We’re back with the last three tips in our series. I hope you have enjoyed it so far and have found some ideas that will help you. You can read part one and part two here. (See below)
So far we have discussed the importance of focusing on promoting a few great products vs. the standard advice of having 15 blogs (and spreading yourself too thin) or, worse yet, grabbing a high gravity product and blasting away.
So far we have discussed the importance of focusing on promoting a few great products vs. the standard advice of having 15 blogs (and spreading yourself too thin) or, worse yet, grabbing a high gravity product and blasting away.
These are classic mistakes; mistakes most of us have made.
We talked about the importance of using a professional ad tracker and never using free link cloakers. Then we touched on the importance of building your list. And important it is.
If you work at it and give it a bit of time your list will soon become your #1 asset and will create both time and financial freedom as well.
Now we move on to the last three points in the series.
Affiliate marketing can be a wonderful way to earn extra income or a full time living. These are the techniques that work for me. I hope they work well for you too.
Affiliate Tip # 7 – Use Free Reports To Build Your list
The logic is clear – it is SO much easier to give things away than to make the sale today. This is why using a squeeze page and offering a free report works so well.
Top marketers all use this approach. I suggest you use it as well. But here’s the problem. We all suffer from a lack of time and most of us aren’t great writers. Again, the Internet comes to the rescue!
One of the great blessings of the Interwebs is that there is a TON of free information that you can use to entice people to visit your site and learn more about your product.
Who produces free information that you can use? Many top marketers, like Jimmy Brown, have based their business on this model. You give away their high quality report which builds your list and gives their product exposure.
It’s a win-win!
Some of them can even be branded with your affiliate links. More about how to do that in another article.
Why struggle to convince someone to take your information when these superstars have created free eBooks, reports and e-Courses to do the work for you!
Please note, I’m not talking about doing something you should not do. ONLY use material when the author gives permission.
Another option is PLR (Private Label Rights) products. These resale rights products can be given away or branded with your name and affiliate links in most cases.
I like the products from Nicole Dean for this. I find her products to be of consistently high value and on topics of interest to people searching the Internet.
You can reach her at this link: http://www.easyplr.com/
Affiliate Tip #8 – Survey Your List
Why guess at what people want when you can KNOW in advance what they want and offer it to them.
So many people find a product and buy ads only to be disappointed with the results. In many cases, most cases actually, the problem is targeting. They simply did not know for sure that the people who saw the ad were interested in the product they were promoting.
It’s as simple as this — You can’t hit a target you cannot see.
Whether you have a list of your own or not you can use surveys to find out exactly what people need and then offer it to them. This is a powerful way to market online.
There are several tools to help get the job done. Survey Monkey works well and is a popular choice.
Another great option comes from and excellent programmer (and friend) Will Bontrager. It’s called MasterSurvey and you can find it, along with Will’s other excellent work, at http://willmaster.com
The tool I use most comes from Joel Comm and is called Instant Form Pro. Check them out and see which one fits your needs best.
Last – If you have a blog you can use a free plug in like I do. The one I use is called WP-Polls. It’s free and easy to use.
IF YOU DON’T HAVE A LIST OF YOUR OWN
If you have a site or blog but no list you are in good shape. Just add a survey to your site or blog and offer visitors the chance to express their opinion.
If you want to build a list from this offer a freebie for them signing up. I have found that a copy of the survey results works well for this.
People love to express their opinons and love even more knowing how their opinion compares to others. Get them to sign up to your list and email them a copy of the results once the survey is complete. Easy list building.
POWER TIP: If you don’t have a list of your own consider using paid advertising to run a survey. Rather than the standard pitch fest, YOUR ad will stand out because you are asking people what they need. Just add a sign up form to the survey and you will both build your list and know what they need as well.
IF YOU DO HAVE A LIST OF YOUR OWN
It’s often been said that ‘if you take care of what you have you won’t need more’.
Customers and subscribers are like that. The more you focus on customer service the more products and services you will sell… period.
