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| Affiliate Marketing: An Industry Full Of Opportunity And Enterprise |
Affiliate marketing programs work by rewarding website owners for choosing to host a variety of advertising materials on their sites. The affiliates are paid on a commission basis; neither party pays any money to one another in the initial transaction. Affiliates are instead paid as and when they attract a new customer to the primary site.
The affiliate-marketing program is one of the most succinct and successful online advertising opportunities. It is a program that runs on efficiency and simplicity, but in a way that works incredibly well for both parties. Industries and internal sectors have thrived thanks in part to their involvement in an affiliate program. The affiliate marketing industry is a cost-effective way for small and large companies alike to reach out and expand their zone of influence. Online sports betting is a form of gaming that has been revolutionised since being introduced to the unrestricted realm of the Internet. By infiltrating a large number of sites, the banners have attracted the attention of literally thousands of people.
On the other hand the affiliate industry is a thriving source of income for millions. In the world of sports betting, affiliates have been reaping the rewards of the huge financial success and popularity of the industry. Individual affiliates can earn anywhere up to 35% of the money generated by each of the players that they introduce. With this revenue lasting for the entire lifetime of a players on the site, then an affiliate has almost unlimited earning potential, akin to that of the industry whom they represent.
With the two industries working in perfect harmony, each helping the other in order to generated extra custom and revenue, the sports betting affiliate program has become an industry to be reckoned with. Unlike most of the other online industries there are no specific personal requirements to become an affiliate either, all that is needed is a website and the will to host and advertise a secondary site. There are no tricks and no strings attached, which is why so many industries and individuals alike have flocked to sign up to the amazing opportunities created by affiliate marketing.
Which of the following statements about Affiliate Marketing describe where you are?
1. You know what Affiliate Marketing is.
2. You understand that Affiliate Marketing can produce a good income for you.
3. You believe in your ability to make money selling other people’s stuff on the internet.
4. You’re not exactly sure of what you should do first, where you should invest your money or how to move from learning to earning.
If this is where you’re at, you’re not alone. Every day, thousands of people launch into Affiliate Marketing in exactly the same place; ready to give it an honest try and ready to see results.
The truth is that for every thousand people who give Affiliate Marketing a try, only a handful will actually succeed in making any real money. Who makes it? Who doesn’t, and what is the magic difference?
The answers are going to surprise you. They definitely surprised me.
The “gurus” of Affiliate Marketing, like all business success stories, were the first to discover and fully harness the incredible money making opportunities available. Today’s “market of affiliate marketing” is crowded and competitive. You will work harder and longer today to make a fraction of what many made “overnight” when the business was young.
So does that mean you’re a day late and a dollar short when it comes to Affiliate Marketing?
Absolutely not! Especially if the following description is an honest assessment of who you are. (It might be helpful to share this with those who know you best and ask if they see some of these same qualities in you.)
Successful Affiliate Marketers are intelligent, computer and Internet savvy; they are perseverant and are committed to the business well beyond the “minutes a day” promotional pitches. Using the tools available, they’re able to track and maintain literally tens of thousands of pieces of information. They’re organized, they’re creative and they’re optimistic. The road can be long and frustrating. The “magic difference” between those who succeed and those who don’t can be found in their personalities, their brainpower and their willingness to work very hard.
So you’re still ready to go? What’s next? Where is the best place to dive in?
Resources, resources, resources.
Get started with the best resources available. Don’t reinvent the wheel; learn from those that have gone before you. But also remember that in any business, you will bring your own ideas and creativity to the table, so don’t be afraid to use them. Avoid the “cookie cutter” approach to Affiliate Marketing.
As you move forward, you’ll make many more important decisions. Should you launch your own web sites? What kind of advertising will you utilize? How will you continue to get expert advice and training as you go along? All of these questions will require you to sort through the myriad of resources out there.
Affiliate Marketing Advantage exists to navigate the jungle alongside of you.
The truth is that 99% of all affiliates make less than $100 a month, while the other 1% earn staggering incomes from affiliate marketing.
