Winning The Affiliate Marketing War Game
Online affiliate marketing has been going on strong for years now and it will continue to be that way for as long as there’s internet.
Winning the ongoing affiliate war however isn’t easy but it’s winnable. The affiliate marketing wars can only be won by the aggressive strategists who are willing to work hard and long.
Affiliate marketing is not for the faint of heart. If you had really known how tough the competition is in affiliate marketing would you have joined the fray? It doesn’t matter.
You are in the midst of it now and quitting simply is not an option for a true warrior. The only option is winning…and winning BIG!
To become one of those super affiliates you need to be prepared to work hard. You need to be prepared to do more than what is required. You need to be prepared to go that extra mile.
You want to become one of those big earners that make an annual income that has more than one comma in that number on the bottom line, right?
Then you must realize that first and foremost, reputation counts in affiliate marketing. There are thousands of affiliate marketers out there but the ones who make the big bucks are the ones who have established high visibility and great credibility for themselves.
Establishing credibility and visibility go hand in hand and establishing both are critical to your success and your victory over your competitors.
Credibility and visibility are established in several ways. Three of the most important ways of establishing credibility and visibility are by;
1) Writing And Marketing Articles; that relate to the products and services that you sell. You must establish yourself as an expert…a guru, if you will.
You need to become the guy or the gal that others go to when they need information or need questions answered. Writing articles and E-Books (or having them written for you by a ghost writer) is one of the very best ways of establishing your reputation as a person who has answers.
Articles help to spread your name and news of your knowledge around the Internet to those who are the most likely to be your customers.
2) Writing And Distributing E-Books; should only be 10 to 12 pages long but a link to your website needs to be included on every single page as well as in the resource box at the end. E-Books are uploaded to E-Book repositories where others may download them and reproduce them just like articles.
Because it is required that E-Books cannot be altered and that resource box information must be included when E-Books are downloaded and reproduced, your reputation as an expert in your field will be enhanced each time anyone chooses to use them.
3) Post To Blogs And Forums; that have topics related to the products and services which you sell. Simply type your related key word into the search box of your favorite search engine followed by the plus sign (+) and the words blogs or forums. You will get many hits.
Choose the three or four of the ones that have the largest number of active members and join those blogs or forums. Be careful here. Posting to blogs and forums effectively is going to take several hours of your time every week so don’t choose too many.
Do not go in with guns blazing posting blatant advertisements. The idea here is to build visibility and credibility. Introduce yourself and behave as though you had just moved into a new neighborhood.
Your signature tag that appears at the bottom of each and every post that you make should have your name as well as a link to your website.
Take you time to get to know the other posters in the community and become a valued member of the group. You will be building a good reputation, visibility and credibility.
It takes time to build your visibility and credibility. While you are building them, you will also be promoting and selling products and services and you want to establish a good relationship with those who buy products and services from you. Be sure that you provide good information, good service and a guarantee if one applies.
Never discount products or services or offer rebates. You don’t want to build that kind of reputation or that kind of customer base. Instead of offering discounts or rebates take the time and put forth the effort to add bonus incentives to the products and services that you promote to give them added value.
Those who go to the trouble and take the time to build excellent reputations as experts and as fair and honest merchants are the winners.
Steven Fu, the founder of PluginPassiveIncome.com, is dedicated to researching and recommending the best affiliate programs that generate passive and residual income online. Find out more and collect your FREE Passive Income Toolkit at;
http://www.pluginpassiveincome.com
Why Engage In Website Joint Ventures?
As the civilization enters the Age of Globalization, joint ventures have grown into thousands no make that millions. For the past decades, the growth of the number of members who engage in joint ventures has constantly increased.
Business before is highly different from now because even with the use of the recent technology such as the computers, you can earn money and make business even at your own home.
What really makes joint ventures so much pleasing to the people in the Web World?
Primarily, joint venture can make unutilized resources into more profitable source quicker and of lesser cost than doing it alone. From the name itself, it needs collaboration with other concerned companies who are interested in gaining more profit in internet marketing.
Joint venture simply refers to a method of business expansion in terms of websites. This is done through a collaborative effort for both major and mid-size website companies. Authors of certain websites get into deals with one another that can help boost the name of their site and attract more clients and subscribers.
Commonly, joint ventures partners are matched by the so-called “closed proposal process”. This is initiated via the Internet. In fact all the transactions that concern their profit making is communicated through Internet. They merely send their message through E-mail.