Most online business men and women have this idea completely backward. They spend all of their time, energy and money on trying to find the next customer when their ‘pot of gold’ is right in front of them.
Here’s the truth about Internet marketing. Your customer list is gold!
Let other online business men and women spend sleepless nights wondering where their next sale is coming from. Spend your days and nights finding out what your customers want to buy next.
POWER TIP: If you really want to make sales find out what the people on your list need and then buy a product that meets that need and report on it to them. They will buy more if they know you put your money where your mouth is. This is one reason I never promote a product I have not bought and used.
Affiliate Tip #9 – Multiple Streams of Traffic
Every day I get emails from people who placed one ad and are waiting to ‘see what happens’.
While that is perfectly logical, it just doesn’t work. It takes time to get the process right and it takes time to learn what resources work best for your offer as well.
To really succeed online you have to sort of be everywhere at once. Here’s what I mean …
There are fast ways to get traffic and slow ways to get traffic. In my view it is vital that you use both.
If money is an issue you are going to want to focus on free ways to get traffic. They will be slower but they will work.
Once sales start to happen you can invest some of that money in paid advertising, which will bring in traffic faster.
But having both methods working at once is the real key to success. It’s great to buy paid advertising and get 1000 clicks. But when the clicks stop what happens next?
If you lay a foundation of proven free methods (like blogging, article marketing and social media) and then put paid advertising on top you will have a steady flow of traffic 24 hours a day.
For an excellent list of free and paid advertising methods see my Driving Traffic Quick Course. No opt in required and it’s free to you.
The goal is to strike a balance. As with most things in life, balance and focus are the keys to success here. That’s it for this series. I hope you enjoyed it and that the ideas shared here are helpful to you.
One last word – the person who wins in business is not the talented genius as much as it is the person who learns how to do the basics well and keeps doing them over and over again.
If you learn these basics and take action on them you will be light years ahead of those who keep trying to buy success with the next hyped up product launch.
When you master these basic skills and do them repeatedly time will become your ally. Selling will become automatic and you will have more free time to enjoy your success too.
And that is a beautiful combination indeed!
We talked about the importance of using a professional ad tracker and never using free link cloakers. Then we touched on the importance of building your list. And important it is.
If you work at it and give it a bit of time your list will soon become your #1 asset and will create both time and financial freedom as well.
Now we move on to the last three points in the series.
Affiliate marketing can be a wonderful way to earn extra income or a full time living. These are the techniques that work for me. I hope they work well for you too.
Affiliate Tip # 7 – Use Free Reports To Build Your list
The logic is clear – it is SO much easier to give things away than to make the sale today. This is why using a squeeze page and offering a free report works so well.
Top marketers all use this approach. I suggest you use it as well. But here’s the problem. We all suffer from a lack of time and most of us aren’t great writers. Again, the Internet comes to the rescue!
One of the great blessings of the Interwebs is that there is a TON of free information that you can use to entice people to visit your site and learn more about your product.
Who produces free information that you can use? Many top marketers, like Jimmy Brown, have based their business on this model. You give away their high quality report which builds your list and gives their product exposure.
It’s a win-win!
Some of them can even be branded with your affiliate links. More about how to do that in another article.
Why struggle to convince someone to take your information when these superstars have created free eBooks, reports and e-Courses to do the work for you!
Please note, I’m not talking about doing something you should not do. ONLY use material when the author gives permission.
Another option is PLR (Private Label Rights) products. These resale rights products can be given away or branded with your name and affiliate links in most cases.
I like the products from Nicole Dean for this. I find her products to be of consistently high value and on topics of interest to people searching the Internet.
You can reach her at this link: http://www.easyplr.com/
Affiliate Tip #8 – Survey Your List
Why guess at what people want when you can KNOW in advance what they want and offer it to them.
So many people find a product and buy ads only to be disappointed with the results. In many cases, most cases actually, the problem is targeting. They simply did not know for sure that the people who saw the ad were interested in the product they were promoting.
