You’ve been duped

Unfortunately, you’ve been led to believe affiliate marketing is easy. This is partially true. It is the easiest business you can possibly start. But starting your own business is really hard, so it’s all relative.

The bad news…

And to make matters worse, you’ve taught to do it the hard way. You’ve been told to find quality products. Next to pick your keywords carefully. Then buy some keyword ads that send traffic to the product. And sit back and collect the profits. But, it’s all wrong.

Don’t bother with keywords

There was a time when this worked. But keywords are too expensive now. So, throw it all away.

The NEW game

There is a solution to this problem. Here’s how to win at this game.

• Get into CPA marketing
• Utilize demographics data
• Market on display networks

Get into CPA marketing

CPA means Cost Per Action. It’s much better than promoting a product. Because you don’t have to get people to spend money. You get paid when they take an “action”. Such as filling in a form. Which is much easier than getting them to buy something.

Do demographics research

Keywords are no longer relevant (you’ll see in a minute). But demographics are highly important. First you select your CPA offer. Then hop over to Quantcast.com. And discover the exact demographics of your ideal prospect.

Market on display networks

Now you have your offer and your demographics. You can target these exact demographics on display networks. Using image ads. And there was no keyword research required. And you’ll save a fortune. Image ad clicks are much cheaper.

Summing it up

This is truly a quick cash concept. Because getting started in CPA is free. It’s much cheaper to do image ads than keyword ads. You can laser target with demographics. And your commission is much easier to earn.

Info marketing explained

This is by far the simplest business you can start. You create a product that provides information. And other people buy this product to get the info. Pretty simple, wouldn’t you say?

How do you make it work?

OK, the concept is simple. However, to succeed people need to want the information you’re providing. So step one is to discover what kind of info people want. How can you find out what people want?

A super simple trick is to just to check “answer” sites. Just go to Yahoo! answers or ask.com and you’ll get a good idea of the kinds of things people need help with. You’re looking for popular questions or common themes. That people are having trouble solving. And provide the answer – in the form of an info product.

Think about this:

If you’re concerned about information product development Consider this: An ebook is just a series of articles. Don’t try to write a whole ebook. Just write some articles for your blog. And once you have bunch of good ones, flesh them out, add to them and put them together into an ebook.

OK, what’s so hot about digital products? Interestingly enough, we’re back to the name of this article Here are 7 reasons for you:

1. Simplicity

Once it’s built it runs pretty much on it’s own. There is almost no support. So it’s nearly a 100% hands-free business. It’s like having an automated cash machine.

You have no physical inventory. You never have to deal with shipping. It’s all delivered online.

2. Repurposing

After you’ve created a few ebooks. You can combine them together to create new high ticket products. It’s a simple matter to merge a few ebooks into one. And you’ll be able to charge much more for this “new” product. People will be willing to pay a lot more for one big ebook. As opposed to a bunch of little ones.

3. Resellers

Since it’s your product, you can offer other people the resale rights. Recently, resell rights have become extremely popular, because people just don’t want to invest the time and money into making their own. And what’s more you get to charge two to three time as much for these rights.

4. Leverage

Leverage your ebook by using the content in different ways. Take parts of your info product and turn it into a email training series. And build your list with it. A list is it’s own reward!

5. More leverage

Don’t stop there . . . break it into several smaller reports. Then you can use the reports as the front-end of your product funnel. They can be free or low prices. And it still benefits you because it in a lead-in for the main product. You can even make these viral by allowing your affiliates to give them away. Wait, did I say “affiliates”?

6. Affiliates

This is a real power strategy. When you own your own products. You’re able to let other people market it for you. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bunch of other people doing your marketing for you? Well, you *need* your own product to get affiliates.

7. JVs

Last, but definitely not least… The number one way to launch your success is through joint ventures. And this is probably the number one reason to create your own product. Because if you don’t have you own product, you’ve got nothing to JV.

In closing

If you can’t see the power of info product marketing, then you’ve probably been sleeping. With your own info product you can write your own ticket. Because you’re the boss! So just get started:

• Go to answers.yahoo.com
• Discover what questions are being asked
• Start writing

Don’t make info product creation any more complicated than that. Before you know it, you’ll have your own info product.

Why does it work?

It’s simple. Audio breaks the silence of the web. Audio adds a human quality to your site. It also makes your site feel more real. In short, it makes your site come alive. Which fascinates greater interaction from your visitors.

