Learning Affiliate Marketing - Understand the Basics of Affiliate Marketing

There’s no doubt that affiliate marketing can be extremely profitable, but with so much information around how do you know who to trust? When starting out, a beginner can easily become overwhelmed by all the different strategies, keywords and advice. It’s important to remember that making money as an affiliate is effectively a very simple process, and the more you over-complicate things the harder it will be to make money.

When you break affiliate marketing down there are three main steps:

1. Find a good product to promote

This is where many people make mistakes. Always choose a product that is selling well and is popular, as this means people are buying. Remember that if there is lots of competition that’s a good thing, as it means there are people willing to purchase the product.

2. Send traffic to the affiliate link

This is probably the hardest part, but there are plenty of options when it comes to traffic generation (see below).

3. Get paid commissions

For every visitor you send that buys the product you get paid a percentage. These commissions are then added up and paid to you either by cheque or directly to your bank account.

Of course, it is how you go about these steps (especially 1 and 2) that decides whether you will make a lot of money from affiliate marketing. However if you ever find yourself overwhelmed by all the available information just come back to these three points and remember the underlying simplicity of affiliate marketing.

Once you’ve picked your product it’s time to start generating traffic to your affiliate link. There are literally hundreds of ways to do this, but many aren’t worth your time and will get you very few results. Some of the more popular ways of sending traffic to an affiliate page are:

• Article Marketing
• Forum Posting
• Blog Commenting
• PPC

This is definitely an area you need to track. For example, if you find that article marketing is making you a lot of sales but forum posting is taking as much time and not making any sales at all, then you know either to concentrate more on article marketing or optimise your forum posting strategies.

One very important technique when learning affiliate marketing or any business strategy is tracking your results. If you properly keep track of questions such as which products sell well, which articles attract the most views etc then you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t for yourself. For example, if you find that a particular product sells well when you send traffic through one technique but not through another than you know to concentrate your efforts on the technique that works to maximise your profits. It’s vital to work out what is effective for you.

Remember that affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, but if done properly it can make a lot of money. Focus on learning what works and what doesn’t, and this will allow you to hone your strategy to make the most possible profit.

By: Richard Legg

Affiliate Marketing For Beginners: Want to Succeed in Online Affiliate Marketing? Build a List!

List Building

Why You Need a List

One of the basic tenets of any internet marketing program is that customers rarely buy on the first visit. As a matter of fact, it is commonly accepted that it takes seven contacts before a prospect turns into a paying customer. What this means is that you need to establish a relationship with your prospects and keep in touch by offering useful information or help as they make their decision to buy.

How do you do that? You do it by putting your prospects on a list and keeping in touch. The customer list or mailing list or whatever you want to call it list, is your ticket to sales and revenue.

Database List

The creation and building of a list is an essential step in building your online affiliate business. Any affiliate online program you choose to join should have your list building in mind by offering you promotional tools and sales products designed to solve a problem or satisfy a need. If you have a list of a few hundred or a few thousand people you can communicate with, imagine the business you can draw if you have what they want.

Build a Relationship

Having a list is not all about constantly pitching a product or service. If there is anything irritating and certain to draw anger, it is the constant barrage of sales promotions many people feel assault them when looking on the web. It is far more important to build a relationship and draw a balance between giving away free information that can help your prospect and offering a paid product or service that meets a real need they may have.

To build a good relationship, a weekly newsletter or email can serve you well. By offering information with no strings attached you will build trust and confidence in your list members that you are a reliable and trustworthy resource. When they buy, they will buy with comfort and reassurance that you have their success in mind. In fact, you have their loyalty. That is the key to success to any affiliate online program.

Useful Information

What kind of information should you provide? How about valuable tips, case studies, interesting testimonials from real people, and stories from you own experience that can help them decide how to move forward? Once you start weaving stories and examples of success that they can relate to, you will have a dedicated pool of believers who will buy from you willingly and with confidence.

How do you build a List?

Begin with what your market research tells you and write a free special report. Design an eCourse or eBook to give away in return for your customer signing up for your newsletter. It will help build a list of names and email addresses. Create a newsletter sign up form on your Web site or Blog to grow your list. Promote the benefits your customers will get from getting the weekly information. Explain clearly what they will derive from the free reports and eBooks you will make available.

Once you have a good idea of what is driving your customer on your list, write articles about the subjects they will want to know about. Distribute those articles to Article Directories and in your author biography, include a back link to your Web site or Blog or to your newsletter sign up page.

You can also try posting in classified sites such as Craigslist or Adpost, to promote your free newsletter or Ebook.

Conclusion

These are some of the ways to build a list. Remember to use discretion and balance when contacting your list. People today are bombarded daily with SPAM and promotions so they are extremely sensitive to being sold and over sold.

If you take the time to get to know your customers, you will build a relationship that will get them to make the buy decision based on trust and confidence they have developed for you. That is the best path to prosperity you can hope to build.

May Your Travels Be Prosperous.

By : Claude Pelanne