It’s as simple as this — You can’t hit a target you cannot see.
Whether you have a list of your own or not you can use surveys to find out exactly what people need and then offer it to them. This is a powerful way to market online.
There are several tools to help get the job done. Survey Monkey works well and is a popular choice.
Another great option comes from and excellent programmer (and friend) Will Bontrager. It’s called MasterSurvey and you can find it, along with Will’s other excellent work, at http://willmaster.com
The tool I use most comes from Joel Comm and is called Instant Form Pro. Check them out and see which one fits your needs best.
Last – If you have a blog you can use a free plug in like I do. The one I use is called WP-Polls. It’s free and easy to use.
IF YOU DON’T HAVE A LIST OF YOUR OWN
If you have a site or blog but no list you are in good shape. Just add a survey to your site or blog and offer visitors the chance to express their opinion.
If you want to build a list from this offer a freebie for them signing up. I have found that a copy of the survey results works well for this.
People love to express their opinons and love even more knowing how their opinion compares to others. Get them to sign up to your list and email them a copy of the results once the survey is complete. Easy list building.
POWER TIP: If you don’t have a list of your own consider using paid advertising to run a survey. Rather than the standard pitch fest, YOUR ad will stand out because you are asking people what they need. Just add a sign up form to the survey and you will both build your list and know what they need as well.
IF YOU DO HAVE A LIST OF YOUR OWN
It’s often been said that ‘if you take care of what you have you won’t need more’.
Customers and subscribers are like that. The more you focus on customer service the more products and services you will sell… period.
Most online business men and women have this idea completely backward. They spend all of their time, energy and money on trying to find the next customer when their ‘pot of gold’ is right in front of them.
Here’s the truth about Internet marketing. Your customer list is gold!
Let other online business men and women spend sleepless nights wondering where their next sale is coming from. Spend your days and nights finding out what your customers want to buy next.
POWER TIP: If you really want to make sales find out what the people on your list need and then buy a product that meets that need and report on it to them. They will buy more if they know you put your money where your mouth is. This is one reason I never promote a product I have not bought and used.
Affiliate Tip #9 – Multiple Streams of Traffic
Every day I get emails from people who placed one ad and are waiting to ‘see what happens’.
While that is perfectly logical, it just doesn’t work. It takes time to get the process right and it takes time to learn what resources work best for your offer as well.
To really succeed online you have to sort of be everywhere at once. Here’s what I mean …
There are fast ways to get traffic and slow ways to get traffic. In my view it is vital that you use both.
If money is an issue you are going to want to focus on free ways to get traffic. They will be slower but they will work.
Once sales start to happen you can invest some of that money in paid advertising, which will bring in traffic faster.
But having both methods working at once is the real key to success. It’s great to buy paid advertising and get 1000 clicks. But when the clicks stop what happens next?
If you lay a foundation of proven free methods (like blogging, article marketing and social media) and then put paid advertising on top you will have a steady flow of traffic 24 hours a day.
For an excellent list of free and paid advertising methods see my Driving Traffic Quick Course. No opt in required and it’s free to you.
The goal is to strike a balance. As with most things in life, balance and focus are the keys to success here. That’s it for this series. I hope you enjoyed it and that the ideas shared here are helpful to you.
One last word – the person who wins in business is not the talented genius as much as it is the person who learns how to do the basics well and keeps doing them over and over again.
If you learn these basics and take action on them you will be light years ahead of those who keep trying to buy success with the next hyped up product launch.
When you master these basic skills and do them repeatedly time will become your ally. Selling will become automatic and you will have more free time to enjoy your success too.
And that is a beautiful combination indeed!
You can earn $20 for a 20 minute survey!
ReplyDeleteGuess what? This is exactly what major companies are paying me for. They need to know what their customer needs and wants. So large companies pay $1,000,000's of dollars every month to the average person. In return, the average person, like myself, fills out surveys and gives them their opinion.