The difference lies in the way these two groups perceive affiliate marketing as a business model. Those who make good money view it as a real business, while others see it as a "get-rich-quick" scheme and consequently, never make any money.
Much of your success will depend on your attitude and your ability to stay focused and not give in to fears of failure. Failure can not be an option. You have to visualize and expect success. Otherwise, it may never materialize.
If you can answer "Yes" to the following questions, then you have what it takes to be a successful affiliate marketer:
* Do you have the patience and persistence required to build an affiliate business?
* Can you accept the fact that you will make mistakes and may even lose money at first?
* Do you understand that it takes time to build a real business and you will not get rich overnight?
* Are you willing to invest time into your continuing education?
* Are you willing to invest time and money into advertising and tools to build your affiliate business?
You can make an absolute killing in affiliate marketing, but it will take some work. And if you're just starting out, you have a lot to learn. But as your knowledge and skills increase, so will your income. You will almost certainly make mistakes along the way, but you can't give up. Just learn from your mistakes and move on. Right now, you have two choices:
1. You can take the plunge and start building a real business online... Or
2. You can keep looking for that "magic bullet" that will make you rich overnight without you lifting a finger. Unless you win the lottery, there is no legal business model that will make rich overnight. If you find one, let me know...
Think about this: if you had started three months ago, what would your monthly income be right now? What will it be three months from now?
Have you ever dreamed of putting your destiny into your own hands? Or have you imagined that you could earn commission on a brand-name or niche product just by placing a link on your website or in your email? If you have, you may want to try affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is essentially a website network. It is a modern variation of the practice of paying finders’ fees for introducing new clients to a business. Nowadays, affiliate marketing is primarily conducted online as the number of people surfing the Internet for what they want is growing exponentially. It is a popular method of promoting web business in which an affiliate is rewarded for driving traffic (visitor, subscriber or customer) to merchants’ websites through his efforts. Commission may be made depending on a certain value of registrant (pay per lead), sale (pay per sale), or any combination. Simply put, it’s about paying people money for helping merchants sell products.
Let’s say you created a website dedicated to promoting computer repair services/consultations and reaching out to potential customers. While your service is basically fixing PC problems, you notice that your clients also need registry cleaner utilities for the maintenance of their computers. In this case, affiliate marketing could involve contacting software developers selling registry fix or repair products, posting links to their sites on your website, and collecting a percentage of profit for each purchase those companies receive. In the long run, you can exchange links or sign contracts with the companies you are affiliated with. When someone browsing for computer maintenance or repair service on their websites clicks the link to your website and then decides to contact you for a consultation, the website that sends business your way will then receive commission.
In fact, you are not required to have your own business as far as affiliate marketing is concerned. You can make a living selling any products without having to take orders or maintain your inventory.
How is this done? Build up a website to promote the products you are interested in. Make sure to include appealing articles about the products. After your website is established, contact online companies selling similar products and set up affiliate agreements. Those who hit your site and become regular visitors will inevitably be interested in ordering the products advertised on your site. Once an advertisement link is clicked by your site visitor and a purchase is made, you will receive commission.
If you don’t have a website, you can still earn money through affiliate marketing by generating targeted traffic to the websites you’re affiliated with. Google Adwords is the most important PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising system on the Internet. It allows you to directly advertise your affiliate links in the Google search engine results and on their partner networks.
The key to be successful in affiliate marketing is simply driving traffic to your site consistently. The more hits on your website, the more chances you have of gaining profit from purchases made through your links. Promoting your website through eZine and Banner advertising and providing free newsletters for subscribers would be promising ways to generate traffic to your website. Once your site consistently achieves a lower ranking in Alexa toolbar (which means your website is popular), other website owners or companies will be more likely to join forces with you in affiliate agreements.
Affiliate marketing is probably the simplest business model you can choose to build a business. Of course the devil is in the details, as they say, but the overall model can really be broken down into six steps.
Before we get to the steps, I want you to ask yourself a question. What do you hope to accomplish with affiliate marketing? This is an easier question to answer than it might seem. There are really only two basic choices here.
