6
Steps To Success In Affiliate Marketing
by Richard Quek
Affiliate programs are suitable for those who do not have
their own product or service to promote. They can promote
other people's products or services as Reseller or Affiliate.
The commission income can be fairly substantial and there
are many super affiliates that are earning six figure income
on the internet promoting products and services for others.
Here are 6 Power Steps that will
assist you in your Affiliate Marketing venture.
| 1 |
Choice
of Company
The company that you're going to represent must be established.
It must be credible and have an excellent track record.
Remember that you are going into a joint venture with
them to promote their product or service. Here are other
factors that you should take into account:
(a) The company must have products or services that are
unique, of value, and are in demand.
(b) The company should provide excellent support, training
and resources to assist you to promote their products
or services.
(c) There must be excellent tracking employed by the
company to ensure that you will be credited for all
your referrals. The tracking should credit you even
when your prospects make a purchase months later.
(d) The commission rate must be attractive. For ebooks,
softwares and virtual products, an acceptable commission
rate should be between 40% to 60%. Commission payments
for physical products are normally lower, between 5%
to 15%.
(e) The company should pay commissions on at least
2 tiers. This will make it attractive for you to refer
others to join you since you will be paid a percentage
on their sales.
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| 2 |
Cloak
your referral links
There are many affiliates who lost their commission because
their prospects 'change' the referral links. These affiliates
took all the trouble to promote the products or services
but the commissions due to them are 'hijacked' by the
prospects because the prospects realized that these are
referral links and therefore changed it to their own link
with their own user name. In order to avoid this from
happening you should CLOAK your referral link. This will
hide your referral link. There are various ways of doing
this. Here are some ways:
(a) Use a sub-domain name.
(b) Use a tracking URL. You can get this from many
companies that provide such services such as Ad-Alyzer,
Adminder and Hyper Tracker.
You can get a FREE tracking service from:
http://resultstracker.net
(c) Use a Free Service that shortens your 'long' URL.
http://www.tinyurl.com
(d) There are many softwares available such as Affiliate
Defender and Instant Affiliate Masker.
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| 3 |
Test and Track
your Promotions
It is important to test and track all of your
Ads and promotional activities. You should be able to
know the ROI(Return On Investments) on all you various
campaigns. This will enable you to zero in on those that
are productive and provide you with the highest ROI. You
will avoid those that do not produce the expected results.
You could use the tracking services mentioned in step
2 above.
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| 4 |
Build an Opt-In
List
Most affiliates send their prospects to the web
sites of the company that they are promoting. They may
end up making a few sales and receiving some commission.
However, that's all that they will receive. They have
worked hard to convince the prospects but they have no
further contact with these prospects. These prospects
are now in the opt-in-list of the Affiliate companies
that they are representing.
The smart thing to do is to capture the details of
the prospects to build your own opt-in list before sending
these prospects to the Affiliate company web site. There
are 2 ways to do this:
(a) Set up you own web site and collect the email addresses
and names of your prospects before sending them to the
Affiliate company web site. You should create a web
form to capture the email addresses and names. This
can be done using HTML or if you are using an autoresponder,
you'll normally be able to generate the web form with
the autoresponder.
This web form can be set up on your web site or as
a pop-up.
(b) Plug into the systems set up by various companies
on the Internet. How it works is that you'll be provided
with a 'special' URL to promote. When your prospects
click on this URL, they will be directed to an 'emotional'
flash presentation. At the end of the presentation,
they will be required to fill in a short questionnaire.
There are 2 benefits here. You'll be pre-qualifying
your prospects and you will have a copy of the questionnaire
that they filled it. This will make it easier for you
to follow-up with them.
I'm using WTPowers for this and I must say that their
service is excellent for a small monthly fee. Here is
the URL if you would like to check them out:
http://www.wtpowers.com/dreambuilders
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| 5 |
Autoresponder
The autoresponder is the heart beat of any Internet
business. It has been discovered that 71% of Internet
sales are made after 7 contacts.
It is therefore important that you follow up with your
prospects.
This is why the use of autoresponder is crucial to your
success.
Here is one that I own:
TIMM Reply http://www.timmreply.com
Here are a few companies that you could check out:
Aweber - http://www.aweber.com
Get Response - http://www.getresponse.com
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| 6 |
Getting Traffic
There are many ways to generate traffic. Always
keep in mind that the more targeted is your traffic, the
better will be your conversion rate and the more will
be your sales.
Here are a few ways that may be useful:
(a) Search Engines
This will be appropriate if you are having your own
web site.
Concentrate on keywords that relate to the product or
service
you are marketing. Make sure that the kewords are 'targeted'.
Submit to only a few of the top search engines such
as Yahoo,
Google, Alta Vista, Netscape, Lycos, and All the Web
(b) Pay Per Click
For those who are new, the pay-per click search engines
will provide you with the necessary traffic. Just like
with the search engines, the keywords need to be targeted.
http://www.overture.com
http://www.kanoodle.com
Google Adwords is now gaining popularity and you may
want to check it out. It works like the pay per click
search engines.
https://adwords.google.com/select
(c) Ezine Ads
This is one of the best ways to generate targeted
traffic to your web site. The Solo Ad is the best way
to advertise but it may cost you a bit. It is important
to choose Ezines that relate to your product or service.
You can check out from Ezine directories:
Ezine Search - http://www.ezinesearch.com
Ezine Seek - http://www.ezine-universe.com
(d) Viral Marketing
There are many viral marketing programs that you
can join. The traffic may not be targeted but these
are free traffic.
http://10000hits.net/default.aspx?userid=398012
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These are the 6 power steps that will assist you to have the
cutting edge in Affiliate marketing. Following these steps
will put you in the 5% categories of those Super Affiliates
who are making 'BIG' money on the Internet.
________________________________________________________________
Richard Quek is the author of 7 books, 'Cappuccino
& Success', 'The Insider Secrets to Network
Marketing', and 'The Internet M~oney Machine',
‘EXPOSED!’, ‘ZOOM
to Super Success’, ‘My Discount
Vault’ and ‘Power Income System’.
Visit his website at:
http://www.internetmarketingtrainer.com
Article: Affiliate Internet Marketing Tip
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