Hi everyone. My blog today talks about affiliate programs not just from the view of the affiliate but the merchant also. I think sometimes he or she gets overlooked when discussing affiliate marketing.
There are Two Sides of Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs have similar and yet different requirements for the merchant and the affiliate.
Let us look at the various categories that apply to both merchant and affiliate.
First of all advertising is definitely required. The merchant's advertising is directed not only to the visitor to his site but also to the affiliates he wishes to recruit. He probably would have to spend more at the beginning but as he gains more affiliates he would be able to reduce that cost and let them bring in the buyers. Of course he has expenses that relate only to him and we will discuss those later.
The affiliate's needs to advertise also and his advertising will be the key to his success. Driving traffic to his affiliate links is as important as to his own web-site if he has one. He can use any means such as email marketing, using squeeze pages, forum advertising, etc. He can't just sit back and think it's going to be easy without putting in good effort.
Choosing your partner, so to speak, is another category. The merchant generally will accept anyone who signs up, gives his correct information such as email address, name and address and website. There are some who will check out that site, for instance, but generally this is not necessary. Having your own site shouldn't be a requirement (although it is helpful) for the affiliate because it offers him a means to promote his affiliate campaign.
Now the affiliate has many requirements here. In choosing the product to promote he should have it fit with his marketing niche so if he does promote it on his website it fits in. He needs to research such things as:
1. Reliability of the product
2. Visitor interest. Is it something people are looking for? Just because the commission looks good it doesn't mean anyone wants to spend his money for it.
3. Testimonials. Are there some available, not just on the merchant"s site but perhaps in forums?
4. Buying the product himself. This will give him an excellent method to check it out first hand.
5. Is the price competitive? And would YOU be willing to pay it?6. Number of affiliates and the sales ratio. Too many affiliates may mean too much competition and too few may mean the product isn't very saleable. but on the other hand it may be a fantastic sleeper. He might have to take a chance if he feels the product is good. Limiting his advertising at first might help, until he evaluates his results.
In his evaluation of the affiliate program itself here are some of the questions he should address:
1. Affiliate program history. Is the program well known and does it pay as promised?
2. Marketing tools available.?
3. Sign-up procedure. Does the site offer clear instructions, availability of support at any time, payment procedures, etc.?
4. Account details are available at any time?
5. Privacy and terms spelled out?
6. Is there a good tracking system?
The merchant, on the the other hand, does have research he needs to do before offering his products for sale.
1. What kind of expense will he have establishing the product? This will vary greatly, depending on the product itself. Does he make it or does he pay someone else to do it.
2. Who sets up his website? Can he do it himself or does he need to hire someone?
3. How does he do the payment processing? Does he handle it on site or does he use a payment processor such as Clickbank? Buyers generally will trust the payment processor better, especially if it is well known. Also it makes it easier for the merchant as he doesn't have to worry about the details. How are chargebacks going to be handled?
4. What kind of commission is he going to offer? Should it be a one time payment, is there residual income offered and does he offer payment for future sales? How will he best track visitors and sales?
Mistakes made on both sides, not necessarily the same ones
1. Merchant sets commissions too low. Obviously won't attract many affiliates.
2. Sets commissions too high. His profit margin will obviously be squeezed.
3. Site not adequately explaining the merchants program. This will end up having the support center overwhelmed with requests.
4. Setting up too high a minimum payment procedure.
5. The affiliate doesn't advertise sufficiently, then blames the merchant for not having a good product.
6. The affiliate doesn't do the research necessary before he signs up.
7. Signing up for too many programs so he doesn't give enough promotion to any of them.
8. If he does promote several, he doesn't use an organizer of some type to help keep track of his advertising and commissions.
So each partner in the affiliate process has his own requirements and needs and yet there are similarities. It takes two to have a partnership and that's what it really is.
If you are interested in using affiliate marketing as your sole source of internet income or as an addition, I recommend going to
http://acsclick.com/?2695/ which not only recommends good affiliate programs but also helps you organize them.
Hi everyone!
Today I am going to give you an article on internet marketing tools-email basics by Shelley Lowery. I think it is very informative.
Electronic mail, better known as email, is the most important tool used on the Internet. It's much faster than snail mail, less expensive and enables you to instantly communicate with your visitors and customers.
Although most Internet Service Providers include email accounts for their customers, these accounts really aren't adequate for a Internet business -- especially if you get a large amount of email. Not only do the email addresses contain your ISP's name, but they are also very limited on features and options.
