Affiliate Marketing Revised

August 21st, 2010

You’re dead wrong if you think you know anything about being an affiliate. The tactics of the past few years just don’t work anymore. You need to adapt and change or perish.

The promise

You’ve probably heard how easy it is to start an affiliate business. This is partially true. It is the easiest business you can possibly start. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The bad news…

The worst part is that the information you’ve received is all wrong. The first thing you’re taught is to pick some great products. Next to pick your keywords carefully. Then to use keyword-based advertising to send visitors to the product. And sit back and collect the profits. But this just won’t work!

Don’t bother with keywords

There was a time when this worked. But it’s just too competitive to use keywords now. Adapt and change…

A brand new formula

All is not lost. Follow this method and win again…

  • Do CPA marketing instead of product promotion
  • Instead of researching keywords, research demographics
  • Market on display networks

Get into CPA marketing

CPA stands for Cost Per Action. It’s much better than promoting a product. Because it doesn’t involve payment. You get paid when they take an “action”. Like completing a survey. And it’s much easier to get them to do that.

Instead of researching keywords, research demographics

Don’t waste time researching keywords (see below). Invest your research time into demographics. First you select your CPA offer. Then hop over to Quantcast.com. And research what kinds of people will be interested.

Use image ads

Now you have your offer and your demographics. You can advertise directly to them on display networks. And use images as your ads. No keywords required. And you’ll save a fortune. Display networks charge a fraction for image ad clicks vs. keyword ads.

Summary

This is powerful method to make money online. Because getting started in CPA is free. Image ads are cheap. You can use demographics to target your ideal prospect. And your commission is much easier to earn.

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7 reasons why you MUST have your own info product

August 9th, 2010

Consider this: What’s the most common reason people get online each and every day? You probably already guessed that it’s to find information. This is so ubiquitous a quest that Google handles 400 million queries a day! So what does this mean to you? It means that you have a massive opportunity to give people exactly what they’re looking for – information. And when done correctly, you can get paid for it, too!

Info marketing 101

This is by far the simplest business you can start. You create a product that provides information. And people pay you for the information inside it.. Pretty simple, wouldn’t you say?

But how does it all work?

We’ve established that it’s a simple concept. But to make it a successful business people need to want the information you’re providing. So you’ll need to find out what info is valuable. How do you do that?

One very simple method is to do a little research. Just go to Yahoo! answers or ask.com and you’ll get a good idea of the kinds of things people need help with. You’re looking for popular questions or common themes. That people are having trouble solving. Then just give them the answer in your ebook.

An encouraging word

Don’t worry! Info product creation is easy… Think about this: An ebook is nothing more than a collection of articles. Don’t try to write a whole ebook. Just write some articles for your blog. And once you have bunch of good ones, flesh them out, add to them and put them together into an ebook.

Why info products? Well, that bring me to the tile of this article How about 7 reasons why:

1. Simplicity and ease

Once it’s built it runs pretty much on it’s own. Custom support is all but non-existent. So you can just set it up and let it run. You’re building a completely automated business.

You don’t have any inventory. You don’t have to ship anything. It’s digital.

2. Repackaging

After you’ve created a few ebooks. You can just combine them into a more expensive product. It’s very easy to package multiple ebooks together as one new one. And your new product will be able to carry a much higher sticker price. There’s greater perceived value in a single big course. Versus multiple smaller ones.

3. Resale rights

When you own the product, you can sell resell rights to it. This is a very popular topic right now, because most people simply don’t have the time, money and effort it takes to create their own products. And what’s more you get to charge two to three time as much for these rights.

4. Leverage

It’s your content, so you can use it in as many different ways as you want. Use part of it to make an autoresponder series. And build an email list that you can sell other products to.

5. More leverage

You can also take parts of your ebook and turn it into smaller eBooks. Then use these to generate leads for the main product. They can be free or low prices. And it still benefits you because it in a lead-in for the main product. You can even make these viral by allowing your affiliates to give them away. Which brings us to…

6. An army of affiliates

This is a real power strategy. If you’ve got products you own. You can get other people to promote it for you. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bunch of other people doing your marketing for you? You’ve got to have your own products to have affiliates.

