Friday, March 27, 2009

Affiliate Programs... Who's Really Making The Money?

By Gillian Tarawhit

There will be a million and one affiliates out there who will tell you that the affiliate program they promote is going to be the best one for you.

But have you considered who is really making the money and who gains the most out of affiliate programs.

Let's take a step back and look at the AFFILIATE.

What exactly is the role of the affilate?

* The sole purpose of the affiliate is to PROMOTE the product and/or service

What are the benefits of being an affiliate?

* Get paid a minimal commission that is regulated by the owner of the product/service

In short, As an affiliate it is your responsibility to make someone else rich whilst doing all the hard work. You take on the expenses of advertising, you are the one who usually misses out on subscribers if you haven't first made them your client before they buy the product/service you are promoting.

And all this for what??? Maybe $20 per sale if you are really, really lucky.

You also need to remember that when you are an affiliate, YOU are not the only person promoting that very same product/service.

So what will make your offer any different to someone else who is promoting the exact same product, usually using the same sales technique, offering it at the same price.

To be in the top 5%, which is the amount of affiliates who make more than $100.00 per month, you need to first have a really good, clean, targeted subscribers list of more than 50,000 subscribers, know exactly how to gain targeted traffic, and have a huge advertising budget.

For the other 95%, the only way you are going to make alot of money from and affiliate program is to OWN YOUR OWN.

It really isn't as hard as you might think to set up.

So in conclusion, the best AFFILIATE PROGRAM, obviously is the one you OWN.

About the Author:

Gillian Tarawhiti, is Founder and CEO of Community Training Centre, an Internet Marketing firm providing Online Training and Support to the new and not so new netpreneurs. Gillian is also the author of eBay Billion Dollar Goldmine and the creator of the Multiple Ripple Effect System © 2004.

Permission is granted to reprint this article in print or on your web site so long as the paragraph above is included and contact information is provided to http://www.ezy-money.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gillian_Tarawhiti

Sunday, March 15, 2009

A Guide To Automated Email Marketing

While it is very important to go online and push your business to online marketing, hear what micheal southon said about Automated Email Merketing

You've probably heard the expression, 'the money is
in the list'. It's become a bit of a cliché - but it's
the key to successful web marketing.

About 95% of visitors will not buy on their first
visit to your website - in fact, most of your
customers will have to see your message 7 times before
they buy.

Many people starting out on the Internet believe that
their main marketing tool is their website.

In fact, your main marketing tool is your mailing
list. A website is just a way of building your mailing
list - by collecting the email addresses of your
visitors.

Here are some examples of how to use mailing lists as
part of your marketing strategy. You could send:

=> a customized newsletter to your subscribers

=> sequential autoresponders to prospects

=> your Articles to Ezine publishers

=> offers for other products to your customers

However, managing your mailing lists can quickly
become an organizational nightmare if you don't have
an Automated Email Marketing Tool.

An AEMT is a program that merges personal data into a
form letter, schedules follow-up emails, and handles
subscribes and unsubscribes automatically.

---------------------------------------
Server Side or Client Side?
---------------------------------------

The first thing you'll need to decide is whether to
use a Server Side or Client Side program.

A Server Side program is a script that sits on your
server, whereas a Client Side program is an
application that sits on your PC.

In general, Client Side programs are capable of much
more advanced email management than Server Side
programs.

But Server Side programs do have some advantages:

=> With a Server Side program, people who join your

Newsletter receive an instant 'Welcome Message'

=> Server Side programs include an unsubscribe link

at the bottom of your Newsletter. The reader

just clicks on that link and the cgi program

removes them from your mailing list.

=> With Server Side programs, you don't need to be

connected to the Internet while your Newsletter

is being mailed out. You just click a button on

a web page and you can then go offline - the

mailing is being performed by your server.

Here are some tools for automating your email
marketing:

----------------------------------------------
Subscribe Me Pro (Server Side)
----------------------------------------------

This is a popular program amongst Newsletter
publishers - it mails out your Newsletter and provides
automatic subscribe/unsubscribe functions.

