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Affiliate programs are the
ideal way to make your web site profitable. There is
such a huge range of web affiliate programs now available,
that there is almost certainly something here that will suit
you and your site. This is a double sided sword for your
business. The first side is developing your own affiliates
and the second side is becoming an affiliate of some
programs to compliment your products.
Remember in the e-commerce
section we talked about Mal's free shopping cart. Well he
also provides a complete affiliate systems in that program.
Your
Affiliates.
O n
e t h i n g a f f i l i
a t e s h a t e i s
l e a k
s!
Leaks is
where product owners use their website to direct potential
customers to other sites or payment processors which then
means that the affiliate could loose their sale. For example
if you use the Clickbank affiliate program it would be
considered a leak if you also provided a separate Paypal
button for customers to use.
It is so
important if you are going to use affiliates to sell your
products to make your website as leak free as possible. In
fact to do this I create a special site separate from my
main site just for my affiliates.
Some other
things to watch out for is making your affiliate program to
accessible as then people tend to join and buy through their
own link. I usually send out a personal thank you email to
all my customers. It takes time but lets face it they were
nice enough to buy my product and give me money and I want
to build relationship with them as they may buy some other
products.
I usually
include the affiliate link in their thank you email.
Remember a person that uses your product and likes it will
sell far more than just a money seeker.
To set up
your own affiliate program you can use your 1 Shopping Cart
System
Clickbank
or
Auto
Pilot Riches cart.
Using
Others Affiliate programs
The best way
to find out how to set up an affiliate program is to join a
few and see how easy it is to sell someone else's product.
See what things they offer you to help promote their
products and gauge how successful you are. It is another
learning experience.
Here is a
pretty comprehensive article re affiliate programs.
A
beginner's guide to affiliate, revenue sharing,
reseller, partner, bounty, associate programs
32
useful hints about affiliate/referral associate
programs
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How
associate/affiliate programs work
By
Allan Gardyne, CEO
AssociatePrograms.com
Brief description:
You send people to a web site. They buy something,
or sign up for something, and you are paid a
commission.
Associate programs are revenue sharing arrangements
set up by companies selling products and services.
As a web site owner, you are rewarded for sending
customers to the company.
For example, by February 1998 Amazon.com,
one of the pioneers, had attracted more than 30,000
webmasters giving Amazon.com wonderful publicity in
exchange for a small commission on sales. (By 2004,
it was over the 900,000 affiliate mark.)
These pay-per-sale or pay-per-lead
programs are usually remarkably easy to join.
After carefully reading the terms and conditions,
which vary from program to program, you place a link
from your site or newsletter to the vendor. When
someone clicks on the link and buys a product or
service from the business, you receive a commission.
Harness
your passion
I
laugh when I see "experts" proclaiming
that THEIR way is the way to make money on the
Internet. There are dozens, hundreds – maybe even
thousands – of different ways for imaginative
people to launch an Internet business.
One way which works well for many people is to
concentrate on a small niche. Choose a topic
in which you are passionately interested, and create
a web site around that theme. Then select associate
programs which closely fit the theme of your site
and blend them into the site, using text links.
If possible, write about the products from
first-hand knowledge, so that you become a
respected, credible source of reliable information.
The more targeted your traffic, the more likely it
is that people will buy.
The huge advantage of basing a business on a topic
in which you are passionately interested is that you
will enjoy running your business – it will
be much more like a fascinating hobby than a job.
Select
your target
Here's
what the professionals do. Before they do
anything else, they decide WHO they are going to
sell products to. (I know that's not strictly
grammatical, but "to whom" sounds awfully
stuffy.)
DON'T select the product first. Select your
target audience first.
Be precise. Zero in on a group of people with a
particular interest or problem. Now ask yourself:
Where do they gather? What magazines or ezines do
they read? What web sites do they visit? What email
discussion groups do they subscribe to?
How can you approach them?