There are many email programs available on the Internet. However, the best program I've found is Eudora. Eudora is a standalone email program that works with any ISP. It will enable you to easily organize your email by filtering your messages into specific mailboxes. This feature alone can save you a great deal of time. What's more, your email address will be your own domain -- not someone else's. One of my favorite features is the ability to create an unlimited number of personalities. What this means is that you can specify the "from" address depending on the message you're writing. For example, if you're answering a support request, you can set up a personality that displays
support@yourdomain.com or whatever you'd like as the "from" address. Best of all, it's free. For further information about Eudora, visit:
http://www.eudora.comBasic Email Guidelines
Although writing an email message may seem simple, there are some important issues that need to be taken into consideration.
Subject Line
The subject of your email is the most important part of your message. Your subject should be short and provide a summary as to what your message is all about. This is especially important if you need to grab your readers' attention. For example, if you send out a mailing to your ezine subscribers, you want the subject to instantly grab their attention and intrigue them to open your message. Just because they subscribe, doesn't mean they'll actually read your publication.
Formatting
Although there has been a great deal of controversy over the best email format -- HTML or text, text is still the best option. HTML messages may look nice; however, not all of your readers will be capable of viewing your message. If you'd really like to use HTML, the best way to accommodate all of your readers is to create two versions and allow your readers to make the choice.
Line Length
When you begin typing your email message, keep in mind, some email programs don't automatically wrap the text. What this means is that although your message may look great to you, your email recipient may receive your message as one long sentence or it may look something like this:
Thank you for your interest in ourproducts.We are dedicated to providing youwith quality products to assist you in your endeavors.
To prevent this problem, limit your line length to under 65 characters per line. This can be accomplished by using a hard carriage return (hit enter) at the end of each line.
If you'd rather not have to manually format your text, you can do so online at the following web address:
http://www.web-source.net/format_text.htmLinking
When placing web addresses within an email message, some email programs will automatically create live links with web addresses beginning with "www." However, other email programs will only create live links when the web address begins with http://. To alleviate this problem, always include the full URL beginning with http://.
The America Online email program is in a class of its own. Their email program won't create live links with any form of web address. In order to create a live link within AOL, you must include a complete HTML link. To accommodate all of your readers, consider including two links for each URL -- one beginning with http:// and the other with the complete HTML link code.
When including an email address within an email message, always include "mailto:" directly in front of the email address. This will enable most email programs to create a live email link. AOL will require the complete "mailto:" HTML code.
Another important consideration is the use of punctuation with web addresses -- especially periods. Some email programs will include periods within a live link. When clicked on, the browser will return an error. There are a couple of ways to alleviate this problem. You can enclose your web address with brackets and place a period after the closing bracket <
http://www.yourdomain.com>. Or, you can place your web address on a separate line like this:
http://www.yourdomain.comWhen including a long web address within your message, some email programs will force part of the URL to the next line. When the live link is created, only a portion of the URL will be live. When clicked on, the browser will return an error. To avoid this problem, try to keep your web addresses short. If necessary, you may want to consider creating a redirect HTML page with a shorter URL.
The appearance of your email message is an important part of your professional image. If you follow these simple guidelines, you can almost completely alleviate these potential problems.
Copyright © Shelley Lowery
About the Author:
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design Mastery.
http://www.webdesignmastery.com And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book.
http://www.ebookstarter.com Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing Strategies."
http://www.web-source.net>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All is going well as I am learning more and more on my journey to internet success. Sometimes I get ahead and sometimes I feel that I have taken a big step backwards. But as I keep evaluating my choices I have made I do see a gradual advance in my marketing efforts.
One of my failings has been to try too many things. There is so much advertising it's hard to choose. Claims of huge immediate income I do manage to avoid most of the time. The sites that seem to promise a steadily increasing income, even though it may not be much at first, appeal to me.
I try to back out very quickly if the promises are obviously not going to be valid. I don't mean to give up too fast but one needs to be careful of investing too much too quickly. I know there those who say you have to stick it out for a while but I think the more informed you become the easier it is to make intelligent decisions, especially when it affects your pocketbook.
I have also found that the more I learn about this fascinating internet marketing business the more I realize that I have so much more to absorb. The choices out there are tremendous and gradually you will find the niche for you. But also the more you read you gradually find yourself leaning more and more to the area that fits you. Thus you can steer your learning into a more focused direction.
I urge anyone who is a beginner to take heart if it seems discouraging at first. Although I must say that at the very beginning I was all pumped up. After finding out that not everything is as it appears at times. then I began to doubt myself. But as I said before I do now see a pattern of small successes, because I have stuck to it. And you should too.