7. JVs

Last, but definitely not least… The number one way to launch your success is through joint ventures. That makes this is the biggest reason for creating your own info products. Without your own products, you can’t do JVs.

Summing it up

If you can’t see the power of info product marketing, then you haven’t been paying attention. You’ll become the ruler of your own fate. Because you’re the boss! So, don’t waste any more time:

  • Go to answers.yahoo.com
  • Find out what people need to know
  • Start providing information

The steps on how to write an ebook are really that easy. And in no time you’ll have an info product ready to go.

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Using Web Audio for Success

August 8th, 2010

It’s undeniable that if you add audio to websites it will increase your results. In fact, not using audio is a big mistake. Adding it raises your opt-in conversions. And your sales.

What makes it so effective?

There’s no real mystery. The web is mostly silent. It makes your site more “human”. It also makes your site feel more real. In short, it makes your site come alive. And this aliveness creates more interaction with your visitors.

The benefits of audio

Adding audio increases your profits in two ways. First, you’ll make more sales. Secondly, you will not have to spend as much to make the sales. You see, you’ll be able to skip the expensive copywriter. Just record some audio and add it to your site. An authentic message from you will do more than the best ad copy.

You’ll get more subscribers, too. The reason this works so well is because people need to be told what to do. So you make an audio recording that says: Fill in your name and email and click submit. A simple message like this will increase your opt-in conversions by 305% or more!

How to use website audio

A welcome message on your homepage. Most people abandon a website within just a few seconds. This could be all it takes to get your visitor to decide to stay.

Step-by-step instructions. Just like in the opt-in example. You just explain what to do first, then next, etc. That includes filling in your order form!

Get testimonials for your services and products. Written testimonials are good. But audio testimonials are great! You can just make up written one and people know that. Using audio makes it much more believable. And that increases your results.

Sneaky tick

Something you may not have thought of is using audio for the product itself. Audio is faster to produce than anything else. Plus people love audio products. Think about how popular podcast are. And once you record the audio, you can pay someone to transcribe it for you. This much easier than writing the eBook yourself!

How hard is adding audio?

It’s so simple you won’t believe it. There’s software that will show you how to add audio to a website. There’s no knowledge required on your part. The software creates the audio button code for you. Just paste the code you copy from the software. You don’t need to even consider this part.

Summing it up

Let’s take another look at the benefits. Using website audio will increase your conversion rates. You’ll enjoy more customer sales. You will also increase your subscriber opt-ins. And you can quickly produce products and website sales copy. You’ll be one of the few you use these strategies. But you’ll save a lot of time and money. Get started right now and realize instant results.

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Sneaky Affiliate Tricks

August 7th, 2010

Affiliate marketing can be very difficult to break into. The reason is because there is a lot of competition. The challenge is to try and outdo other affiliates and think of ways to do a better job promoting. It’s also hard to figure out what to do because there’s a lot of information out there. Here’s one trick that almost no one else is using.

Video marketing

No one would deny the power and popularity of video. Video online is everywhere because people love it. It’s so much easier to keep people’s attention with video. So why wouldn’t you use it in your affiliate business?

Examples of how to use video for affiliate marketing:

  • Testimonials
  • Do a video walk-through
  • Do an ordering video
  • Do a preview video

Testimonials

It doesn’t get any easier than this. Simply turn on your recorder and talk. It does not need to be polished or pro. Listening to your honest endorsement makes your viewers feel comfortable buying. And the mess-ups or mistakes just make the video more real. You really can just click record and start talking. Use one of the other ideas if you’re feeling shy.

Do a video walk-through

This technique works slightly more subconsciously. Basically you’re doing a tutorial on how to use the product. And in the process you’re actually selling the product. As long as the product is good, the tutorial makes them want it. So just make sure you’re demoing a good product.