Is it easy to get in front of their eyeballs? You're
looking for an easily identifiable target. There's
no sense in building a web site and then trying to
figure out how to attract your audience. Do it the
other way round. Decide who your audience is and
then build your web site.
Become
interested in a hot topic
Here's
another choice. Instead of setting up a site based
on your favorite hobby, delve deeply and become a
specialist in a subject which is hot right now.
You'll find that as you immerse yourself in the
topic, delving deeper and deeper, you'll become
intensely interested in it. The more you learn, the
less your business will seem like work.
You
can choose almost ANY topic to be the theme
for your web site. However, before you begin, look
in the AssociatePrograms.com directory and make sure
there are suitable associate programs which fit your
theme.
Aim to be the most knowledgeable person on the Net
in your small niche. If you build a really useful
site, people will recommend your site and link to
it, giving you wonderful free publicity. For us,
this began to happen only a month or so after we
launched PayPerClickSearchEngines.com
Sell
products which are in high demand
It
sounds so simple, doesn't it? In fact, it's so
simple it's very easy to overlook. Sell things that
people want.
Information products are good to sell because
that's mainly what people use the Internet for –
to seek information.
Digital products have high profit margins and
often have high commissions.
Bargains are always in demand. Coupon sites
which offer the latest bargains are labor-intensive
but have proved profitable. This is a highly
competitive field now.
Jumping on new products and the latest fads
can also reap rewards for the agile.
An Ernst & Young study found that the most
popular products bought online are:
Computer related products (40%)
Books (20%)
Travel (16%)
Clothing (10%)
Recorded Music and Subscriptions (6%)
Gifts (4%)
Investment (4%)
Get
paid – without sales
In
some cases, your visitors don't even have to buy
anything. If they fill out a survey, ask for a free
report, ask for a free sample or perhaps download
software to try, you get paid. WebSponsors
has dozens of such offers you can promote. You're
sure to find some that suit your site's theme. These
are pay-per-lead programs.
Good networks providing pay-per-lead offers
include:
You
need lots of traffic
If
you already have a busy site and the product you
choose to promote is attractive to your visitors,
you should start earning money straight away. If you
have a new, low-traffic site, you have a lot of work
ahead of you.
Several times I've seen suggestions that to make
reasonable money from a web site you need at least 500
unique visitors a day. That seems about right if
you have a very tightly targeted audience –
and also have a newsletter which gives you more
income and helps remind people about your site. Some
web site owners laugh at the 500-a-day figure and
say you need at least five times that figure.
Numbers alone aren't enough – you need to build
trust and credibility.
Merely attracting traffic isn't enough. You have to
learn how to encourage people to click on the links
and buy something. So make sure you promote really
good products.
For tons of good traffic-generating tips see Ken
Evoy's Make
Your Site SELL!
Aim
for residual income
Some
merchants who charge their customers monthly or
yearly fees pay affiliates residual commissions.
I earn residual income from AWeber
Follow Up Autoresponder System because it's an
excellent service which charges a monthly fee.
You can find dozens of residual income and lifetime
commission programs reviewed at LifetimeCommissions.com.
Remember that name.
When
will you be paid?
Some
companies pay you only after you have accumulated
$50 or $100 in commission. If you have a very busy
site, that's OK. For a small site without much
traffic, it could take a long, long time . . .
There's even the odd company which won't pay you at
all unless you generate a certain level of business.
Read the affiliate agreement before you sign up.
Rule
number 1: Go for quality
The
most important consideration when assessing
associate programs is to examine the product or
service offered. The better the product or service,
the more enthusiastic you will be about recommending
it – and you'll have a better chance that people
will want to buy.
For example, Ken Evoy's Make
Your Site SELL! and Make
Your Knowledge SELL! Ken is a strong believer in
OVER-delivering – giving the customer far
better value for money than expected.
Beware of anyone who raves on about the money you
can make and forgets to tell you about the product
or service. The sales blurb can be tempting, but
make sure you don't promote something which will
harm your reputation.