At the very beginning of my blog I stated that it was all about my journey as a beginner, and so far it has been well worth it.
Have a good day! Remember it's never too late!
Nancy Stetson
support@homebased-opportunities.comhttp://www.homebased-oopportunities.com/tssqueeze.html
Hi, my subject today comes from an article by Anik Singal. He is an author that I particularly admire and plan to publish several of his articles here. This article on mini-sites would be especially interesting to those who are just beginning and don't want or aren't able to jump right into a full fledged website. I think his subjects are pertinent and well written. The title is:
3 Instant Traffic Techniques for Mini-SitesWhen building websites there are two main options: large content site or small mini-sites. Large content sites normally focus more on providing "information". Mini-sites, however, normally have one purpose only, to sell.
Given what search engines want, large content sites are much better for getting search engine traffic. Most of the time (unless you're excellent at optimizing) it's hard to get mini-sites to rank well for competitive keywords.
This is why most do NOT rely on search engines for traffic to their mini-sites. In all honesty, the best strategy is to combine the two types of sites by having a large content site to rank well with search engines that feeds traffic to your mini-sites.
However, not all of us have the time or know-how to easily build large sites that do well with search engines. Most of us just want to put up a small site and start making money.
Here are the 3 traffic generating techniques I use every dayfor traffic to mini-sites.
#1: Forums/Discussion Boards
I have made more than $6,000 from one mini-site just by targeting it to the right forum in my signature file. All I did was leave a nice statement in my signature file; in 1 month I attracted over 5,000 targeted visitors that
converted to over $6,000 for me.
The basic strategy here is that you need to find related forums and become active in them. Get yourself known, find out what those members talk about and find an affiliate product to fit their demand. Then, make a nice, simple, yet captive site with a great headline followed by a review of the product. Test it and if it pulls well, you have a winner. If not, choose another product.
#2: E-zine Advertising
I would rate e-zine advertising at the second best way togather traffic to your mini-sites only because this technique can cost some money. Forum promotions have no cost (typically). However, e-zine advertising can provide much better results.
Forum marketing requires you taking the time to make sensible responses or asking good questions. With e-zine advertising, however, you just write a good promotion and let the publisher send it out.
An advantage of e-zine advertising is that you know before you promote that you have a targeted audience that has already expressed an interest in your topic. Also, the subscriber and the publisher most likely have a good relationship (considering the subscriber has not left)and so your promotion comes with credibility and may get more attention.
One of the keys to doing well with e-zine advertising (for me) has been repeated ads in the same e-zine. I have found that my results are best in the second of third promotion.However, if I get no results on my first mailing, I do not repeat that e-zine again. Warning: Not all e-zines are the same. Some will be majorwinners and others will be major flops.
#3: Directory Sites
Alright, here is the controversial technique that I use very successfully. I know some of you will think that it is "wrong" - but in the end, my job is to teach you how I get my traffic; that is exactly what I am going to do.
Directory sites are sites created by software that automatically build you a site which is 500 or more pages.These sites are just simply uploaded to a domain name. Most (if done right) tend to do well with search engines. That traffic is then forwarded to your mini-sites.
As you can see, we're holding fast to our policy of building a funnel system where we use the large sites to bring in the "no cost" search engine traffic (which is also highly targeted). However, all the "selling" takes place on our mini-sites.
Large sites = Traffic Gathering Mini sites = Conversion Into Sales
Obviously there are many more techniques to use to attract traffic to your mini-sites such as banners, pay per click,link exchanging, etc... I just wanted to discuss the top 3 that are the easiest to implement and require the least learning curve (in my opinion).
Copyright 2006 Anik Singal.
Anik Singal became a successful internet marketer at just 21 with a unique affiliate marketing system that helped him earn over $10,466 in just 60 days using mini-sites. Sign up for his free e-course at:
http://www.affiliateclassroom.com/x.cgi?a=r&id=1&aid=4268&p=10
The Affiliate Classroom is a step by step training program to help you easily launch and grow your own affiliate internet business. Our industry expert teachers and our growing community continue to support over 2,000 students in their affiliate marketing efforts with a reach of over 35,000 active affiliate marketers through our monthly magazine and weekly newsletter.
Have a good day! Nancy
http://www.homebased-opportunities.com/optin.html (to get your free ebooks)
http://nstet60prowealthsuccess.com ( to joining the fastest powerline on the internet right now. Free tour.
http://www.empowerism/e/194470 (Where else can you get such a complete turnkey system, an automated all-in-onepowerhouse that works for you 24/7, no matter where you are?)