The first is what I call the “quick buck” choice. In other words, you want to make a few dollars quickly, and you are not interested in building a business. If this is you, all you need to do is learn how to write exceptionally good ads, and then use them to promote your affiliate product. Many people will say I am wrong, but there is nothing wrong with doing this, as long as you are honestly not trying to build a long term business this way.
On the other hand, if you are looking to build a business with income potential for the long term, then you will have a longer road ahead of you. It will take you longer before you see any profit from your efforts, but it will be worth it when you are able to take a day off, or even a week off, and still have sales in your absence.
These steps should be followed in order. If you try to go out of sequence, you will not get the results you are after.
<b>1. Pick a Market</b>
Why pick a market and not pick a product? Because you will eventually want to add additional products into your pipeline. You should pick a market that interests you, and maybe something you already know something about. Don't forget that you are building for the long term.
<b>2. Pick a Product</b>
Once you have your market chosen, you should pick just one product to begin with. It will be very tempting to try to add all kinds of related products at first, but don't. Having just one product will help you focus on the important tasks. You will want to pick a product that converts well. What this means is that the product sells to a high percentage of visitors. This will help keep your cost per visitor down and increase your profits.
<b>3. Build a follow-up series</b>
Also called an autoresponder series, you should build one based on the topic and the contents of the product you are promoting. If it is a physical product you are promoting, you will have to create or locate content that is directly related to the product. As an example, if you are selling golf clubs, you could create a series about how to buy golf clubs that fit, or the benefits of custom clubs, or even something about the club preferences of famous professional golfers. Be as creative as you can, and do not stray off topic. It has been said that most sales are not made in the initial contact, they are made on the seventh. If you are not following up with your prospects, the bottom line is you are losing sales.
<b>4. Build an email capture page</b>
This is where you will capture information about your prospects so you can send your follow-up series. If you are building a business, having your own web site is a necessity, if only because you will control the content, and be able to capture email addresses for yourself. You might be able to get by for a while without this, but it just isn't worth it.
<b>5. Drive traffic to your squeeze page</b>
Until you are finished with step four, you shouldn't even think about traffic techniques. If you don't have anywhere to send the traffic, why worry about how to generate it in the first place. Depending on the traffic generation techniques you choose, it may take some time for you to start seeing sales in your program. You should spend this time developing one or two streams of traffic, and refining these techniques to help you drive more traffic with less effort.
<b>6. Find additional related products</b>
Once your business is making some money, it is time to start adding to your list of products. I don't mean you should go out and sign up for every affiliate program that is even remotely related. What I do mean is that you should carefully choose an additional product or two, and add them into your pipeline. Because you have been building a list of qualified prospects, you will be able to market these new products to them. This is the really long term money maker for your business. As long as you continue to recommend good products to your customer list, you can continue to make money off of them, even the ones who have already bought your last product recommendation.
So these six steps are all you need to go from nothing to having a profitable business selling other peoples products. It can be easy to loose focus if you are not seeing immediate results, so keep your sights on the end goal of having a profitable business. You may also find it hard finding your initial market and product. Take your time and choose the best product you can. If the product you choose to promote is not good, your prospects will not continue to listen to your recommendations.
Most affiliate marketers unconsciously create an invisible “glass ceiling” that curtails the growth of their own affiliate business. They do this by failing to create a substantial, positive profile on the Internet.
Are you reluctant to “stand out from the crowd”? Do you feel more comfortable being invisible on the Internet?
Most people experience a natural reticence to be “out there”, to “stand up and be counted”. How often are the front rows of a course or meeting left vacant because most people would rather be invisible up the back!
The same is true on the Internet, particularly with affiliate marketers. The noun “affiliate” means “connected as a part or an associate of…”, and the verb “affiliate” means “to connect to” or “join oneself to”. It does not, however, mean “lose oneself in…”
When you join an affiliate program, there is a tendency to lose your own personality in the “personality” of the program and its owner. Yet the really successful affiliate marketers are those who are able to place their own unique identity on what they do. They stand out by being themselves, showing who they are and what they have to offer.
