The Truth about Affiliate Marketing ........
Is that it is very simple! (check at the end for updates.....15 March '08)
The Beauty of it is that you do not need a website but it would certainly give you another good stream of income if you add the link to your website.
Note: Your website must be associated to Affiliate Marketing!!! It is no good for example, say, having a website about fishing then putting an unassociated affiliate link on it. (Unless it is for a fishing affiliate product of course) It reminds me of a works van I see around town. It has the name 'Tonic' on it....yet it is a building firm! very confusing!
Basically, you are promoting somebody else's product. You do this by placing an advert with a link to their site. The link would be specially set up so all you have to do is to put your email address (this would be the address that links directly to your paypal site) at the end of it.
(If you do not have a paypal account this is very easy to set up, just google paypal and follow the simple instructions).
Your job is simply to lead the prospect to the site and not to actively market the product as their own sales letter would do this.
That being said, you do need to be very creative in your advert! you need an attention grabbing headline to encourage your prospect to the site.
Affiliate Marketing Program guide - 7 top tips for creating an advert:
1. Does your ad. attract the right audience
tip: (Subject matter in the heading)
2. Does your ad. retain the audience
tip: (further related sub-heading)
3. Does your ad. create desire
tip: (the money they could earn)
4. Do you prove it's a bargain
tip: (you could mention the price here)
5. Do you establish confidence
tip: (100% guarantee)
6. Do you make it easy to act
tip: (call to action - click now for further details)
7. Do you give prospects a reason to act at once
tip: (state 'you will be able to start earning straightaway')
You need to grab people's attention - give them a big idea - write a great headline.
Your headline should contain your greatest benefit, you need an attention grabbing headline/subject line.
RULES OF A.I.D.A.
Your classified ad. must attract the Attention of your prospect in a very specific way
Your ad. must then Interest your prospect in a very precise way
Your ad. must cause your prospect to Desire the product (or desire more info. about it)
Your ad. must clearly indicate what Action your prospect needs to follow
Just to further clarify!!!
- Show people an advantage
Prove it
Next, you submit your affiliate Marketing Program.
One Way is through viral publisher, or other sites. For example:
UsFreeAds - where you can post a free advert or pay about $9 a month for unlimited ad's complete with photo's and all the html tools.
Goarticles.com
Wordpress.com
Squidoo.com
searchwarp
plus there are dozens of others out there which you could easily find.
You can sign up for a free account at http://www.clickbank.com/ where you can browse the navigation bar to the clickbank market where you can promote, sell and write articles.
you cannot advertise affiliated products on http://www.ezinearticles.com/ as they will not let you!! this is because articles are read by a real life person!! and not a 'machine'.
That being said, however, you can
point people to your website with content or a page that re-directs to your affiliate site or set up a free blog. You cannot do blatent selling in the body of your article, only in the 'bio box'
If you are writing a (non affiliate) article this would be a very good site to go to as a lot of publishers and owners go there so may pick up on it
I hope you found this Affiliate Marketing program guide useful
Subscribe to Bonnies affiliate marketing solution by Email
Update 15 March '08
I forgot the golden rule!!!!
It is recommended that you do not tell your family what you are doing!!! there is a very high chance that they will not be supportive and some may even be envious of you. In the main, most of my family are supportive but you will alway get one that is not!! This prompted me to make this addition.
Affiliate Marketing Misconceptions:
Misconception: My site is on the front pages of the search engines because it starts with 'Bonnie' which is 'B' so nobody is likely to find it!
wrong...... If you market your business correctly it will be shown all over the place and will also spread out like a virus. I bookmark my site, advertise (using free sites), send it out to dozens of article directories, ping it every time I update it, send it to the search engines every time I update it and I also do all the above with every individual post/link.
A good example of this - I checked the first few pages of the search engines by putting bonnies affiliate marketing solution into the search box. As usual, I am dominating the front pages but not just under 'bonnies affiliate marketing solution'. Also, if I was only on the front pages because of my name, every page would surely only contain sites with bonnie in them as a header?
Headings with my site name in them, today, include the following:
Google:
Affiliate Weblog
Best paying affiliate program
Affiliate Programs
Getting more reviews on just about anything on squidoo
Follow me on my road to affiliate riches
Expert advice in category business opportunites
Blogger user profile
Author Go Articles
Yahoo
The easy, cheap way to earn money without needing a website or squidoo (yes ,this was an actual 'heading' on the front page!)
Feeds, feedburner.com
Follow me on my road to affiliate riches (this is actually taken from just one line on my blog!)
Having attended an entrepreneurs bootcamp in May (taken from one line on my blog)
Blogger user profile - Bonnie Toner
Best paying affiliate program
Affiliate program guide, blogs, photo's, videos and more on Technorati
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So that knocks that theory on the head! Also, one of my previous headings was under 'Ebay' when clicking on this it said how many times my blog name appears on the internet, on one occassion it was 1300 times! Unfortunately people make these misconceptions without properly understanding the term 'affiliate, marketing' or how, in-fact it works. Yet they assume stuff and think they know better. Really, you do not need these sort of people! if they cannot give you the support you need then forget about them!
Who knows how the search engines work! I looked over several pages under my name and found my blog name under a heading about George Clooney! I didn't mind being associated with that! I assume if somebody typed his name into the search engine that my blog site would be attached to it! I should be so lucky!
Misconception: When I put affiliate in the search engine you are not on the front page so how is anybody supposed to find you.