Earn
good commissions
Remember,
those links and banners are helping persuade people
to leave your site – away from the products or
services you're selling. So look for programs which
reward you generously. Corey
Rudl's Internet marketing course, for example,
pays me a very generous $65 commission. Of
dozens of programs I've tried, it was my top-earning
one for many months. My commissions fluctuate but
are usually about $1,000 a month.
Of course, high commissions alone are useless if
people don't buy when they reach the site. As well
as using products and services which match the theme
of your site, it makes sense to experiment and see
what interests your visitors.
Seek
sites that SELL!
It's
no use having a good product and a high commission
unless you also have good salesmanship. That's why
I'm really keen on Marlon Sanders' The
Amazing Formula. Marlon, who has a double major
in journalism and psychology, knows which buttons to
push. He offers real-time stats, a 60% commission,
and a site which is very definitely designed to
sell.
It really DOES sell like crazy – and that's
the test.
Perhaps even better designed for selling is Ken
Evoy's Make
Your Site SELL! which pays lifetime
commissions. When I announced that site in my
newsletter, an astounding 9.5% of the people I sent
there bought Ken's book. (In comparison, about 1% of
the people I send to Corey Rudl's site buy his
marketing manual. Of course, with Corey's high
commissions, 1% still gives you $65 for every 100
people you send – an excellent result.)
I highly recommend Make
Your Site SELL!
Seek
good tracking
When
you experiment with your promotional efforts you
want to know straight away how effective your work
has been, so you need immediate, or real-time,
tracking.
You want to be able to see quickly which of your
promotions work and which ones don't. Then you can
increase your sales and commissions by concentrating
on the things that work.
Look
for LIFETIME commissions
Imagine
you set up a bookshop as an associate of Amazon.
Someone visits your site and – hey! you're in luck
– buys a book. You earn 5% or 15% from Amazon.
Next time, however, that customer will probably just
go straight to Amazon, and might buy $100 worth of
books. You won't receive a cent on that purchase.
(Amazon has a good program but there's a weasel
clause in its contract. If you send people to
buy a particular book at Amazon and they click
around and then buy something else, you will earn
only 5% instead of 15%. Also, if they click around,
delay a decision, and return next week and buy, you
won't earn anything from that purchase. That's
unfair.
A few programs DO pay you for the second and third
and fourth etc purchase by the customer. The best
one I know of is Ken Evoy's SiteSell program (you'll
find I mention it a lot), whose products include:
Make
Your Site SELL!
the BIBLE of site-selling
Make
Your Knowledge SELL!
The BIBLE of selling what you know on the Net
I strongly recommend Ken's 5 Pillar Program. Click
here and join now.
You can also earn lifetime commissions from:
- Rob
Marlbrough, my friendly, helpful web host.
My LifetimeCommissions.com site is hosted by
Rob. No matter how many questions I toss at Rob,
he always has a helpful, useful reply. His
offers very good quality web hosting, too.
- Yanik Silver, co-author of 33
Days to Online Profits and several other
fast-selling books.
Don't
lose the plot
Some
web site owners sign up for dozens of programs and
clutter their site with them so much that it's
difficult to see the theme of the site. Affiliate
programs consultant Declan Dunn calls this the flea
market approach. Other webmasters try banner
farms – - sites which are a sea of banners.
Don't waste your time. If you want your visitors to
keep coming back, your site needs to have an
obvious, memorable reason for its existence.
Some web site owners have reported success with
programs totally unrelated to their site's theme. My
experience has been the exact opposite, so I prefer
companies which have products or services which
complement my site, although I occasionally
experiment with others.
Beware
of sharks
Some
web site owners don't put their name and address on
their sites. Ask yourself: What are they ashamed of?
What do they have to hide? There are sharks out
there in murky waters. Be wary.
Ask
for references
While
researching the company before you sign up, it's a
good idea to ask for the names of associates and
contact them to see if they're happy with the
company. A vendor will usually offer a carefully
worded, detailed agreement. If the vendor doesn't,
be careful.