Here are the benefits

You’ll receive two immediate benefits to your bottom line when you employ the use of audio. You will close more sales. Secondly, you will not have to spend as much to make the sales. Instead of having to pay a professional to write you a great sales letter. Simply record an audio message yourself. Your visitors will respond better to a heart-felt message from you than some fancy copywriting.

You’ll also get better conversions on your list opt-ins. Most people need to be led by the hand. So you just add a simple audio that says: Enter your email address in the form. Just this one simple thing will boost opt-ins up to 315%!

Some web audio ideas

A welcome message on your homepage. Most people abandon a website within just a few seconds. Your welcome message could make them stay when they would normally leave.

Step-by-step instructions. The same principle the we used to boost opt-ins applies. You just explain what to do first, then next, etc. And take them all the way through buying your product.

Get testimonials for your services and products. A written testimonial is good. But audio testimonials are great! It’s pretty easy to fake a written testimonial. Using audio makes it much more believable. Which boosts your sales for sure.

Sneaky tick

Did you ever think of making a product just by recording some audio? This is by far the easiest content to produce. Plus people love audio products. The great thing about audio products is people can take them with them on the go. And once you record the audio, you can pay someone to transcribe it for you. This is the easiest way to “write” an eBook!

How hard is adding audio?

It’s actually really easy. You can find a lot of programs that create audio buttons for you. There’s no knowledge required on your part. The software creates the audio button code for you. Simply copy the code and paste it in your site. You don’t need to even consider this part.

In closing

Let’s take another look at the benefits. Using website audio will increase your conversion rates. You’ll enjoy more customer sales. You will also increase your subscriber opt-ins. And you can use it to create products and sales letters quickly. It’s a less often used medium. But you’ll save a lot of time and money. Get started right now and realize instant results.

Marketing with video

No one would deny the power and popularity of video. People love watching videos and that’s why they’re everywhere. It’s so much easier to keep people’s attention with video. So you can put this to great advantage in your affiliate marketing.

Here are a few ideas for creating affiliate videos:

• Record your testimonial
• Walk-throughs
• Record the order process
• Record a preview of the members area

Testimonials

This is probably the easiest of all. Just click record on your web cam and start talking. It does not need to be polished or pro. Seeing a real person on the other end helps your viewers make a buying decision. And the mess-ups or mistakes just make the video more real. So serious, just turn on the camera and talk. And if you don’t want to show your face, use one of the next ideas.

Do a video walk-through

This one is a little more subtle. Basically you’re doing a tutorial on how to use the product. And seeing it being used is a great way to make people want to buy it. If it’s useful, then what you’re teaching just makes people want it. So pick some really helpful aspect of the product and show how to use that.

Ordering

This could be the most powerful method of all. Do a screen capture of the ordering process. There is nothing more motivating than watching someone buy something live. First, it’s social proof. In general people are more likely to something they’ve seen other people do. Second, it builds trust. People believe you’re giving them good advice if you take that advice yourself. And don’t forget about the need to “keep up with the Joneses”. It’s simple – you have it. Now they want it. To really cap this one off, end your video with: In order to get to see the inside, you gotta buy the product.

Do a preview video

Here’s an easy way to show the value of the product. What you do is record a tour of the back end. And show them everything they get by ordering. And it helps soften the skeptics. It’s much easier to trust they’re getting something if they actually seen it.

It’s easy!

You don’t need any special training for this. Anyone can create stunning videos with some easy-to-use software. All the work is done by the program. So please don’t let technical worries slow you down. Remain focused on the benefits:

• Make more money Using videos in your affiliate marketing will dramatically increase your sales. Start using videos because people love them.
• Less refunds You’ll also have less of your commissions taken back. Your customers will know what they’re getting into ahead of time. So, very few of them will cancel their order.
• Beat your competition! This is a really easy thing to do. But pretty much no one does it. So, you’ll be way ahead of the crowd.

Get started right now and take your affiliate marketing to the next level. Not using video is detrimental to you business. So do it!

OK, but how?

Here are the three components of list building:

• The Squeeze Page
• The Bribe
• The Opt-in Success Page

Your Landing Page – The landing page is the page that has your opt-in form on it. This page is the one that asks them for their email. This page needs to look professional. It’s also got to be free from distractions. And have a clear call to action.

Failure to include a great “call to action” will result in failure. Your call to action tells the visitor what to do. Without this your opt-in rate will plummet. The funny thing is that people just don’t know what to do unless you tell them.

You can take your opt-in page to the next level if you make it a video squeeze page. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. Plus it give you a chance to tell them to opt in multiple times. And you can have the video just tell them to fill in your form after it’s done playing.

