Top 5 Tips to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing
You knew I had to do it sooner or later. That's right, I'm going to give you my personal best five tips for success in affiliate marketing. Only, these aren't just random useless tips- these are what make or break you as an affiliate. Okay, maybe it won't break you if you don't use them but they will make the moneys flow your way with the greatest of ease.
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Build Mailing Lists
This is going to be the first tip because I don't think I've driven it home enough in my past posts. Seriously, if you aren't collecting emails any chance you get, you aren't trying. If you don't have a mailing list at least 5,000 opt-ins strong, try harder! Sure, it might cost more up front to generate it faster, but in the end, it's worth it. Just think, it's a list of targeted traffic that you've already paid for.Unlike PPC, which is one-click-one-time, you can keep sending your subscribers to "interesting" offers. Should you come out with a new landing page in any related area, you can always shoot all 5,000 of them an email letting them know. My question is: why would you NOT do this? Well, perhaps you aren't aware of how you might go about doing this. For starters, sign up with http://www.aweber.com and pay the measly $20/mo fee. After that, READ!
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Use Landing Pages
I'll keep this short. Here's my official statement: yes, use landing pages. Even if frames, redirects, what-have-you, are working for you, split test a decent landing page. You'll see, they are better by their very nature. It's got the pre-sell which you wrote, so you can give your personal testimony of the product (which should be real, by the way). On top of that, it's optimized for search engine traffic so it will start getting picked up by the search monsters of the internet: Google, Yahoo! and such, which brings me to my next tip.
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Build Organic Traffic
I swear, if it isn't the way of the now, it's the way of the future. Organic traffic is FREE, people. If you aren't quite sure what organic traffic is, I'll sum it up for you: it's free traffic from search engines (as described above). When you build landing pages and the like, they get indexed in search results. Those search results, the same ones you use to find out whether you're spelling stupid words like Focaccia right (thank you Google), will also send traffic to your very website.The trick is getting OTHER websites to link to your site. Well, the good news is, if your landing page is cool enough (has useful content), then just by sending a bunch of PPC traffic toward it for a long while, it will start to get indexed and you'll start seeing mystery sales more and more. Then, once you figure out you can buy links on popular websites of similar topic, you'll see your incoming traffic start to turn from a trickle into a steady stream. Go, do it. Do it now.
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Embrace The Pyramid
What was so bad about those stupid pyramid schemes back in the day? Well, high up front costs for no apparent reason, and not a lot of upward movement. Otherwise, they're just like any large corporation you see today, only they expect you to involve your friends and family.Well, I recommend that you keep your friends and family in the dark about what you do if you're an affiliate marketer. Besides the peace of mind it will bring, it makes you seem super cool -- like Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother (incidentally, read 5 tips on suiting up while keeping the temperature down here).
Anyway, so all I'm saying is -- embrace the tiered system that most affiliate networks offer (Azoogle, Neverblue, Copeac, etc). All you do is give people (not family) referral links which are provided by said networks and once they are approved, you will make in the neighborhood of 2% of their sales for life on that network. Yeah, I know you thought it-- you get enough people under your belt and you've got the good life. Well, hey, keep that dream alive. But in the mean time, make an extra few hundred a month by getting your buddies to sign up and make some money of their own. Remember: even if they break even, you still spent nothing.
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Network, network, network!
In this business, you can become rich without knowing that many people, but it's so much easier to make money when you have connections. Use forums, blogs, conventions, etc. all to your advantage. Talk to people, make friends and you'll see opportunities start to open up that otherwise wouldn't have been there. Shoot, I didn't get started on my own. I had help from my friend Paul and then later on, my partner inspired the competitive bastard in me. Neither of those connections would have been made if I were sitting alone at my desk much in the fashion of a hermit crab. So go, be social and be rich!
So there you have them. Short, sweet and to the point. Hope you enjoyed.
Scott
Popularity: 63% [?]
December 4th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Re #1, do you have any examples about doing that via aff marketing w/ a landing page? Do you go the route of a squeeze page and then send them to an offer, or do you have 2 “conversions” on a pate - try to create a compelling reason to sign up and get them to click to the offer?
Would the answer to the question above depend on where the traffic was coming from (organic vs paid)?
December 4th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Matt,
Any way you want to collect emails from your landing page is fine as long as you test both ways before relying on one to both collect emails and still maintain your profit margin.
If you have an annoying popup, it just might drive traffic away. The only real way to know either way is to test it over about a week.
Whether the traffic is organic or paid might matter, since your paid traffic is usually more targeted but in general, not really. I’d say it matters in situations where you’re getting random organic traffic.
December 5th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Scott, Do you have any examples of landing pages? Everyone knows that they should use them, but the experts don’t generally show their landing pages. Even an old one you’re not using would be great to see.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Brandon, I would love to but that would literally put my business at risk and I’m sure that’s why experts are bashful when it comes to showing their own landing pages.
Although, if I come across an old one as you said, I will gladly show you guys.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:06 am
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