Affiliate Marketing Strategies And Tips For Success
Your personal Affiliate Marketing strategy will depend on several factors.
What kind of revenue do you want to sustain? How much market research do you want to perform? Do you have passions about certain niche markets that create excitement in you? Do you know how to build a website? Do you know how to market your website, the product, and convert prospects into actual customers? The most successful strategies you can employ will have clear and definite criteria.
You need to be aware of PPC (pay per click), CPA (cost per action), banner ads, solo ads, classified ads, E-Mail lists, creating links, and even how to cloak a URL address.
You need to do significant research to find the relevant niche keywords that apply to your product, and exhibit low competition as well.
Choosing an Affiliate Marketing strategy that is right for you is one of the most important business decisions you will make.
The strategy you eventually choose is what will ultimately shape the various decisions you make.
Being successful at Affiliate Marketing isn't about throwing up a website or blog, sticking a few banners in strategic places, placing some ads, and waiting for the commissions to start rolling in.
You have to know and understand your target audience, and you have to understand the principles of developing relationships with your prospects.
So let's define Affiliate Marketing before we move on to strategies.
Affiliate Marketing is a third party selling products or services owned by another vendor and receiving commissions for those sales.
If you understand that much then you can begin to learn how to start marketing these products or services to earn money with an online business.
What are some strategies to ensure your success with Affiliate Marketing? Strategy 1.
Research, find, and choose a viable niche product that you would enjoy promoting.
Where can I go to do this research? All the information you need are in two sources.
If you use ClickBank, you will find a multitude of products by category that details the popularity, gravity, initial sales dollars, average sales dollars, and if they rebill so you can be assured of residual income.
I would never promote a product that did not rebill, as that will become a onetime sale, and you will continually have to promote it ad infinitum.
The second source is to use the Google Keyword Tool to research appropriate keywords that can best assist you in promoting your product or service.
The Keyword Tool is easy to use, and Google has a tutorial for you if you are unsure of how to use it most effectively.
Strategy 2.
Build and publish a website for your product or service.
You will hear all sorts of chatter about how a website is not a definitive need to be successful in Affiliate Marketing.
I can honestly tell you that you do not have to publish a website to enjoy success.
A website, however, will enhance your chances exponentially for success at Affiliate Marketing.
A website gives you the opportunity to create exciting copy for your product.
It allows you to offer free gifts to your prospects.
It allows you to express your passion for the product you have chosen.
It allows you to tell your story about what this product has done for you, and what it will do for them.
It allows you to create an E-mail list so you can stay in touch with your prospects.
Staying in touch with your prospects is the main selling key in turning those prospects into actual customers.
If you don't publish a website, it won't be a deal breaker, but you will be losing out on a lot of your ability to employ several marketing strategies.
Strategy 3.
Marketing my Affiliate Product: It's an obvious question; how do I market my product? You have to get some sort of ad copy in front of thousands of people so you have an equitable chance of converting visitors or prospects into customers.
You do not have to possess professional writing skills to create good copy.
What I might suggest is outsourcing one solo ad or one article about your product so you can learn how to develop a template for your own copy.
Once that is accomplished, you need to start writing articles and ad copy for your product so people will visit your website.
The whole strategy here is to get traffic, right? You'll never get adequate traffic unless you expose your site to prospects and let your site do the selling.
Your copy in the website must also be good enough to convert those prospects into real customers.
Strategy 4.
Where do I market my product? There are several legitimate ways to market your product, and they all work to some degree.
In this article, I am only going to recommend two ways to market your Affiliate Product.
a) The first is to devise a budget you can live with and place solo ads in Ezines.
You don't just go out and contact an Ezine and place a solo ad; you research the ezines that are relevant to your category and find out how many subscribers they have.
DO NOT think that more is better in this scenario.
I have found that if you place a solo ad in a relevant Ezine that has 40K to 90K subscribers, you will get favorable results.
You also need to explore their rates.
I am going to give you a guideline for what you should be willing to pay.
Never pay more than $4.
00 per thousand subscribers.
Remember, you solo ad will go out to every subscriber the Ezine has, and you need to do the simple math to ensure you don't pay more than $4.
00 per subscriber.
Ezine publishers are under no obligation to standardize their rates, so it is up to you to do your due diligence when it comes to your budget.
b) The second is to write articles and submit them to article publishers.
There are several free directories you can use and some directories are fee based.
You need to do some more research and determine which ones would be most effective and efficient for you.
Once again, you do not need to be a professional writer to create and submit articles.
You can find several ideas to create quality articles, or you could outsource them if you feel that would meet your needs and your budget better.
Regardless of what venue you choose to submit articles, they can and will generate substantial traffic to your website.
One word of caution, however, about article writing; It is the very best advertising you can create, albeit, the slowest.
Do not expect instant results or set your return expectations too high immediately.
It takes time for your articles to get into the system and then get perused by readers.
You also need to be prepared to write and publish two articles per week so your material never gets stale, and you keep that promotion moving forward.
Know that it will work just like word of mouth, be confident, and be patient.
Strategy 5.
We all have certain levels of skill and knowledge when it comes to Affiliate Marketing, website building, and article writing.
I highly recommend anyone except an "expert" to join a community of learning where the focus is on success and teaching members how to be successful.
These sites have forums where questions can be answered, and you will find out people just like you are struggling with the same problems you are.
These sites can turn you into a very resourceful Affiliate Marketer given time and dedication.
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.