Affiliate Programs

The things I require for my perfect Home Based Business are:

1. It must provide a very good full time income

2. Very low cost start up requirements

3. It should be simple enough that the whole family can be involved

4. Can be done entirely within the home without much face contact with outsiders

5. Not require personal recruiting of others to “JOIN ME”

6. Get me profitable in a very short time frame

7. The income should be recurring and continual

Not many Home Based Business endeavors have all these features. While my Real Estate business made me a fortune, it flunked out with item 4 because of the people involvement. I really missed the target with traditional MLM or Network Marketing (ten times) losing over $10K. MLM via the INTERNET is a different story however.

I found what I was looking for with Internet Marketing of information products. We are deep into the information age and people are looking for answers and the place to get those answers is via the Internet Information Highway. There are information products available on the INTERNET on almost any subject. Most of which are provided by Affiliate Networks who pay excellent commissions to affiliates who promote and sell these products.

Send a blank email to me at WEALTHY AFFILIATE and I will send you a list of the top affiliate companies in the US.

Find someone who is selling information about something you are interested in and become an affiliate for that product. As an affiliate, you promote the product and each sale that occurs as a result of your promotional efforts pays you a nice commission. These commissions can often be as much as 75%.

Promoting affiliate products on the INTERNET is not that hard to do. Lots of eBooks on the INTERNET lay out various successful techniques for doing it. When you apply these techniques with consistence and persistence you will have a successful Home Based Internet Business. There are lots of people making $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 and more each month promoting affiliate products over the INTERNET. The secret is a repeatable system applied with consistence and persistence.

There are several concepts and misconceptions about marketing that need to be addressed before we get into the meat of this article. The basic concept of marketing is ‘the range of activities involved in assuring that you are meeting the needs of your customers and that you are getting a valuable response in return.’ One major misconceptions of marketing is that it is only ‘advertising your product or service.’ Even though advertising is important, it is only one component in the process of marketing.

We can define the essence of marketing as ‘understanding your customers’ needs and developing a plan that addresses those needs.’ By understanding marketing in this way, a business owner who has a desire to ‘grow’ his business can set the proper goals.

What is meant by ‘organic growth?’ This is a wonderful concept. Your business is a living organism and, as a living organism, it must be cultivated and nurtured. We can ignore its needs and let it fend for itself or we can determine those needs and do whatever is best to make it thrive.

We should look at two basic components of marketing in order to get a better idea of the things that we need to create a successful business. The first component of marketing that we need to consider is ‘developing a marketing plan.’ The second component is the ‘ongoing promotion.’ One mistake that many business owners make is to create a product or service and immediately jump into an advertising campaign. When we define these two basic components, you’ll understand why this mistake can be a disappointing and costly one.

Developing a ‘marketing plan’ or ‘marketing strategy’ is essential to the well being of a business. The first step in creating a marketing plan is to do a little research and analysis. Don’t slap yourself on the forehead in exasperation. This is not as difficult as the name implies. It may take a little time but is well worth every minute.

Let’s begin by looking at a simplified explanation of ‘marketing analysis.’ We can apply two of Solomon’s Keys to Success at this point.

Proverbs 1:5 (Amplified Bible) “The wise also will hear and increase in learning, and the person of understanding will acquire skill and attain to sound counsel [so that he may be able to steer his course rightly]” Wise counsel can be found in many forms. We should also remember, for those of us who think we understand better than others, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who listens to counsel is wise.” Proverbs 12:15 (Amplified Bible)

What must we do in ‘marketing analysis’?

1.) Discovering our ‘market’ or the groups of potential customers that exist,

2.) Decide which of these groups of customers fit our marketing preference (target markets),

3.) Determine the needs that they have,

4.) Developing the best products or services that might meet the needs of our target market,

5.) Determining the uses our potential clients might have for our products and services,

6.) Understanding what our competitors are doing,

7.) Determine the pricing structure that best fits your product and/or service and

8.) Developing a plan for the distribution of our products and services to our target markets.

Various methods of ‘market research’ are used to gather information about markets, target markets and their needs, competitors, etc. A little Internet research will reveal many sources of specific information. We must remember to target our searches. We do this by beginning from a broad area of possibilities and with each subsequent search we can get more specific until we have discovered as much as possible about our market in general and our target market. The resulting information will become our ‘niche’ market, our specific area of a market that is best for our product or service.