However, don't rule out a company completely just
because it doesn't have a slick public relations
exercise. You could be overlooking a really talented
tech wizard.
How
professional are they?
If
the vendor is slow replying to your email, that's
also a warning sign. I've found that the most
successful companies on the Net are often amazingly
fast at replying to email.
Don't
sell AWeber to footy players
My
site is aimed at e-marketers and web site owners who
want to make money, so the AWeber
Follow Up Autoresponder System is ideal for my
site because e-marketers know the value of
follow-ups to achieve sales. They will recognize
immediately that a system that saves you time by
doing email follow-ups automatically has to be
highly useful.
However, you are unlikely to sell it on your site if
most of your visitors are football players who don't
own web sites. A footy magazine ought to sell
better.
Get
your own domain name
You
can promote revenue sharing programs from a free
site, but you create a much more professional image
if you get your own domain name. You'll also receive
more repeat traffic if you have a memorable name.
Show people you're serious. Grab your domain name
now before someone else does. It's getting harder
and harder to find a good .com name.
The cheapest place I know of to get a domain name is
GoDaddy. (It
doesn't have an associate program.)
Personal
endorsements increase sales
An
excellent way to increase your click-through rate
and sales is to write a personal endorsement
praising the product or service – so make sure you
sign up with companies which have excellent
products.
If you haven't tried the product, perhaps you can
get an endorsement from a friend who has.
However, successful affiliates buy the product
so that they can write a genuine, honest review of
it. That works beautifully.
Slightly
critical reviews work, too
Even
if your review is partly critical, such as my review
of Corey Rudl's marketing course in Associate
Programs Newsletter #5 it can still increase
sales dramatically.
Start
collecting domain names
One
good way to promote an affiliate program is to buy a
special domain name just for it, set up a small
site, and list the site in the main search engines.
Choose a memorable name. You can reserve one now for
future use.
It's an excellent investment.
Buying special, interesting domains for an affiliate
program also proves useful if you use offline
promotions. You can choose a domain name that
looks much more professional than most affiliate
links.
An excellent tool to use when searching for a domain
name is NameBoy.
Promote
in your signature
One
way to promote an affiliate program is by giving it
a brief, eye-catching, tempting mention in a
signature at the end of an email. I joined The
Amazing Formula program when I was tempted by an
intriguing signature similar to this:
Have you seen the Amazing Formula?
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/amazing
You can create several different email signatures,
each one promoting a different commission-earning
product, and use which ever one is most appropriate
for the email you're sending.
I use Eudora 5.1 email software, which makes it easy
to set up a range of different signatures suitable
for different occasions.
Try
a friendly P.S.
Some
marketers use a signature written in the style of a
friendly P.S.
For example:
All the best.
Allan.
P.S. Have you seen Marlon's new product?
"How To Create Your Own Hot Products in a
Flash"
It's given me a lot of awesome ideas. Marlon has
created another winner!
You can check it out here...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/create
WARNING: This technique may backfire on you
if you use it unwisely. For example, I've been
emailed by amateurs who dream up some thinly
disguised excuse to approach me, and then zap me
with a P.S. signature which promotes an affiliate
program. Do I buy from them? No.
Like all marketing, it needs to be aimed at the
right target and needs to be offering something
which the recipient wants. Think very carefully
about who is seeing your message and what effect it
will have.
The
worst way to do it
The
dumbest way to promote a program is to use spam
– bulk unsolicited email. You can wreck your
reputation, lose your Internet connection, forfeit
any commissions you've earned, and the company may
even bill you for the time it has wasted dealing
with complaints about you. Don't say you weren't
warned!
Selfish, inconsiderate oafs use spam.
The
laziest way isn't the best
Web
site owners doing very well with associate programs
usually don't just paste in a banner and wait
hopefully for the money to roll in. They write
endorsements, provide useful content, offer helpful
advice . . . in all sorts of creative ways they
weave the links and graphics into the content on
their sites.