Not only could every affiliate marketer in the world not be on the first page but some of the top gurus actually employ staff who spend all day just doing that. Also it is highly likely that these people are also paying hundreds of dollars at a time on pay per click. I am not using ppc at the moment because funds will not allow.
Misconception: You are promoting the same products as everyone else so why should I need to come to your site.
Well, there are over 2bn internet users in the world. Not only is there plenty of business for everyone - people do not know what I am promoting until they come to my blog. Why would they click on my promotion link then think....oh I will get off this site, put the name of the program into the search engine!!! duhhhhh, the price would not be any different so why bother!
I pride myself on having one blog which promotes different products, hopefully some people would find useful and interesting products which can help them. which would you prefer:
a) Being inundated with 100's of emails so wasting your time reading them to see what they all offer or
b) Either being able to click on my blog for a good choice under one site, or being able to subscribe and get updates into your inbox as they happen, when I have done all the hard work for you!
My life would have been made a lot easier over the past 9 months if I could have subscribed to such a blog as mine!
Misconception: why does the same link appear 7 times on one page! (yes, really, how naive!)
Per one of my posts (link cloaker, www.viralURL.com/millions) I have cloaked all my links. Obviously by using a link cloaker you have to start off with the same code. At the end you can add another word (helpful so you know which program it corresponds to). You do not have to add the extra word so basically even if all the links were exactly the same they are set up to cloak each specific promotion. Obviously this question arose because this person had clearly not bothered reading my posts.
My thinking is that if people think they know better they should at least read what you have written! I would not dream of writing to an affiliate marketer and telling them what they are doing is absolute rubbish! That is the difference between affiliate marketers and non affiliate marketers who do not understand the business! Here are some other (quite ridiculous) comments I also received, read and have a good laugh! it shows a complete lack of understanding of affiliate marketing:
'I can't see that you have a product to sell, just a link to someone else's product'
(Yes! this is what affiliate marketing is!)
'Word of mouth cannot work on the internet. it is product placement that sells and you have no product' (really!!!!!!!)
'What is the point when you are offering a site that says welcome to my site now go somewhere else' (like I have said..no conception of affiliate marketing)
'No one on the internet is advertising you because you havn't got a product worth buying' (I am all over the internet, adverts, articles, lenses, and I am selling stuff!)
'I cannot comprehend any benefit to setting yourself up as an advert, advertising other people's adverts' (again, a complete misunderstanding of affiliate marketing)
'How many hours have you put into this and how much were your expenses for the seminar (note: The money from which helped raised over $900,000 for Gt. Ormond St. Childrens Hospital in London) and how long will it take you to cover all the time and energy you have put into this...how much money do you reckon all this time you have used is worth, £5 per hour, £10 per hour....'
Put it this way, this person is aimlessly trawling the internet for their own amusement (so wasting their own time) I have, not only set up this affiliate blog, I have also learned loads and load about loads of stuff! I downloaded stuff, and learned and learned and will carry on learning. Life is supposed to be a learning curve so if you go through it not learning anything at all, then what is the point! I do not feel that I have wasted any time in any way whatsoever.
I could go on but I am sure you get the picture!!! so, my advice to you is...
Web based business versus affiliate marketing blog!
Web.
Pay a lot of money for a professional to set up a website
Pay for a domain name
Pay a monthly fee for web hosting
Pay a monthly fee for an autoresponder
Pay to set up an optin form
PPC Pay per click
Then there is the price you charge for your one niche product.
Repeat the above for subsequent products
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Blog
Set up a free blog
Promote products as an affiliate (these programs will invariably have testimonials to the product)
Earn affiliate commissions for each product which would no doubt be for more money than you would charge for your own product
So which is the easiest????
The Golden Rule is therefore....
Only tell people what you are doing if you know, for a fact, they will be supportive!
That being said, it is important to have a mentor. One thing I learned at my business start up course and at the entrepreneurs bootcamp is that you cannot do it on your own! If you read my 'about me' on the front page, I mentioned my friend Jane I met at the entrepreneurs bootcamp. We ended up sitting next to each other and got on from the very start.
We email each other all the time, share our 'ups' (when things go right and our first sale!) and 'downs', when we have struggled to do stuff and things just won't go right - they do in the end so we share that also. I know I would not have got as far as I have without Jane's support.
It is no good having the unrealistic expectation that you will immediately start to earn money as all businesses have to be worked at. The average time to get a business 'up and running' is 1 year so I am pleased that I have started to earn money and all my hard work is paying off. All the 'doubters' will have to eat 'humble pie' when I earn my first million!
Bonnie
affiliate,marketing,solution
I am absolutely amazed!!!!! It is 18-15, UK time. I have just added a new post to my blog. Bearing in mind I had just updated this post prior to doing so. I sent my blog to the search engines and checked my rankings immediately afterwards
Would you believe that this updated post appeared 2nd on page 1 under the title....
Bonnies Affiliate Marketing Solution - Affiliate Marketing (what is.......) the next line simply picks out a line from this post... 'A good example of this - I checked the 1st few pages of the search engines........' this shows what happens when you regularly update your posts and send it out! it is also an example of the different ways that the search engines index your site! It is so unbelievably clever!!!! It also stated that the first page was page 1-10 of 17,000 for Bonnies Affiliate Marketing Solution.....ahhhh the power of the search engines!!
Until next time...
Bonnie
affiliate,marketing,solution