After we have developed our marketing plan, we need to consider our plan for ‘ongoing promotions.’ Our ongoing promotion will include advertising, public relations, sales and client service to name a few. These terms (advertising, marketing, promotion, public relations and publicity, and sales) can easily become confusing. These terms are often used interchangeably. However, they refer to different but similar activities.

Let’s look at a list of definition of each term.

1.) Advertising — presenting a product (or service) to potential and current clients. Advertising needs to be focused on a particular product or service. We must understand that an advertising plan for one product will be different from that for another product. Advertising is usually done with signs, brochures, commercials, direct mailings or e-mail messages, personal contact, website banners, etc.

2.) Promotion — Promotion can be defined as the tasks that maintain the product in the minds of the customer (product recognition). The ongoing effort of advertising, sales and public relations are often considered aspects of promotions.

3.) Public Relations — ongoing activities to ensure the company has a strong and positive public image. This is often referred to as “PR.”

4.) Publicity — being mentioned in the media. This is always the opinion (good or bad) of someone else but can include news releases.

The health and well being of a business is determined by the extent of diligent study and the application of the success principles that you learn through study. To best become acquainted with your product or service or customers or competitors, a sincere determination to be as diligent as possible is essentail.

Remember these few examples of Solomon’s Proverbs to help you develop a growing and successful business.

Proverbs 10:4 (The Amplified Bible) “He becomes poor who works with a slack and idle hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”

Proverbs 12:24 (The Amplified Bible) “The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slothful will be put to forced labor.”

Proverbs 13:4 (NASB) “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat.”

Proverbs 21:5 (NLT) “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty”

Commit this last Proverb to memory. It will serve you well.

Every affiliate marketer is looking for the target market that will bring the greatest profit. There is no magic formula. Instead, a simple plan works best. Affiliate marketing isn’t rocket science, but you do need to have a strategy. It just takes proven tactics and tenacity.

Many tactics that worked before with online marketing continue to work today. With these top three affiliate marketing tips, you’ll increase your profits and shine in the affiliate marketing world.

Practice #1 - Use unique web pages to promote each product you’re offering. Don’t lump all your products onto the same page or website. Web hosting is not expensive today and it’s better to have one website focused on each product.

Always include a product review on your website. This will help visitors to feel that someone has used the product and believe in it.

Always include testimonials from people who have tried the product. Be sure the customers are willing to give you permission to use their information on your site. If you’re just starting out, you can likely find testimonials on the product owner’s website.

Write articles outlining the use of the product and put them on the website. Make the pages eye-catching, persuasive and ask them to act on the information. Each headline should compel the reader and encourage them to read even more. Always emphasize the benefits of the product.

Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very top side of your page so they simply cannot be missed. You can also use these as autoresponder messages that will be mailed to those who input their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect. So, it’s very important to have an autoresponder.

Practice #2 — One of two things happens when a potential customer visits your page: you will either sell your product or the prospect will leave and never return. By updating them with information to their email periodically, you’ll remind them of the product which they may have wanted to purchase at a later date. Make sure the message is directed toward specific reasons to buy your product and try not to make it sound like a sales pitch.

Make sure that they opt-in to your autoresponder before they can download the free reports you’re offering. Spotlight important areas like how the product can make their life easier and more enjoyable. Incorporate convincing subject lines into your messages. Whenever possible, don’t use the word “free.” There are still old spam filters that will get rid of the message before your prospect will have a chance to read it.

Practice #3 — Focus on targeting the traffic for your website to your product. If the person visiting your website has no interest whatsoever in what you’re offering, they may never come back. Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that are focusing on your target customers and what you write may just grab their interest.

Try to write at least 2 articles each week. Each article should contain about 300-600 words. By continuously uploading these articles you can generate about 100 targeted readers to your site in a day. In fact, if you click the links in the resource box below, you can learn how to generate thousands of backlinks with just a couple of articles. And remember, only about 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or service. So, if you can generate 1,000 targeted visits to your website daily, that means you can make 10 sales per day. When you realize you can make about $25 on average with a Clickbank product and then multiply your earnings by 30 days per month, you can make about $7,500 per month. Not bad for a little bit of tenacity and a few articles.

The methods I’ve shown you are not hard. All that’s required is a little bit of time and making sure you take action.

Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You will create a good source of income if you just have a plan and perseverance. Most affiliate marketers fail because they do not have a plan or they are lazy. Just think of the huge paychecks you will be receiving!