission. Affiliate programs are an effective marketing technique that offer benefits to everyone involved. Website owners are paid for their participation and the businesses on the other end are promoting and selling their products.

Deciding to participate in an affiliate program is a fairly easy process and can sometimes involve little work. If you are a website owner, the more work you do on your website, the more likely you are to receive affiliate clickers. This is due to search engine optimizations. Many articles or topics inside a website contain keywords that search engines may pick up. If an individual is searching for information on popular children's toys and your website has articles or information concerning them, they may be linked to your site. Internet users love to see new articles, information, or products. For this reason, constantly updating your website may bring in new visitors and also keep existing visitors coming back.

Developing a website can be for fun or a part of home employment. Home employment is on the rise and many individuals are making the decision to work from their home. Home employment allows parents, elderly, or disabled individuals to work from the comfort of their home. Although these individuals are common work from home people, just about everyone has the ability to work from inside their home. 

A work from home internet business can including selling merchandise or offering a service. For instance, many individuals sell homemade or wholesale merchandise or some offer their web design or writing skills. Affiliate programs are an effective tool in obtaining additional profits for a work at home internet business. Although affiliate programs are used and are widely popular among internet businesses, they are also successful with personal websites. Blogging has greatly increased in popularity. In fact, a large number of internet users have a blog. It is possible to link up affiliate programs with a blog. 

Affiliate programs are becoming extremely popular among website owners or bloggers. It is a fairly simple way to acquire additional profits through an existing work from home internet business. It is great programs, such as affiliate marketing programs, that allows many individuals to successfully work from home and make a profit.

How to use an Ebay Powerseller customers and you get the reward


Before I explain it I want you to imagine this...

A desirable item that's for sale at $10 is suddenly offered to you for $5. The person offering it to you is someone you've bought similar items from before, so you trust them.

But the half price offer is only going to be available for 48 hours. The person offering you this item has struck an agreement with the seller. They've agreed to offer their item half price but just for 2 days.

If it's something you really desired do you think you'd miss out and pay the full price later on. No, of course not. 3 out of 10 people who are made this offer go ahead and buy. Everytime!

Now imagine if 100 people are offered this or 200 or maybe even 500. Multiply a third by $5 halve it and get this in your bank account in 3 days.

What if the product was normally $20 and offered for $10?

How it works is simple. You could either write your own ebook that is desirable or buy an ebook with resale rights that's already a best seller. Don't waste your time with 99c items you want something at least $10. Check someone else is not offering it on eBay for less.

You then send an email message to a powerseller on eBay or someone who's an eBay shop owner. You say that if they will offer your item to their past buyers at half price that you'll go fifty fifty with the profits. Make sure they're selling similar ebooks to their customers. That way they are already interested in what you have to offer.

You simply set up a free web site and follow their instructions. You can put a Paypal link on as well quite easily.

If someone agrees to offer your item to their list you simply send them a link to your temporary website. They then send an email with the temporary half-price offer and website link to all their past customers. The email tells them when the offer expires to create some urgency to buy.

At the end of the 48 hour offer period you simply close down the temporary web site. Check how much money has been taken into your Paypal account. You'll be amazed. Copy the screen into an email and send it to the powerseller as proof of earnings. Pay 50% of the earners into his Paypal account. You keep the other half yourself.

Powersellers or eBay shop owners who sell ebooks have a vast number of past buyers. Imagine they offered your item normally sold for $10 at $5 to a list of 500 people. Results have shown that about a third of people offered the item actually buy. A third of 500 is approx. 166. Multiply 166 by $5 = $830. Divide by 2 which is yours and the powersellers share and you get $415. Not bad for 3 days work?

3 days is required because the first day is what you'll need to allow you to build the temp web site and your powerseller partner to email all his list.

The Steps in successful selling on Ebay and other auction sites


The Steps to Successful Selling On Ebay or related sites


Step 1: Identify your market.
Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn't out of the items you're interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You'll probably see the sweet spots quite quickly - those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.

Step 2: Watch the competition.
Before you invest any money, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.

Step 3: Find a product:
Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to sell, and see what are the best rates you can get. Don't be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the eBay prices you've seen are higher than the supplier's, then you're set.

Step 4: Start small:
Don't throw thousands at your idea straight away - get started slowly, see what works and what doesn't, and learn as you go. Remember that it's very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work!

Step 5: Test and repeat.
Keep trying different strategies until you find something that works, and then don't be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you?ve just found a good niche.

Step 6: Work out a business plan:
A business plan doesn't need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the market opportunity you've spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.

Step 7: Invest and expand:
This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.

Step 8: Make it official:
Once you've made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Don't worry, it's not expensive or hard to do - a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.

Step 9: Automate:
You'll probably find that you're writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.

Step 10: Never give up:
Even when it looks like it's all going wrong, don't stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you'll almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.

Once you get into the swing of things, you might start thinking that you should quit your job and take up eBay selling part time. But it's not always as easy as that - there are all sorts of factors that you need to consider.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Do you want to be a Super Affiliate?


What is the difference between super affiliates and regular affiliates? Do they have some kind of super duper great secret formula that will ensure success?


I really wish I could say yes, there is a secret formula and I promise it will absolutely guarantee success. Here is it, that would be $5000 please! But that would't be the truth. As valuable as best affiliate methods are, and believe me, learning from a super affiliate is worth the investment of thousands of dollars, there is still no perfect magic formula that will guarantee you will sell like super affiliate.


See, becoming a top affiliate is not following some secret set of strategies. You could do everything like the best affiliates do, yet still not make an income like those top 5% of affiliates. Why?
Because you must learn to:
  • Think like a super affiliate.
  • Plan like a super affiliate.
  • Choose products like a super affiliate.
  • Work like them.
  • Manage like they do.
You get the idea. Or you can't be one.

