back in 1999 I didn't have my own product(s) to sell. Even
if I would have had my own products, I didn't have the
knowledge required to know how to sell them online.
So the FIRST thing I did after reading Robert Allen's
Multiple Streams of Income book was get on his conference
calls to learn about OTHER ways to make money online since I
didn't have my own products. That's when I first discovered
affiliate programs.
I learned that there are many companies on the
Internet that will allow you to fill out a short application
and INSTANTLY become their affiliate. These companies
provide the products for you to sell, give you websites and
marketing tools to sell them with, follow-up with any
prospects you send their way, close the sale, ship the
products, handle customer service and complaints, and do
virtually all the stuff you would have to do if you were
selling your own products.
Then whenever someone you send to that company buys
something, you get paid a commission for it. It's a win-win
situation. The company is looking for more people to promote
their products and they only pay a commission when an actual
sale is generated. As an affiliate, you don't have all the
burden of providing the product or service, following-up,
closing the sale, handling customer satisfaction issues,
dealing with "problem people", etc. You just get people to
the company's website and the company takes care of all that
for you.
So being an affiliate is really a mindset thing. Would you
rather run a company that is responsible for providing the
product or service, starting relationships with prospects,
following up relentlessly to close the sale, shipping the
product, handling returns, dealing with all the customer
service issues including people who are only want to give
you a hard time... Hey, a lot of people love doing those
things and that's great. We need those kind of people and
I'm deeply thankful for them myself.
Or would you rather simply focus on bringing prospects to
the table and letting the company do all the "dirty" work
for you? This is the choice of an affiliate.
The amazing thing about affiliate marketing is that you can
often earn a lions share of the profit. Yes, many companies
are willing to pay you more than they earn themselves for
making a sale. For example, there is one affiliate program I do very well.
Getting an easy-to-remember domain name is a vital part of getting traffic to these sites. Help your customers get a memorable, personalized domain name—as well as URL Forwarding, E-Mail Fowarding, and other helpful online services—at an affordable price.
The global market for digital music is EXPLODING and is expected to hit nearly $15 billion in sales by 2010 (that's up from just $2.7 billion in 2005). As an affiliate you are positioned perfectly to profit from this massive music revolution .
EyeEarn allows you to build a lucrative residual income stream by participating in our personal advertising network .
New global advertising network that taps into simple, easy forms of advertising that everyone can do while they're going about their day.
Leading internet income revolution to earn $20,$100 per hour working from their home.
Stands for the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs. It is an organization that champions the home-business lifestyle and provides its members with a multitude of resources designed to achieve maximum home-business success .
The most common Internet marketing methods, particularly useful in promoting the affiliate program are these:
DOORWAY PAGES AND SEARCH ENGINE REGISTRATION
A "doorway page" is a Web page that is used to lead people to the target interactive site. The doorway page contains a link to your target page. The target page is where you hope the user will take some action, such as purchasing an affiliate product or opting in to your program. The target page sells. The doorway page gets their attention and leads them to the target page. Doorway pages serve two main purposes: they are used to optimize search engine placement and they allow you to target your initial approach to different demographics.
BANNER OR TEXTUAL AD PLACEMENT (EXCHANGE PROGRAMS)
To gain traffic for your Website, you need to prepare effective banners and textual ads. In SFI, this is already done for you. Having banners and textual ads prepared, you need to find places on the Internet to place these banners and textual ads.
BANNER OR TEXTUAL AD PLACEMENT (ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS)
One of the easiest ways to get your banners and ads on a high-traffic Website is to place them on some online classified ad pages. Several major sites allow you to place classified ads for free. There are others, such as Yahoo!, that charge fees for placement of classifieds.
BANNER OR TEXTUAL AD PLACEMENT (AFFILIATE AND PAID PLACEMENT)
You can also pay to have your banner or ad placed on other Websites. This is a broad category that covers many different possible arrangements. You can pay for placement for a period of time. You can pay only for clicks actually received through your ad on a site. You can pay only for sales or sign-ups that come through a particular site. Affiliate programs encompass the latter of these options. There are services where you can register an affiliate program and people who go to these services can sign up to host your ads.
USING SAFELISTS, ANNOUNCEMENT LISTS, AND VIRAL MARKETING
Safelists are e-mail lists which allow you to join and post advertisements in exchange for receiving advertisements from others. You and other members send your e-mail to a list address and from there it is distributed to the members of the list. There are several such lists at Yahoo! Groups and other e-mail list services. These also are only effective if done in bulk. That is, you must create a separate "throw-away" e-mail address to sign up for these and use group mail software to send to hundreds of lists at once. The e-mail you will receive from being a member of hundreds of lists will be in the thousands per day. Thus, it is imperative that you use a different e-mail address from the one you use for daily correspondence.
PRESS RELEASES, RELATIONSHIP BUILDING, AND OFFLINE PROMOTION
While the offline world does not exist to the exclusion of the online world, neither does the online world exist to the exclusion of the offline world. Although the SFI program is primarily online, you can certainly use offline marketing in conjunction with your online techniques. You should combine offline and online efforts in effective ways. For example, you can send classified ads and press releases by e-mail to newspapers, which will then appear in print publications. The printed announcements and ads can then direct people online to your Website. Successful SFI Affiliates use the two together effectively.