It’s OK, if you’ve never made a video before. Hiring out-sourced help to do it for you only costs $150 – $250. You can also find ready-made list building tools that give you squeeze page templates.

Your Bribe – The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. People won’t give you their email for nothing. Nobody likes spam, so most people guard their email closely. So you have to give them a good reason to do it.

The only way to make this work is to provide real value. That means you make it something people would actually want to receive. And will be able to actually benefit from it. A few ideas:

• An eBook
• Software
• A video tutorial
• An email series

Basically, you just need some content. It’s got to be something helpful for your new subscribers. It goes without saying it must be free. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

Now, if you don’t know how to create the bribe don’t worry. You can just pay someone else to make it for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. One easy and effective bribe is a 5-part email training series. Each email will cost between $20 and $25. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

You can also get email list building tools that include the premium. There are two important things about the email series. The first thing is that it delivers value to your subscribers. And second, it needs to make you money. One very easy way to make some money from your list is with affiliate marketing. This is such a simple solution because you don’t have to create the product. And you can earn some commissions immediately from your emails.

Your Confirmation Page – The last bit is the thank you page. This is where your visitor goes after opting into your list. A great thing to do here is provide some immediate value. This helps them feel they’ve made the right decision giving you their email. And it helps you establish the relationship. Then they’re more receptive when you email them.

You can use a “done for you” email marketing system. You can also put the whole thing together on your own. And do your own writing for this content. Or pay a freelancer to write the content for you.

Summary

Whether you decide to build your email funnel yourself. Or pay a freelancer to write produce it all for you. Or if sign up for a “complete package” solution. The important thing is that you build your own list starting now. Because once its built… You’re free to make money at the push of a button.

The number one strategy to increase your affiliate sales is preselling.

Before we start, let’s talk about what preselling actually is. Well, it is an art. And it’s also a science. And it’s function is to prepare your reader to buy something. Then you send them to the site that sells what you’ve prepared them for. And if it’s done properly, the process is completely sub-conscious.

In a nutshell, you provide value. And then refer them to the product website. In a second we’ll talk about how to do actually it. But before we do, you need to know why it’s so important. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

• It helps your reader trust you – And gaining the trust of your readers helps them want to click your links. And the more traffic you can send to the sale page, the more commissions you’ll earn.
• It disarms your reader – When you’re preselling vs. pitching, you’re reader doesn’t feel the need to be guarded. Unguarded reading means they’re not filtering what you say. So your content get absorbed.
• It puts them in a buying mood – Now they’re open to hearing what you’re telling them. So they become more receptive to other messages. This includes the sales website you send them to! And being open to the information there means they are much more likely to buy.
• You make more money – Now your reader arrives at the sales page in a buying mood. Open to the sales message and feeling safe. The only thing that can result is increased sales!
• Your customers are happier – People like to make their own buying decisions. Instead of being manipulated into buying. And this leads to greater satisfaction with the product.
• It boosts your profits – Happy customers ask for refunds much less often. Which means you keep more of your affiliate commissions.

The need to presell is clear. You earn more commissions. And produce happier customers. Everybody wins!

How does it work?

You’ve learned the importance of preselling. And hopefully you’re convinced you need to start doing it. So, it’s time to break down how it works. Like we talked about before, it’s an art. And it’s a science.

The art of preselling

Effective preselling requires gaining your readers trust in order for them to let down their guard. This can only be accomplished by providing actual value in the information you’re presenting. But you can’t give them so much that they think they have everything they could need, and that’s what makes it an art. That is, they have to be wanting more when you refer them to the product sales page for the product you’re trying to sell. And since they’re more open, they are more likely to make a purchase.

It’s also a science

There are also several key elements that need to be included.

First of all, it’s important HOW you present your information. You have to have your end in mind. In the end, you want to sell a specific product. You use the information to do this in one of two ways. First, you can provide useful but incomplete information. The second way is to provide all the information and let your reader discover how hard it is to actually implement it. In either case, the product you’re referring them to solves the problem for them.

You also have to link to the product you’re promoting discretely. You have directly to the home page of the product. That’s because nobody likes to click on affiliate links. But, without your affiliate link, how do you get credit? Well, that’s part of the science of this whole process. You “pre-cookie” your reader before sending them to the sales page.

You also want to link to the sales page from inside your article’s content. It’s habitual to click on words and phrases that are hyperlinked. And when the words are in context like this, it makes perfect sense for your reader to click them.

Using this system, you’re virtually guaranteed to increase your affiliate business success.