Ordering

This could be the most powerful method of all. Record yourself placing an order. Watching you make a live purchase will inspire your viewer like nothing else. First, it’s social proof. Once they see you doing it, they feel more secure. It also build your viewers trust. People believe you’re giving them good advice if you take that advice yourself. And finally, it creates envy. People want what they see you getting. To really cap this one off, end your video with: In order to get to see the inside, you gotta buy the product.

Record a preview of the members area

This one is perfect for building up the value of what you’re promoting. In this case you record a screen share of the inside of the product. You show them the entire contents of what they get. It also reduces the reservations of skeptics. Once they’ve seen the back-end, they know it’s real.

You can do this!

No special skills are required. Some very easy to use programs make the videos for you. Really, the software does all the work. So you don’t have to worry about the technical part of this at all. Remain focused on the benefits:

  • Increase sales You will increase your affiliate sales when you start using videos. People like video, so start using it.
  • Reduce refunds You’ll lose less of the commission your earn. Thanks to you people know what’s inside before buying. So less of them will ask for refunds.
  • Beat your competition! This is a really easy thing to do. But pretty much no one does it. This puts you out in front of the rest.

Take your affiliate promotions to a higher level and getting started with this now. The bottom line is that if you’re not using video, you’re losing money.

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Email List Building Strategies

August 6th, 2010

You need a list. That’s a given. It’s the one thing above all else that matters most. Once you have a list built, you can market to it again and again. It’s a resource you can tap at any time and generate income.

How’s how to build a list:

There are 3 factors in list building you need to consider:

  • The Squeeze Page
  • Your Bribe
  • The Opt-in Success Page

The Squeeze Page – The squeeze page is the first thing your visitor is going to see. This page is the one that asks them for their email. This page needs to look professional. It’s also got to be free from distractions. And have a clear call to action.

The biggest mistake you can make is not having a clear call to action. This “close” tells your visitors what you want them to do. Without this your opt-in rate will plummet. The funny thing is that people just don’t know what to do unless you tell them.

If you want to add some extra juice to your opt-in page make it a video squeeze page. This will grab your visitors attention and keep it. It also allows you to tell them what to do several times. And after the video, you can make it just say “fill in the form now”.

Now, don’t worry if you have no idea how to make videos. Hiring out-sourced help to do it for you only costs $150 – $250. There are also list building systems that include video squeeze pages.

The Incentive – Next, you’ve got to figure out what your bribe is. You have to give people a compelling reason to give your their email. Email privacy is very important to most people. This means your bribe needs to be very attractive.

You have to provide value in your bribe for it to be good. It has to be something that people actually want. And will be able to actually benefit from it. A few ideas:

  • An eBook
  • Software
  • Training videos
  • An email training series

You’ve got to create some great content. And make it both helpful and informative. And nothing sells like “free”. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

If you’re worried about creating this content, don’t be. It’s super easy to hire someone to create it for you. You just pick the topic and they create the training. One easy and effective bribe is a 5-part email training series. You can have ghost writers create emails for under $25 an email. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

There are also list building products that include the follow up email series. Two critical aspects of using a follow up series. First of all it has to give the subscriber what you promised – valuable information. And it’s nice if it earns you some money, too. ;-) One very easy way to make some money from your list is with affiliate marketing. This is such a simple solution because you don’t have to create the product. And it enables you to generate cash right away from your new list.

The Opt-in Success Page – The “thank you” page is the final piece of the puzzle. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. It’s a great idea to give them some valuable information right on the thank you page. That way, they feel glad that they gave you their email address. It also helps to build the relationship. It also makes them more likely to open your emails.

You can use a “done for you” email marketing system. Or you can go the DIY route. And write it all yourself. Or have someone ghost write for you.

In closing

It doesn’t matter if you do all of this yourself. Or if you hire people to do this for you. Or go with a complete package. The key is to start building your list. Because as soon as you’ve got your own list . . . You can basically write your own meal ticket.

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