Newbie Affiliate Marketing

Archive for November, 2008

This is not written by me but I thought it was good enough to post here.

Internet Marketing newbies are those who form the largest portion of those who fail to make a living on the internet. This article is to help newbies not only survive but succeed and ultimately make a living online. If you are a newbie, chances are, these characteristics describe you.

You dream of making a lavish, full-time income on the internet, mostly on autopilot. This allows you the freedom to live the kind of lifestyle you desire without financial worries.

You are on many, many lists. Every Online Marketing guru has your name and email address on their lists. As a result, you get bombarded with at least 100 emails from these guys everyday.

You are on the internet everyday trying to figure out how to run a successful online business. You probably learn new things almost daily. You are constantly watching videos, listening to audios or reading e-books learning the newest money-making system on the internet.

You buy more info-products, software, scripts, systems, ‘how-to’ methods etc than you actually use. As a result, you have tons of PLR, MRR and RR e-books, the latest software and scripts, memberships to all sorts of programs that promise to be the silver bullet that answers the basic question, “What Must I Do To Succeed On The Internet?” sitting in your hard drive gathering virtual dust.

The combined effect of these characteristics is information overload and analysis paralysis. In other words, you hardly take any action based on what you already know or have in hand. You may think this article is irrelevant to you because you do take action. If that is so then why are you not succeeding beyond your wildest dreams? And why is there such a high failure rate (some say as high as 95%) among internet marketers?

The reason is that ‘take action’ is far more than just putting up a webpage, setting up your autoresponder, writing some articles, bidding on keywords in Adwords, advertising on Craigslist or even creating your own product. All these are necessary but the way to big bucks online is far more than that. Here’s what to do:

Firstly, reduce the number of lists you’re on. Do not worry about losing out on the latest information. You already have enough information to put yourself on the path to success if you just use whatever you’ve got now instead of perpetually reading, studying and learning the so-called latest method in internet marketing. Do you think the gurus got to where they are by constantly reading e-books without doing actual marketing?

Secondly, spend your time such that it gives maximum returns everyday. Reading e-books, watching videos and listening to podcasts are good but they don’t make you any money in itself (not to mention it takes half a day for some videos to download). Website design and creating graphics do not make you money by itself. All these activities are essential but if you spend too much time on them, you drastically minimize your income potential. You must proportion your time wisely between that which actually makes you money and that which does not.

Thirdly, focus on taking action, one step at a time. Every Internet Marketing project involves roughly the same steps. Find a profitable niche, identify keywords, create your own or find an affiliate product, create your website with a lead-capture form, drive traffic and track your progress. Thereafter, build a relationship with those who subscribe to your list through a series of emails. Do not merely shove offer after offer down their throats but be personal and give good tips and contents that would benefit your subscribers.

Most Online Marketing gurus say that making money on the internet is not rocket science. Actually, it’s true. The steps above are simple but if done regularly, will produce results sooner or later. It sure beats all the hit-and-miss efforts that so many newbies make, that result in ultimate failure. Online success comes by doing the right things the right way.

As far as network marketing tips are concerned, if there is one you should write out and plaster on your wall it’s this…”Never come across as a desperate marketer.”

Network marketing is full of desperate marketers yet the sad part is, many just don’t realize they are acting desperate and it generally stems through poor training and mentoring. Those who are classed as desperate marketers are the ones who go at a prospect from the moment they meet them either personally or on the phone and hammer them with their offer.

It eventually disintegrates into the marketer telling their prospect that if they don’t join they will either never see financial wealth or miss out big time. Let me ask you this…would you be impressed by this rhetoric?

Not likely and neither should you be. Where is there any value to the prospect with this type of interaction. There’s none so as far as MLM tips go, keep this impulse under check and develop the mindset of help first benefit later.

First Contact With Your Prospect

Take this network marketing tip to the bank… when you first speak to any prospect remember, it’s all about them. Here are some tips in creating a good impression first up:

- Make a proper introduction. Always ask if this is a good time for them. Once the initial introductions are out of the way then…

- You need to establish the prospects why and desires. What time frame they have set themselves to achieve these.

- Make sure you listen carefully to their responses. Write them down.