You are probably thinking: "Maybe technology is the key?" This is a myth. Technology will not make you a better marketer. Technology will only distract on your way to affiliate success. A budget of $100 is more than enough to start in this business. You don't need to buy expensive software or gadgets to be a better affiliate marketer. Keeping things simple is the best way.


Top 5% of affiliates build simple websites with a very clear and great content. Content is king, and the better content you can offer to potential costumers the more successful you will be. They always build a list, so don't be afraid to put an opt-in form and the end of your content page to capture leads. Email list is a valuable asset. After you build a list you have to test, test and test. This way you will see what works. The best affiliates double their efforts on things that work, and they drop the things that don't work.
You have to be aware the most important asset you have is not your bank account, your website or your list. It is your brain. Yes the grey matter inside your skull and between your ears. You don't have o be an Einstein to be a top affiliate. But you have to understand affiliate marketing. You have to be able to think about affiliate marketing in new and better ways.


If you can think the way the super affiliates do, believe me, your chances as an affiliate jump exponentially!!


Pay per Click - You can make money from Google from other businesses

Pay-per-click is a fantastic way to drive web traffic to your site from the major search engines. It can also suck your marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done properly. The bottom line is someone is going to profit by implementing paid search. The question is, is it going to be you or the search engines? The goal of the search engines (and their strategies) is more clicks. The more people click on your ads the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get as many clicks as possible with in your budget and they are willing to do that all day long. This is great for them bad for you.

The real goal should be more conversion with less clicks and lower cost. Let's take a few minutes to look at some strategies that should make a difference in your campaigns.  We will get more specific and articles to come.  
General strategies

1. Turn off Content Network  

In Google when you first set up a campaign there is a default setting that turns the "content match" setting to "on". For now, turn that setting off.  What this does is present your ads on websites that are using AdSense. If you go to a website and see "Ads by Google", those ads are coming from Google paid search accounts.  Those ads show up on these websites based on the content of the website.  At first glance this may look like a good idea and it usually is, for Google.  There are two things that you need to consider before turning on the content match.  The first is that the website that is hosting your ad gets paid every time someone clicks on your ad.  Most of the click fraud that happens is when an owner of a site or so want affiliated with the site clicks on these ads.  The second thing is that individuals who click on these ads are not actively seeking what you are offering.  These folks are tire kickers.  Even though your ad may be presented (number of impressions) to a lot of people, the click through rate and conversion rate is very low.  The magic of search engine marketing is that you come in contact with individuals who are actively searching for what you have to offer. Only pay for clicks that come from people in that category.

2. Search Terms

The more general the term the less qualified to lead (generally speaking). Personally, I am not a big fan of hundreds of key words for paid search. This is a great strategy the search engines and paid search management companies that are paid a percentage of your spend.  What I try to figure out what terms would work in order to get my ideal customer to my site.  Remember, you want people to come to your site who are actively searching for what you are offering.  For example if you sell "long term care insurance" what type of people do you want clicking on your ads? Of course, you want individuals looking for long term care insurance, not "long term care" or "insurance". You can use these terms if you create a list of "negative" key words. We will talk about that at another time.

3. Keyword "types"

There are three types of keywords "Broad", "Phrase" and "Exact". Do not use "broad match" except for phrases with four or more words.  For example, long term care insurance quote. The rule of some that I use is for single word phrases, I use exact match and four search phrases that are two to three words, I used "phrase matching".  I am also experimenting with using "exact" matching for these terms as well.  Remember the more specific the search term is to what you are offering and who your ideal client is the more qualified to lead will be.  Better a small number of qualified leads than a large number of leads that waste your time and ultimately cost a lot more money.

4. Ad Copy 


Just a couple thoughts on writing ads.  When you write your ads put the following in your "headline" box: {keyword: "your main keyword}. This will put your keyword phrase into the headline.  This is very important for a lot of reasons that we will get into at another time.  Your ad should be specific enough to attract only your ideal client (someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer). Your ad contained at least one of your "unique selling propositions". This can be very challenging because of the space limitations.  Rule of thumb, find out what your competitors are doing and do something different. For example, if everyone is offering free shipping, use one of your other unique selling propositions.  

5. Landing Pages 

You need to put a lot of thought to your landing pages. Your landing page has to do one thing that is answer the questions are up that the searcher had in mind when he typed in his key words. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution and is in some kind of "pain". You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs.  It does not matter if you are selling hammers, insurance or investment products.  The last thing a searcher wants to see is that you can jump higher, run faster and do it better than the competition.  He just doesn't care.  Besides, 99% of the websites that he visited probably stated that they do that. You must show him that you have the answers to his needs.  Do not just send him to your home page unless your home page can accomplish the above. Once you connect with your searcher you must have a call to action.  It can be a "buy now", "for more information contact us", "contact us for a free evaluation" or "consultation".  You must be very specific and clear about your next steps. Have your phone number or contact us button on every page. 

6. Tracking 

Finally, track everything.  Paid search is not an exact science. It takes time to set up and optimized your campaigns to get the results that you are looking for. You must monitor your campaigns at the least weekly in order to catch market changes.  Unless you have a time of venture capital money laying around, paid search is not something you turn on and forget about.  Google, Yahoo and MSN have free tracking tools that work great.
 
Pay-per-click is a great marketing tool, if used correctly.  It can also, as stated earlier, suck your marketing budget dry in a heartbeat. It is a lot cheaper to find someone who knows what they are doing and does this day in and day out to help you than it is to lose thousands of dollars trying to figure it out yourself.