Simply, in a joint venture two or more group of web companies enter into an agreement that they will share all the resources surrounding their business. It can be comprise of capital, technology, risks and even rewards. All these factors will be held as single entity under one control. In other words, the concern of one site is also a concern of another site.
Prior to the entry in website joint ventures, there are important considerations that must be taken into account first. These include the following:
1.Deliberation on the Prospective Partners- The success of joint ventures will depend on you and your partner. Getting partner that will eventually ruin the entire entity can lead to bankruptcy.
It is very important that you should conduct the necessary screening first to better assess if it will be a credible partner or not. Particularly in web world, you must be able to determine which the credible website authors are. Subscribers tend to refer more on the well-known authors.
2.Major contribution in the website is a major factor- Website is an avenue where you can advertise or publish a product. The entire package or design of the site is an advantage to attract clients. You have to look for a partner that can contribute in enhancing your individual websites.
3.Verify the credentials- One way for you to determine a good partner is to go over all the credentials that it has for the past years. Accomplishment and awards will also help determine if the website was in demand to the subscribers for the past years. You can also interpret its credentials through the ratings that the site has for the past few months or years.
4.Develop a particular concept that will fit the principle of both the website- Be able to determine the concept that you want for your website. You can also focus on the target market that you want to patronize your website.
5.Specification about the allocation of gains and losses- Once you have identified your partners in website joint ventures, things that deal on monetary aspect must be discussed between you and your partner. There must be an equal sharing of the gain, if not it will depend on your agreement.
6.Compensation must be thoroughly tackled- This will serve as a means to encourage participation with your partner. For every participation, it should be equated with just compensation. For instance, your product was also posted in the website of your partner and the client happened to order on his site, it only means that you are required to give the said website a commission.
Joint venture will assure you easy money. However, it should be taken into account that there must be a collaborative effort between you and your partner. Whatever gains that you have, your website partner should also have it.
Now, you probably know the reason for these people to crave for website joint ventures.
Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code.
He shares his amazing blueprint for creating million dollar internet businesses
at: http://www.InternetMillionaireBlueprints.com
Shocking Results of Recent Survey Indicates True Status of Most Internet Marketers
In advance of launching his new coaching programme, Jason Dinner, an Internet marketer who was personally mentored by Internet guru Mike Filsaime, recently carried out a survey in which about 1,900 individuals took part. The results were shocking.
To be a successful internet marketer you need a list that you can market to and the bigger your list the more you can potentially earn. However, 58.1% of those surveyed said that they were not building an opt-in list. Here are the results of the list sizes for the 41.9% of those who were building an opt-in list:
a) 0 – 56.9%
b) 1-500 – 28.1%
c) 501-1000 – 4.8%
d) 1001-2500 – 3.6%
e) 2501-5000 – 1.3%
f) 5000 or more – 5.2%
So over 50% of those who were attempting to build a list still had no subscribers and of those who had a list, the majority had a relatively small list ranging from 1-500 persons.
The results to the question of how much money the average person was making online are as follows:
a) $0 – 51.7%
b) $1-$500 – 35.3%
c) $501-$1,000 – 5.3%
d) $1,001-$2,500 – 3.0%
e) $2,501-$5,000 – 0.6%
f) $5,000 or more – 4.1%
In other words, just over 50% of people online earn nothing on a monthly basis and 35.3% earn just $1-$500 which is hardly enough to retire on.
Just 4.1% of those surveyed earned in excess of $5,000 per month. Have you noticed the similarity of these statistics to the fact that just 3-4% of the world’s population earn 97% of its entire wealth?
So what is preventing people from making a success online? One of the advantages of the Internet is that it is highly accessible and very affordable to get started. One of the disadvantages of the Internet is that it is highly accessible and very affordable to get started. This makes it a very competitive environment.
However, this is just part of the reason why the majority of people are failing online. The Internet is a highly technical environment and a rapidly changing and growing one. While there are certain fundamentals that will always hold true, the tactics are forever shifting. This is why successful Internet marketers are very strategic and they continually test and analyse what works and what doesn’t and adapt accordingly.
The market can be very fickle as well. Just a small change on a website, for instance in changing a word or two in your headline, can produce either remarkable or very disappointing results.
Earlier I mentioned the importance of having a list but generally in order to build a list you need to have a website. Website building is a huge stumbling block for many getting started online.
I certainly wouldn’t call Brian Tracy an Internet Marketer. He is more instantly recognised as one of the world’s most renowned motivational speakers. In other words, much of what he does is offline. Yet he understands the importance of having a powerful online presence. He said in a recent interview that he spends about one million dollars per year on his website and has a team of five continually working on it.