Subscribe Me Pro gives automatic mail-back
confirmation when people subscribe or unsubscribe and
you can include automatic Add or Remove links in each
e-mail, so users can add or remove themselves.

http://www.freezineweb.com/cgi-bin/subpro.cgi

-------------------------------------------------
Auto Response Plus (Server Side)
-------------------------------------------------

This program gives you unlimited follow-up
autoresponders. It allows full personalization of
subject lines, headers, footers, ads - every part of
every follow-up message can be personalized.

Auto Response Plus gives you full control over the
scheduling of your follow up messages - you can set an
interval between messages or schedule them to be sent
on certain days of the week.

Although this program is designed primarily for
sequential autoresponders, it's also quite capable of
mailing out your Newsletter and managing
subscribes/unsubscribes.

http://www.freezineweb.com/autoplus.html

-------------------------------
Mailloop (Client Side)
-------------------------------

This application includes a newsletter server, web
form processor, bulk emailer, customer database
management, and autoresponders.

As with other Client Side programs, Mailloop allows
you to merge an unlimited number of fields into your
e-mail message (for example: first name, last name,
e-mail address, product purchased, date of purchase,
etc).

http://www.freezineweb.com/mloop.html

--------------------------------------
World Merge (Client Side)
--------------------------------------

This is another application that allows you to merge
personalized data into form letters.

Depending on your modem and the quality of your ISP
connection, this program will send approximately 8,000
messages per hour.

WorldMerge is excellent value - it's about a quarter
the price of similar programs.

http://www.freezineweb.com/worldmerge.html

------------------------------------
Postmaster (Client Side)
------------------------------------

Like other Automated Email Marketing Tools, this
program allows you to create a form letter and merge
personalized data into each letter. Your letters are
addressed to 'Dear Michael' instead of 'Dear
Customer'.

Postmaster acts as a List Server, sends out follow-up
Autoresponders, and manages your database of contacts.

http://www.freezineweb.com/postmaster.html

To sum up, in a successful web marketing strategy,
your website is merely the first point of contact. You
then need to:

(1) build an opt-in email list of potential

customers (your website visitors)

(2) use automated email marketing tools that allow

you to follow up with your site visitors.

If you aren't building mailing lists and using
automated email marketing tools you could be losing up
to 90% of your potential sales.

------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
------------------------------------------------------------

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Southon

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Five-Step Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing Success

By Zack Lim

Affiliate marketing can be a bit confusing for beginners, what with the fast-paced developments of internet marketing in general. Basically, affiliate marketing refers to developing websites and email marketing strategies that drive traffic and purchases to your partner companies. Here is the 5 step guide to start your own online business.

Step 1 - Niche market

The first thing you need to worry about as an affiliate is your niche market. In layman's terms, a niche market is a more specific matrix of consumer characteristics that help you choose what specialized products to endorse.

After all, it's easier to cater to a market that looks for clothing designed for pregnant women in their 30s, than a market that looks for clothing in general. This will help you plan your website "look" and your articles' angle, as well as the contents and tone of your ebook and/or newsletters.

Step 2 - Freebies

A sure way to attract email subscribers is by offering useful freebies. Instead of just designing sales copies to make your affiliate product look enticing, you should come up with free online courses and/or informative ebooks to compliment your goods.

Step 3 - Opt-in pages

Building opt-in pages helps you build high quality email listings so you can avoid being categorized as spam. Most email servers are now equipped with anti-spam mechanisms that help subscribers filter the mails that they get online. Gathering email addresses of interested people, in this case, is definitely more effective than emailing random addresses.

Step 4 - Plan your follow up emails

You should spread out your follow up email carefully. If certainly doesn't help to send out daily emails to everyone in your list. When you're too persistent in your affiliate marketing efforts, you'll only come off as annoying. You should give your consumers enough breathing space and send out monthly or weekly newsletters with relevant content.

Step 5 - Be aggressive in driving consistent traffic

You will want to have your own 7 day traffic plan so that you will the actions that you will have to take on a daily basis to drive traffic to your website. There are many different ways to get targeted traffic to your website but it will be more practical for you to choose 1 to 3 methods as your core strategy of getting traffic to your website. Be consistent in this activity.