Think about your last visit to an affiliate program forum. The people who most likely left an impression on you were those who showed a strong sense of humour, an uncanny insight or a way of viewing the world positively and energetically. These people leave their mark and their impression. Their forum postings are like “footprints in the sand” – they are not afraid to be different, to let their personalities shine through.
If you are going to develop a distinctive profile, you need to understand your own strengths and capacities. Your distinctiveness as an affiliate marketer derives from your unique life history and skill set. You need to find an affiliate program that will build on these strengths and enable you to realize your potential.
The real challenge for you as an affiliate marketer is to find an affiliate offering that draws on your unique knowledge, skills and competencies. You need an affiliate program that enables YOU to “shine”!
What “image” or “Internet profile” are you trying to create? Are you able to be yourself through your affiliate program? Or are you being an extension of someone else?
You need to find an affiliate offering that aligns with your desired profile and your unique competencies. This is the way to create an affiliate business, not just affiliate cheques.
To achieve this, you have to develop yourself. You will need to progressively develop self-awareness, the capacity to overcome fear of visibility and a willingness to continuously review what you are doing. A real synergy will emerge as you learn to integrate your affiliate offering, your profile and your competencies.
You will find that you will break through the glass ceiling as you make a real statement about who you are, what you value and what you have to offer. You will make a real difference because you can “add value” to your affiliate offering in a unique way. This is the only sustainable source of competitive advantage in affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing's been a staple of the internet marketing scene for many years now. It's highly touted as a money maker for newbies and experienced marketers alike. But does it really pay to be an affiliate marketer? Let's take a look to learn more...
Basically affiliate marketing's an agreement between a web site owner and a merchant. The web site owner's actually an advertiser for the merchant or product creator. The agreement is a contract between the two parties that stipulates that the site owner can use various methods including the space on his site to promote the merchants goods. The merchant meanwhile agrees to pay a percentage of each sale generated through the affiliates personalized link.
This benefits both sides because the product creator spends nothing to advertise their goods and the affiliate pays nothing to research and develop new products.
This creates a win-win situation.
The product creator wins by saving money on advertising, which is one of the most costly aspects of doing business, by passing this cost on to affiliates. Basically it's a pay-per-performance deal because the merchant doesn't accrue any costs until the sale's made and the merchant pays the specified commission.
The affiliate marketer wins by being able to sell an already developed product, thus saving the time and money on the front end by not having to deal with R&D and product creation. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do as an affiliate is find as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and yourself.
Another benefit to the affiliate is that most programs are free to join and have pre-made sales material so your marketing experience doesn't have to be that of an expert.
Probably the biggest benefit to being an affiliate marketer on the internet's the internet itself.
Because of the global reach of the internet it's very easy to reach tens of thousands of prospects for almost any type of product line. It's also very easy to intensify your efforts as an affiliate marketer to exploit new and productive strategies such as viral marketing, ebooks, special reports and autoresponders.
Lastly, as an affiliate marketer you get to pick and choose between many different products to promote. You're not married to a specific product or even a specific product type. Your risks are minimal because there are no long term binding contracts so if one product doesn't bring in a profit you can quickly and easily replace it with another.
All in all affiliate marketing's still an excellent way to earn income from the internet. Perform your due diligence, find a hungry market, find a good product and go for it!
Copyright 2006 Mdarma
History of affiliates program.
The affiliate program was also known as Associate program. It started around the year 1994 - 1996 and Amazon.com spearheaded with the intention of increasing revenue. It was simply a way of getting web sites directing traffic or buyers towards other sites. By doing this, the traffic to these sites increased. With this increase in traffic, the revenue also increased.
Affiliate Marketing is really a huge Internet business. All that is required to do is to sell someone’s product and you will receive commission. Isn’t it great! Now Clickbank and Commission Junction are large organizations that have capitalized this system. It gets three parties together, the manufacturer, the agent – affiliate marketer, and the end user. Do you know by using affiliate marketing you can virtually market anything in the Internet?
