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Affiliate Marketing - Capitalizing on Your Passion

Affiliate Marketing

Most people who have a product or service to sell can easily understand how a Web site can build their business. They know that an online presence gives them an edge over the competition and doesn't limit their client base to a geographic area. Additionally, many product owners have stepped into the affiliate marketing world by setting up their own affiliate programs and recruiting affiliates to promote their products for them.

On the other side of the fence there's the individual who has a high level of passion about a hobby, or lifestyle, or health choice, etc. How can that person make the connection that s/he can also step into the affiliate marketing world... as the enthusiastic, referring affiliate?

Passion Fuels a Business

If your are like most people, you have at least two or three things that excite you. With affiliate marketing, you can turn this type of deep interest and enthusiasm into a revenue-generating business. Recognizing that there is a like-minded community out there that shares the same interests as you do and who are looking for answers and solutions to a problem or need opens up a lucrative business opportunity through affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing - Maximizing Profit

Affiliate Marketing

The goal of any business, including your affiliate marketing business, is to maximize profits. Profit is simply your income minus your expenses.

As an affiliate, there are exactly two ways to increase your income (i.e., the amount of money your business makes)...

1. Refer more visitors to the merchants that you represent.
2. Increase the Conversion Rate (i.e., the percentage of visitors who deliver the response for which the merchant pays, whether that's a sale, or a lead, etc.).

Simple formula, right? If you refer 100 visitors per day to a merchant and 1% buy, you get paid for that one purchase. But if you send 1,000 visitors per day and 3% buy, you get paid for 30 purchases.

Yes, thirty times more! So it's pretty clear how to maximize affiliate income! Of course, every business has expenses, too.

How To Find Affiliate Marketing Programs Quickly

Affiliate Marketing

You've found a great merchant. They have tons of information on their home page, and so many links. But where the heck is the link to their affiliate marketing program?

Do not dispair... we've put together some tips how to easily find the affiliate sign-up on your favorite sites, and how to find new affiliate programs.

• First, scan the top, left and bottom navbars (graphic or text links) for a reference to their affiliate program. If there is none...
• Do a quick find on the home page. Press the control + f keys on your keyboard (command + f if you are using a Mac). Then enter "affil" (typing only the first few letters is fine and reduces chances of a typo) into the search box that pops up. Try also for "assoc" (short for "associate") and "refer" (short for "referral" or "referrer" program).

More tips...

Affiliate Marketing - Understand Your Visitors' Mindset

Affiliate Marketing

Your strategies and actions as an affiliate marketer directly affect your Conversion Rate (CR). In this entry, we'll talk about how to PREsell effectively.

Let's look at examples of how "low-CR affiliates" create negative mindsets by making how-you-reach, what-you-say, or how-you-refer boo-boos. We'll begin at the top...

How To Reach Your Visitor

Free-For-All Sites (FFAs) are a great example of how not to reach people. For the most part, FFAs have become so seamy and useless that no matter what you say, you're doomed from the start.

Compare this with how smart and open-minded your visitor feels when he/she finds you via a Search Engine!

What To Say to Your Visitor

Don't write a site purely devoted to "hard-selling" your merchants' products. Imagine a visitor who hits your site and reads an immediate sales pitch. That person will resist because she does not know you. Then, if she clicks through to your merchant, she gets another sales pitch on the merchant's site -- Negative x 2!

8 Warning Signs When Evaluating Affiliate Marketing Programs

Affiliate Marketing

When evaluating affiliate marketing programs, there are clear plus factors and clear no-go pointers. However, there is also a grey zone. With some research and awareness, it's easy to guard yourself against joining the wrong affiliate marketing program.

Watch for these warning signs...

*"Pay-per-click" method of payment -- This means that you get paid whenever a visitor clicks on your link. No purchase or lead-generation necessary.

Unfortunately, it's wide open for abuse. Very sophisticated folks create incentives to get thousands of people to click on their links. However, the visitors could care less about the products being promoted. It's virtually unstoppable. And merchants end up paying for nothing, so merchants cancel or change the program.

In theory, pay-per-click affiliate programs are a good idea. Unfortunately, they attract "scam artist affiliates." Sooner or later, merchants seem to throw in the towel against the onslaught. So be wary -- these kind of affiliate programs tend to dissolve or mutate into a different model.

How To Recognize a Poor Affiliate Marketing Program

Affiliate Marketing

We discussed the 12 criteria that define a good affiliate marketing program. Now let's take a look at the opposite. What signs are there that shout, "Stop, joining this affiliate program puts your e-business at serious risk"?

- Slow and/or poor support.

- Unethical conduct of any kind.

- Reports of late (or lack of) payments.

- Allow spam, or seem to spam themselves.

Keep digging...

12 Factors Define a Good Affiliate Marketing Program

Affiliate Marketing

You've found a potential affiliate marketing program to join. How do you know if they are a quality merchant-partner, a so-so company or even a scam-artist? Watch for the following 12 positive criteria when you evaluate the program...

+ High quality product or service -- remember, it's your reputation that is on the line (and online!). Don't recommend products that UNDERdeliver.

+ Merchant has a good site that sells effectively.

+ Ability for affiliate to link straight to individual products, rather than just to the home page. (If the visitor has to find the product that you recommend, your Conversion Rate plummets.)

+ Type of payment model -- Pay-per-sale and pay-per-lead are good. This is true "performance marketing." If your referred visitor delivers the desired response, you get paid.

Affiliate Marketing - The Art of PREselling

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing requires a solid understanding of the merchant's products you plan to promote... and how to do so without "selling". That's where PREselling comes in. If you can grasp this concept and execute it with your business, you'll be light years ahead of most affiliates.

Your job as an affiliate marketer is to provide useful, relevant content that relates to the products you are promoting, yet leaves the reader wanting to know more. Within your excellent PREselling content, you'll include a strategically placed link to the sales page. The job of the sales page is to close the sale with the ready-to-buy visitor you've sent there.

Think about how you are going to reach, talk to, and refer visitors with your affiliate link. In other words, how you are going to convert a visitor into a customer?

Effective PREselling is all about attracting your target group, delivering valuable, relevant content, and gently leading visitors to your link after they have come to respect and like you.

Affiliate Marketing - A Low-Maintenance Income Stream

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to get your feet wet in e-business. No need to own a product or offer a service. No worries about storage, shipping or payment processing. You simply send people (i.e., potential customers) to a merchant's website that you represent as their affiliate. If your referrals buy (or complete a required action -- filling in a form, for example), the merchant pays you a commission.

That, in essence, is the beauty of the affiliate concept. You can be up and building a business in record time, at minimal risk.

If you're an online entrepreneur in need of a product to promote, affiliate marketing programs are the answer. Top-notch merchants supply everything, such as excellent products, ordering, credit-card processing, and delivery. Your job is to supply the marketing.

All you need to do is to put yourself in the pathway between customers and quality merchants and earn a commission for your efforts. But, like any "real" business, effort and passion are essential ingredients for long-term success. "Get-rich-quick" schemes don't work.

What's needed for successful affiliate marketing? It boils down to these 3 critical factors...