Watch
for exclusivity clauses
Some
companies have an exclusivity clause (they want to
be the only retailer of that type on your site),
some allow only graphical links, and some want to
approve every word you write before you promote them
– more good reasons for reading the contract.
Appropriate
linking increases sales
Some
companies provide you with just a link to their main
page. Others let you link to various pages,
categories or individual products on their site.
Linking to categories may be OK. Linking directly to
an individual product is usually much more
effective.
Look
for companies which HELP affiliates
Some
affiliate merchants seem to forget about you after
you've signed up. Others work hard to help you
succeed.
I strongly recommend that you join affiliate
programs run by highly successful Internet
marketers, even if you don't plan to promote
their products. You'll learn a heap of useful
tips from their newsletters and by studying what
they do.
Neil
Shearing, for example, has hired an affiliate
manager who produces a particularly useful
newsletter with tips on how to increase your
commissions. It's an absolute must-have.
Ken
Evoy helps his affiliates by providing extensive
online information, an email helpdesk and three
extremely helpful newsletters, offering excellent
advice. The company works very hard to help its
associates succeed.
You'll also receive a LOT of help from Corey
Rudl, a hugely successful, very experienced
marketer.
You'll
need a newsletter
If
you don't have your own newsletter, you're severely
handicapping yourself. Now is the time to get
started.
If you build up your circulation by providing mainly
useful information, a newsletter is a superb
promotional tool, and a superb money-generating
tool. I like the ones that have very few ads, so
that's the way I run my Associate
Programs Newsletter.
Experienced, successful marketers such as Corey
Rudl always place a lot of importance on
building their opt-in lists because they know that
it gives them the opportunity to make repeat sales.
If you're keen, you can increase your sales and
commissions even more by creating not just one
newsletter but MANY opt-in lists for different
audiences.
If you want a no-nonsense, no-hype guide to
newsletter publishing, I highly recommend Ezine
Adrenaline: How to Create, Publish and Market A
Profitable E-zine on the Internet by Kate
Schultz. It tells you all the stuff you need to
know. I recommend it highly.
You
DON'T need a web site?
It
makes sense to aim for repeat customers and repeat
sales – and if you want them, you need an
interesting web site. It's much easier to sell to
existing customers than always trying to find new
ones.
However, if you want to just dip your toe in the
water and experiment a little, you can do it without
having a web site.
For good advice on this, see Chris Carpenter's Google
Cash
How
to use message boards/forums
Some newcomers to affiliate programs get
sucked into believing that all they have to do to
make money with affiliate programs is rush around
the Web pasting blatant ads on to message boards.
Don't fall into that trap. If you do, you'll
quickly annoy a lot people, ruin your reputation,
and get kicked out of programs by affiliate
merchants who don't want to ruin THEIR reputation.
You CAN make sales by visiting message boards if you
do it intelligently. Harvey Segal does, for example,
by building web sites which compare products. He
helpfully answers questions on message boards and
tells people they can find more details at his site.
WARNING: Many message boards do not allow you
to post affiliate links. Some allow affiliate links only
in your signature. So make sure you read the
forum's rules to find out what you're allowed to do.
Marketing message boards or forums are good places
to ask questions and learn from more experienced
affiliates. Here's our Affiliate
Forum
Aim
for repeat visitors
Often people will buy on their THIRD
visit to a site, not the first. So you'll miss out
badly if your site is not interesting and useful
enough to encourage people to return.
Planning a banner farm? Don't even waste time
thinking about it.
Affiliate
networks are a good place to start
Affiliate networks provide guidelines for the
merchants in them, so with any luck you're
associated with quality programs if you're with the
networks.
They're free for affiliates to join.
A popular network is Commission
Junction because it consolidates checks from all
its different merchants into one check, allowing you
to experiment easily with many different programs.
Other networks include the LinkShare
Corporation and Be
Free.
A smaller network run by a feisty bunch of people
who have a strong commitment to help affiliates is Shareasale.
I like their anti-parasite stand.
Here's a list
of affiliate networks with comments.