Of course, few newbies can start with that type of capital and, honestly, you don’t need that level of expenditure to create a successful website. However, website building and design, file transfer, copywriting are just some of the challenges that a newbie faces. It can be a daunting prospect.
You finally get your website up but we all know that it’s not a case of build it and they will come. If you don’t advertise your website then no one will even know it’s there. It will be just another piece of virtual real estate lost in the wilderness of cyberspace.
You need traffic generation strategies but you have to be careful because the one thing that can cripple you is being accused of sending spam. This is why you not only need to build a list but it has to be an opt-in list, i.e. the people on your list have consented to receive information from you.
There is a landmark case going on right now that could forever affect the way Internet marketers do business. Val Burnett and Vincent Bryant are currently being sued for allegedly sending out unsolicited email to one person who had subscribed and confirmed to a safelist. Here’s where it gets complicated.
They are not being sued by the confirmed paid member but by the domain owner of the email address used by the confirmed subscriber. The lawsuit is for $1,000 per email and a total of $80 million. Yes, marketing on the Internet can be like swimming in shark-infested waters even for experienced Internet marketers – hence the value of having a coach or mentor.
So you’ve:
1. Built a website
2. Generated traffic to your site
3. Built a list
But you still haven’t made any money. This is because you now need to build a relationship with your list and you have to ensure that whatever you do offer them is great value for money and that you balance your sales pitches with simply giving value.
Is it any wonder that so few people are making money online? It may be simple but it sure ain’t easy.
For a FREE report on how to earn money online simply email your name to smartwaytoearnmoney@getresponse.com. Also, for a great low-cost way to get started online, even if you have no technical know-how, and with comprehensive on-going training visit http://SmartWaytoEarnMoney.com.
About Hiring A Consultant For Your Internet Marketing
If you are considering to jump into the world of Internet marketing but do not have experience in this type of marketing, it is definitely worthwhile to consider hiring a consultant to help and assist you in your advertising endeavor.
This is important because these Internet marketing consultants can do a great deal to ensure that your marketing effort is a success. Sure, you may need to pay more for their services than you do it on your own but the results you gain from the effort will likely be significantly higher.
If you already have some experience in the Internet marketing, but you are in a highly competitive niche and you want to rise above the competition, then you need some additional assistance, thus hiring a consultant to help you is necessary.
Since Internet marketing starts to play an important role in the marketing family, not all consultants are created equal. You may find that some consultants can create significantly better results than others. So the key here is to hire the right consultant. Following are the things you need to look at when you are looking for a qualified consultant in the Internet marketing industry.
Actually cost is not one of the most important considerations. Experience and past performance are much more important. You can compare costs among consultants who are similarly qualified but using cost as a primary source of evaluation is not recommended.
Experience is very important when it comes to selecting a consultant to assist you in an Internet marketing campaign. This is critical because consultants who had good experience also understanding well in terms of which techniques work the best and which techniques are not as effective.
More experienced consultants will also likely be better skilled at dealing with clients, normally they answer your questions quickly and keep you better informed about your Internet marketing campaign’s progress, which can save you a lot of time and money.
All of this is important because the progress report can keep you get informed and help you staying up to date – you know what are those things going on in your Internet marketing campaign.
Seeking out a consultant in the Internet marketing industry with an excellent past record of performance is also very important, keep this mind – consultants who have had a great deal of success in the past will likely have a great deal of success while assisting you as well.
Past performance is considered to be one of the best indications of future performance. But this does not mean that new consultants are necessarily going to perform poorly, however, there do have some risks involving if you select a consultant who does not have a great deal of experience or who has not performed well in the past.
Based on the human nature, you will feel much more confident to put your Internet marketing campaign in the hands of a consultant who typically generates the type of results you are looking for, so once you evaluated consultants on the basis of experience and past performance, it is time to get starting to consider the price. If you considering price early in the process of seeking a consultant may caused you be influenced by price over performance.
Some consultants may be incredibly affordable but if they are not capable of producing the desired results, it may end up being a complete waste of money. However, once you have narrowed your list of potential consultants down to a few qualified candidates, it is definitely time to start comparing prices.
Once you are confident with your candidates list, choosing the least expensive person and start to use his or her service. And finally, don’t forget to note down all of the fees that involved make sure that you are making an accurate cost comparison.
Ann Liu, internet marketer and author of http://www.onlineprofiting.com. To learn how YOU too can succeed in Internet and affiliate marketing, please visit http://www.marketingbyann.com.