- When you ask a question, avoid interrupting the prospect or cutting them off. Remember, it’s about them. Before you ask a question, wait until they have finished speaking and then pause briefly before asking your question.

Network Marketing Tip – What Not To Do

As far as network marketing tips are concerned, avoiding a desperate demeanor on the phone is high on the list. For example, many new recruits are so excited about speaking to their first prospect they already have them recruited and placed in their downline before they’ve even spoken with them.

You should never ask your prospect to join your business because you’re in the best company which has the best products, life-changing in fact, and they have the best compensation plan bar none.

Yes, you know this is true but all the prospect will see is a desperate individual trying to sign them up at any cost. In fact, you’ll come across as having no interest in their needs, only yours.

This first contact should be limited in time. Your main aim is to understand what’s important to the prospect and then leave them with some information to go over before your next appointment. This is one of the best multi level marketing tips you’ll ever hear.

I just uploaded some affiliate marketing training for all my readers. Normally videos like these would go for $27.00 or more but I am letting my readers access them for free. Too they are protected with a short survey that must be completed before you can access the videos. When your done viewing the material just hit the back button on your browser to bring you back to this blog.

I am telling you these 4 videos that I have to share with you are GREAT stuff. I learned something about affiliate link cloaking that we all should start doing, I wish I did it when I first launched my blog. Who knows how many sales I probably missed or lost because I did not do it. If you a wordpress user I also suggest taking a look at this plugin Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress. All the methods outlined are very easy to do.

Anyhow let me know how you like the videos the links are below.

Article Marketing For Newbies

Affiliate Training Part One – Creating Hop Links & Cloaking Your Affiliate Links

Affiliate Training Part Two – Link Promoting

Affiliate Training Part Three – Promoting Affiliate Programs

Please comment and let me know what you think about the videos and if they were helpful.

Happy thanksgiving everyone. I just wanted to share a few very simple marketing tips that anyone can apply to boost their traffic and affiliate marketing sales or leads.

Many of us want to start making money on the web, we put together a nice site but no one knows were to start when it comes to marketing or they have limited funds to marketing their web sites.

Internet Marketing is popular in today’s globally competitive environment. Online marketers have the same goal, to excite the market about their product or service. It carries with it the same principle of marketing mix that involved advertising, distribution and sales. However, doing your promotions and other activities costs less online than offline.

What are some online marketing activities?

Email marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Viral Marketing

These are three of the easiest marketing activities you can do and at the lowest possible cost. This reaches more customers as compared to traditional marketing. Let’s look at the three methods below.

Email Marketing

This is the same as your direct mail campaign. You will create an email send it to your list whenever and wherever they are. You will need to excite them with the subject of your email campaign and present a useful body of letter.

The most important aspect of course is your list. You will need to build a list. There is danger of your email going to the trash bin if you send it to people you do not know. You can offer freebies to help develop your list and thus you will be able to send as much emails to your list.

You will not have to pay for stamps, no envelopes, and your recipients will receive your messages in a matter of minutes.

I suggest starting with free safelist first before going on to paid email services. You can master your writing skills here and find out what offers work best within your niche.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO or search engine optimization is the most effective online marketing endeavor you will be able to conduct. You do not need a list; you will only need to prepare articles with keywords that will help internet browsers looking for your product or service to see you on top of the Search engine list.

You will need to create articles and will excite your potential customers about your products or service, include the keywords that people might use in trying to locate your product. When internet browsers see your article in the first page of search engines, it is easy for them to click on your article or advertisement and you have a potentially interested client browsing on your website.

Pay per click advertisements

Just like in the traditional marketing where you pay for advertisements, you may also create advertisements and pay ad networks who will post your advertisement to their websites. The more website posts your advertisements, you will have more customers browsing your products and services.

The beauty of PPC is that it is very targeting. People will click on your ad because it interest them and you are only charged if your ad is clicked on. So the chance of converting the traffic is much higher than the 2 methods above if you have a strong landing page.

There are other online marketing activities but the above list is the most important endeavor you may take if you want to promote your products and services at the lowest possible rate.

Online marketing has no boundaries; your marketing efforts will surely reach many customers whenever and wherever they are.