Here is the 5 step guide on starting your own online business. There is a system behind every successful business and you can make use of this simple guide to start off on the right. Apply the knowledge and you will see the power of this simple system.

To learn how to start your own affiliate marketing business without wasting your time and money, get my free E-course from http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com/FreeEcourse

Zack Lim is an internet affiliate marketer who owns http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com/FreeEcourse He has helped hundreds of people to start their own affiliate marketing business.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Zack_Lim

Friday, March 6, 2009

Affiliate Marketing Tips - 3 Killer Techniques to Boost Your Online Affiliate Business

By Zack Lim

When you think about it, online marketing, particularly affiliate marketing, requires more of analysis than plain hard work. For experts, this is true of affiliate marketing techniques as well as other methods of internet marketing, which is why one should be able to analyze and understand his or her market, the products being sold, and plans in generating profits through this kind of business. Once you are able to incorporate the right affiliate marketing techniques into your business, you will be able to earn up to six figures any time.

Here are three killer affiliate marketing techniques that will guarantee your success:

1. Extensive research - when engaged in affiliate marketing for the first time, you need to devote plenty of time on research with regards to your market, product choice, and the like. Fortunately, the World Wide Web has provided access tons of resources and materials for this kind of research through famous search engines.

2. Social networking - the web 2.0 landscapes has become the arena for all kinds of social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, all of which are great sources of traffic. Take advantage of this and you'll be generating profits like never before.

3. Writing reviews online - this involves writing quality reviews of the products you wish to sell. These will give your customers an idea of what these products are about, if they are useful to them, and if it is worth their money. It's a great way to gain more customers, so make sure that you write eye-catching articles that will win their attention.

Do not underestimate the effectiveness of these 3 techniques as they are very powerful when you apply it to your own online business. Start to apply some of these techniques to see a huge increase in your profits.

Zack Lim is an internet affiliate marketer who owns http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com/FreeEcourse. He has helped hundreds of people to start their own affiliate marketing business.

He has recently developed a free e-course showing you a step by step process for starting your own affiliate marketing business easier. To learn how to start your own affiliate marketing business without wasting your time and money, visit http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com/FreeEcourse

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Zack_Lim

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

5 Affiliate Profiting Secrets That You Must Know to Grow Your Online Business

By Zack Lim

Affiliate marketing means partnering with a particular vendor/affiliate program in order to promote his website and direct traffic for optimum sales. In order to compensate for the marketer's efforts, the vendor or company pays commission to every referral or sale he makes. This is a good source of revenue for those who are interested in this kind of online business, so if you're one of those who want to make it big in affiliate marketing campaigns, then take a look at these 5 affiliate marketing secrets:

1. The first thing you need to do is choose a niche for your marketing campaign. This is important because with a niche, you'll be able to target a specific market or group of people who may be willing to buy your products and avail of your services, which will then increase your chances of succeeding as an affiliate marketer.

2. Next, when engaging in affiliate marketing, you need to research and know your product well before selling it. This is a very important tip because when dealing with customer queries, you will only be able to provide them with good answers if you know what you are selling in the first place.

3. Don't jump from one area to another in short gaps. Focus on an expertise or product line that you are good at and excel in it to become the affiliate marketer that you really want to become. When you are working on a field that you are good at, you'll be able to handle your customers well.

4. Internet tools such as search engine optimization are essential if you want to increase the popularity and traffic rates of your affiliate marketing business. Since people normally use search engines when looking for a particular product, you need to optimize your business for it to be one of the first few results of their searches.

5. Lastly, the most important tip in affiliate businesses is to never give up.

Here are the 5 affiliate profiting secrets that you can use to boost your online business. Do remember it will only be effective if you take action on it. Start taking action today to achieve the goals that you have set for yourself.

Zack Lim is an internet affiliate marketer who owns http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com/FreeEcourse. He has helped hundreds of people to start their own affiliate marketing business.

He has recently developed a free e-course showing you a step by step process for starting your own affiliate marketing business easier. To learn how to start your own affiliate marketing business without wasting your time and money, visit http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com/FreeEcourse

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Zack_Lim