Amazon
makes it easy
The Amazon.com
associate program has a few faults, but it's still a
good one to join, especially if you're new to
associate programs.
Amazon, one of the pioneers in the affiliate
marketing industry, knows how to make things nice
and easy for new affiliates. You write a book
review, put it on your site and link to the book at
Amazon.com.
If you want to, you can create a large or small
online bookstore, but Amazon says that's not
necessary.
You benefit because Amazon.com is a high-profile
site with a good reputation. I like Amazon.com
because of its low prices and mammoth
selection of books.
If you're thinking of adding a bookshop to your
site, see it as a useful service for your
visitors. I don't regard it as an excellent way to
make money.
Four
weeks of Amazon results
In my first four weeks as an Amazon
associate on a neglected little hobby site Best
Gluten-Free Recipes that I created in 1996, I
earned $10.76 from 73 visitors sent to Amazon.com.
Not much? Sure, but that was on a site that was
receiving a few thousand visitors a YEAR. Also, it
took only about half an hour to set up the little
bookstore and even if I merely maintained a weekly
average commission of $2.69, that would be $139.88
in a year for 30 minutes work.
I've hardly touched that site for years, but it
still generates useful affiliate commissions.
Write
reviews in your newsletter
One of the most valuable lessons I've
learned in marketing is that people like buying from
people they know, like and trust.
You can provide affiliate product reviews in your
newsletter. Once your readers have learned to TRUST
you, they'll buy from you.
Lack
of results
More than a few affiliates have
complained about lack of results from various
affiliate merchants. It's difficult to know whether
this is because these affiliates have unrealistic
expectations or if there's a more serious reason.
The most common reason for lack of sales seems to be
sites which lack credibility.
It takes a lot of traffic for an associate program
to work well. Perhaps 0.5% of your visitors will
click on a banner – and when they get to the site,
perhaps 1% or 2% of them will actually buy
something.
For that reason, unless you have a truly innovative
idea, don't look at associate programs as your
major revenue earner. See them as a handy gap
filler – useful if you can't attract all the
advertisers you want.
You can also view them as a way of adding income
streams to an existing business.
If you want to boost your sales beyond the dismal
example I've given, think of ways to help you
visitor make a buying decision. To do that, you
need to be a trusted source of information.
If you learn how to help your visitors make a buying
decision, perhaps you can earn a good full-time
living from affiliate programs. It's possible. I've
been doing it since 1998.
(Writing personal endorsements instead of using
banners can boost your sales dramatically. In the Associate
Programs Newsletter, I've reported a case where
personal endorsements achieved truly astounding
click-throughs of about 50%.)
Start
your own network
If you're really smart, you won't just become an
associate, you'll start your own network of
associates.
See How
to set up your own affiliate program
List
an associate/reseller program
Associates and vendors:
Be the first to
list an associate/affiliate/partner/reseller program
in the AssociatePrograms.som
affiliate directory and I'll post your referring
ID number or your referring URL – FREE.
More
information
For more details of how associate programs operate,
marketing tips and interviews with affiliate program
winners, see the Associate
Programs Newsletter archives
Good
anti-fraud advice
http://antifraud.com
http://www.worldwidescam.com
The National Fraud
Information Center
http://www.scambusters.org/
http://www.scamfreezone.com
The
National Consumers League
http://www.netscams.com
The
National Consumer Complaint Center
http://www.mlmlaw.com
Anti-spam
advice
Coalition Against
Unsolicited Commercial Email
http://www.junkbusters.com
http://www.consumer.net/
Here's
what to do now
Have you downloaded Ken Evoy's free
"Affiliate Masters" course?
If not, do it now.
For anyone new to affiliate programs, Ken's free
course offers you your best chance of success.
Download the 10-day free course here...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/free-downloads/free-course.shtml
Now print out the course, find a quiet spot and
spend some time reading Ken's excellent advice and
planning your successful affiliate site.
Good luck!
Allan
Gardyne, CEO
AssociatePrograms.com
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