OK, here’s the not-so-good news:

It’s extremely difficult to do this correctly. Think about everything that goes into crafting an effective preselling article: Great content. First of all, you actually have to write great articles and give value to your readers. This means you have to be able to write well, and have enough knowledge to be useful. Strategic writing. Yes, you must providing useful content. But, you also need to know how to present the information in a way that give value to the reader. And still leave them wanting more. Or provide so much information that they see how hard it will be to implement.

Picking products. You also need to determine what products you’ll be preselling. If you can manage to get the article written well. Your efforts are completely wasted if you don’t pick a winning product.

Technical skills. One of the keys to this system is using “covert cookies” for the tracking. This is fairly simple – you use a 1 X 1 image and set the “source” to your affiliate link. (Just don’t mess it up. Otherwise, you won’t get credit for your sales.)

In closing:

Now you know exactly how to presell effectively. Using these techniques will increase your affiliate sales by 500% or more! It’s absolutely critical to do this every time – and to do it correctly. Take action now. Put in the effort to reap the greater rewards.

How, then do you get traffic to your site?

Here’s a short list of great, free traffic generating methods:

• Web 2.0 Methods
• Article Marketing
• Video Marketing

Let’s talk about each of these.

Web 2.0

The term “Web 2.0″ is associated with websites that facilitate interactive information sharing and collaboration in a social media setting. These are great sites to work with because they allow you to participate in this content creation. And because of the highly interactive and popular nature of these sites, Google and other search engines “index” their content regularly. Which means the content on them gets “indexed” faster and with more weight. So, if you place links to your own site inside your content, you get a search engine ranking benefit from those links. The direct traffic from the Web 2.0 sites themselves is only part of the benefit. There are many more web 2.0 traffic tactics we don’t have time to get into here, but this will get you started.

Article Marketing

The natural next topic is article marketing. Article sites are in essence web 2.0 websites. Article directories are sites where users (including you) can upload articles they have written. And because they are also considered authority sites by the search engines you get all the benefits of other web 2.0 sites just by putting your articles on them. And in addition to this, other users can take your article and place it on their own website. And along with your article, they have to include your author information and a link back to you – so you get more free traffic and SEO benefits. If you want to generate traffic from articles follow these steps:

• First, spend the time to determine your keywords
• Write specifically to target these keywords
• Use anchor text links in the article and the “resource box”

Video Marketing

The last of this group is video marketing. Here to we’re really looking at a web 2.0 sub-category. And just as article directories give you great SEO benefits and allow others to redistribute your content on their sites. video sharing sites give you all these same benefits. The extra top secret benefit of video marketing is that it’s much easier to rank for competitive keywords than in any other medium.

Here’s how to get free traffic using video…

• Sign up for YouTube
• When people view your videos, you want them to visit your site, so turn all the other modules in your profile off
• Add tags to your profile
• Include a link to your main site in your profile
• Add at least one video to your profile
• For each video use your keywords in the tags, the descriptions and the title

Summary:

If you take action on the items listed here you’ll have free traffic in no time.

First – Look for Fanatics

The first step in developing a profitable membership business is to find a market with fanatics in it. Fanatic is defined as someone with an irrational enthusiasm. These are the people you’re looking for because they are so enthusiastic they’re willing to spend money on their topic of fanaticism. Now that we know what we’re looking for, let’s talk about how to find them…

• Look at magazine racks. This is an often overlooked, yet extremely simple way to find niches that people are interested in. Because it’s becoming harder and harder to keep print periodicals profitable these days, if you see a magazine on the shelves, you know it’s making money. And that means there are lots of people interested in it. If they can make money in a print version, you can probably make money with a membership website.
• Pay attention throughout the day in your regular activities. See what people are talking about on the radio, TV, at parties, in public, etc. If people are talking about it, they are interested in it. And that may also mean they’re willing to pay money to learn more about it.
• Again, looking in the physical world for clues you can tell there are lots of people interested in something if there are clubs and organizations around the topic. Conventions are expensive to hold and attend, so if one if going on that’s another strong indication of a good niche to go into with your membership website.
• What about your interests and hobbies? There’s a good chance that others are interested in these things, as well. And, as an added bonus, it’s much more fun to build a business around things you’re interested in.
• Google Trends. This is a great way to figure out what people are interested in. Google Trends tells you the most popular current search terms. These are the things people are actively searching for in Google. They’re searching because they want information. Building a membership business around things people are actively searching for is a great way to ensure your success.