Many individuals are using this option successfully and are making a sizeable income. Affiliate marketing is a cost effective and efficient way to promote products and services in the Internet.
Affiliate marketing is all about promoting or selling other people’s products and services. Most of these affiliate programs offer a commission of 60-70 % of the selling price. If you are keen in affiliate marketing, you will need to have your own website. From your website you channel visitors to the affiliate’s main page to do the purchases. To do this, you have to join some programs and represent them to promote their products or services.
The beautiful thing about this business is that you can operate it from your home, well anywhere and at your own time. Usually you will be paid at the end of the month. However, some operators have set a minimum amount you have to make before they make the payment. If one has not made the minimum amount, this money will be added on to your next month earning.
Some operators do have an affiliate program, where you can introduce friends below you and you will also receive a percentage of their earning. Isn’t this great?
There are some individuals who have mastered the strategy of affiliate marketing and are making good income. These successful people are sharing their ideas with people like you and me. All we have to do is to tap their brains and move on with our goals in making sizeable/residual income.
This is a great business opportunity, but it takes a lot of time and effort to build your clientele of people. Be patient and follow what your guru tells or teaches you. Success is within you
Successful affiliate marketers see obstacles as opportunities to learn, not reasons to give up. They have learnt the underlying secret of success – persistence pays.
Persistence brings its own unique pay-off in the form of what I call the four R’s – resources, realization, relationships and rewards.
1. Resources
If you persist with an affiliate program you get to understand the resources available to you and how best to use them for your program. Many affiliate programs today provide support for affiliate marketing in the form of solo ads, classified ads, banners, suggested signature lines, articles for your website or blog, safelist memberships, viral e-books, viral reports, marketing videos and autoresponder message series.
These resources are often backed up by forums, chat rooms, teleconferences, and tutorials where you can learn how to make the best use of these resources for the affiliate program involved.
It is not possible in two or three months to get to effectively use all these resources or fully understand your affiliate program, the product and/or service offering and the dynamics of the relevant target market.
By not persisting with your affiliate program, you are missing learning opportunities and under-utilising the resources available to you (which you are ultimately paying for).
2.Realization
Persistence brings increased realization through exposure to these affiliate resources, to successful affiliates and to the systems that support your affiliate program. You learn (over time) what marketing strategies are the most cost-effective for the product or service that you are marketing through your affiliate program.
You also come to fully appreciate your program’s follow-up system, reporting system and commission structure. Persistence helps you understand better the features and benefits of your product/service offering, the real target market and how to sell to this market.
Persistence can bring the realization of how best to use your personal resources and skills for your affiliate program. It can also help you realize ways to achieve synergy between the various affiliate programs you are involved in.
3.Relationships
Persistence develops relationships over time, particularly if you are active in communicating with your sponsor, upline, downline and other affiliates through the affiliate program’s forum, teleconferences or teleclasses.
Relationships, in turn, bring resources, support, encouragement and ideas to help you to improve your effectiveness and your affiliate income. You can access affiliate marketing coaching through these relationships.
If you do not persist, you cut yourself off from these relationship benefits.
4.Rewards
Persistence can bring a range of rewards. Loyalty to an affiliate program is often rewarded by a sponsor or program owner. Sometimes this takes the form of discounts, bonuses, extra credits or downline members. You may also benefit through the natural evolution of the program as it is refined, improved and upgraded. Long-standing members are frequently given first access to new offerings.
Persistence can result in your emerging as a program leader which in turn can lead to your receiving lucrative offers to act as a leader in another affiliate program.
These four R’s – resources, realization, relationships and rewards – are interdependent. With persistence comes a form of synergy where the four R’s reinforce each other and you receive an even greater benefit from the fact that they are actively working together to increase your affiliate income.
Persistence pays – it takes you to another level of development as an affiliate marketer, deepens your understanding of affiliate marketing, enriches your online experience and brings monetary rewards.
How often have you wondered: Where would I be now if I had only persisted with that other affiliate program?
Copyright 2005 - Ron Passfield. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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