Second – Analyze the “commerciality”

Once you found a potential niche or topic to center your membership site around, you need to figure out if you can actually make any money in it. The quickest way to find out is to determine if others are profiting in your potential niche.

Here’s how to determine if you can make money in your chosen niche

• Find out if there are blogs or forums related to it. Just search Google for “YourNiche blog” & “YourNiche forum” and see what comes up. This means there is a large group of people already assembled for you to market to.
• See if other people are creating and selling product in this niche by searching in Google Shopping, ebay and Amazon. If other people are creating and selling products in this niche, it means there is money to be made.
• Watch Google Adwords for a period of time and look for ads the run again and again. Adwords ads are expensive, so people only run them repeatedly if they are profitable. And to be profitable, they have to be selling products and making money.

Finally – Figure out your barrier to entry

OK, so you found a hot topic and you know other people are making money on it. Will you be able to get involved and do the same? How do you gauge the ease of entry?

• Figure out what kinds of products people are interested in. If it’s mostly physical products, coaching and live seminars, then it will be harder to break into this niche. The easiest membership website to create and maintain are information membership sites.
• The next thing to look at is the competition. You don’t want to try to break into a saturated marketing, so figure out how many people are already selling in this niche.
• Size vs. Competition. Some competition is good. It means that this is a profitable market. And as long as the size of the market is large enough to support the competition, you’re fine.
• How ready is the market for marketing messages, and how willing are the fanatics to buy. Every market is different. Sometimes people are looking for information and are ready to pay for it right now. And sometimes it takes weeks, months or even years for them to make the decision to purchase.

Summing it all up

OK, now that you’ve figured out what niche you’re going to go into. Determined there is money to be made and that the competition is not too strong to break into it. You’re ready to start your membership business. If you’ve done your homework, your business will be a success because you already know your market is a profitable one with room for you. Learning how to run a membership website is a topic for another article…

Before we begin

Keyword research is really the first step in getting traffic to your website. Why? Because you have to target these keywords if you are to have any hope of actually generating traffic for them. So you need to make sure the keywords you’re targeting are worth targeting.

Here are the important considerations for your research:

• Will you be able to rank for these keywords? Take a look at the “strength” of others websites (and how many) are already targeting these keywords.
• Are these “buying” keywords? If you don’t do your research you’ll end up with a lot of traffic that doesn’t buy from you. You want to generate visitors ready to buy.
• Another thing to think about is affiliates. If you want to build a huge business, you’re going to need affiliates to help you. So make sure you are also targeting keywords to attract affiliates.

Although this is an essential step, doing it all by hand can take a very long time. And hiring an expert is very expensive. The upside is that these two factors keep most everyone from even doing their keyword research. The smartest marketers use website traffic software to automate this and other aspects of their business. This will not only speed it up. It will give you better results, as well.

OK, now we can talk about traffic…

Now that you’ve completed your keyword research, you can begin using these keywords to get traffic to your website.

Powerful Traffic Tactics:

• Most people overlook the power of Surveys!
• “Help” Websites
• Video Websites

Surveys

Here’s the thing – people love surveys. It’s human nature. And if you make it interesting, other people will post your survey on their website. They benefit by getting free content for their site and you get a link to your site under the survey. The beauty of this is that it generates website visitors for you with no work on your part. Using just this one extra idea will put you ahead of your competition . . . who think surveys are for gathering information! So, get creative and make up a survey that’s wacky to get other people interested in putting it on their sites.

“Help” Websites

Sites like Yahoo! Answers allow users to ask and answer each others’ questions. However, you’re interest in these sites is not to ask and answer questions. The other thing they can be used for is to get traffic to your site, leads for your business and sales! Of course, the process of digging through these sites and pulling out the content info of leads for your business is very time consuming. The good news is that it’s easy to find website traffic software that can do this automatically. Then you just get a daily batch of fresh leads delivered to your inbox.

Video Sharing Sites

Video is huge and sites like YouTube and Vimeo are extremely popular. YouTube is one of the most highly traffic and search websites on the entire internet! If used properly, video sites can get you more website traffic than you know what to do with.

Even if you don’t think you can make a good video. It’s really easy to just start with an article or something you’ve already written. And use free screen capture software to record yourself reading it. You can even get software that will automatically do this for you.

In Closing

Figuring out how to get some visitors to your site is not hard at all. It just takes a little time and some ingenuity. And today there are tons of options for software tools that can help with every part of this process.

Get started right away:

• Keyword research first is key
• Next, set up a survey or two with viral appeal
• Make sure to use the “answer” sites
• And definitely include video sharing sites