Skating the Infosphere

June 18, 2008

Are Affiliates in Demand?

Filed under: Better Marketing @ 3:08 pm

Is there a demand for affiliate marketers today? Yes, there is a huge demand. One of the challenges faced in the affiliate marketing industry is that it sometimes sounds too good to be true: advertising that’s guaranteed to work or it’s free! Newcomers wonder if it’s possible, and skeptics claim that the cost effective prices of affiliate marketing lower the bar for online advertising. But there is a good reason that affiliate marketing has experienced steady growth throughout the ups and downs of online advertising—it works. And affiliate marketing has evolved to become a reliable source of sales for a wide range of marketers.

Affiliate marketing has evolved from the early years when some touted it as the future of online advertising, and others claimed it was the downfall of the medium. It’s now a sophisticated channel that generates anywhere from five to 25% of online sales for many of the world’s biggest brands.

Almost all major multi-channel marketers have an affiliate program of some kind. The important thing to remember is that affiliate programs now come in all shapes and sizes. The concept of a wide-open affiliate program with an unlimited and uncontrolled number of affiliates is a thing of the past. Nearly all marketers agree that affiliates add value to an online marketing effort, but the program must be tailored to meet the marketer’s objectives.

Affiliate marketing did not bring an end to other, higher priced forms of online media advertising. The success of the affiliate marketing in delivering sales cost effectively by way of a pay-for-performance model paved the way for other forms of performance-based advertising, such as CPA-based search and portal advertising, to create acceptance among direct marketers. Affiliate marketing has evolved, with affiliates and marketers becoming more sophisticated and programs more integrated with other forms of online marketing.

Go and check out the Secret Affiliate Code or read a honest Secret Affiliate Code Review. And your dreams could become true!

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June 16, 2008

Top 3 Ways To Boost Your Affiliate Commissions Overnight

Filed under: Better Marketing @ 6:32 am

The ideal world of affiliate marketing does not require having your won website, dealing with customers, refunds, product development and maintenance. This is one of the easiest ways of launching into an online business and earning more profits.

Assuming you are already into an affiliate program, what would be the next thing you would want to do? Double, or even triple, your commissions, right? How do you do that?

Here are some powerful tips on how to boost your affiliate program commissions overnight.

1. Know the best program and products to promote. Obviously, you would want to promote a program that will enable you to achieve the greatest profits in the shortest possible time.

There are several factors to consider in selecting such a program. Choose the ones that have a generous commission structure. Have products that fit in with your target audience. And that has a solid track record of paying their affiliate easily and on time. If you cannot seem to increase your investments, dump that program and keep looking for better ones.

There are thousands of affiliate programs online which gives you the reason to be picky. You may want to select the best to avoid losing your advertising dollars.

Write free reports or short ebooks to distribute from your site. There is a great possibility that you are competing with other affiliates that are promoting the same program. If you start writing short report related to the product you are promoting, you will be able to distinguish yourself from the other affiliates.

In the reports, provide some valuable information for free. If possible, add some recommendations about the products. With ebooks, you get credibility. Customers will see that in you and they will be enticed to try out what you are offering.

2. Collect and save the email addresses of those who download your free ebooks. It is a known fact that people do not make a purchase on the first solicitation. You may want to send out your message more than six times to make a sale.

This is the simple reason why you should collect the contact information of those who downloaded your reports and ebooks. You can make follow-ups on these contacts to remind them to make a purchase from you.

Get the contact information of a prospect before sending them to the vendor’s website. Keep in mind that you are providing free advertisement for the product owners. You get paid only when you make a sale. If you send prospects directly to the vendors, chances are they would be lost to you forever.

But when you get their names, you can always send other marketing messages to them to be able to earn an ongoing commission instead of a one-time sale only.

Publish an online newsletter or Ezine. It is always best to recommend a product to someone you know than to sell to a stranger. This is the purpose behind publishing your own newsletter. This also allows you to develop a relationship based on trust with your subscribers.

This strategy is a delicate balance between providing useful information with a sales pitch. If you continue to write informative editorials you will be able to build a sense of reciprocity in your readers that may lead them to support you by buying your products.

3. Ask for higher than normal commission from merchants. If you are already successful with a particular promotion, you should try and approach the merchant and negotiate a percentage commission for your sales.

If the merchant is smart, he or she will likely grant your request rather than lose a valuable asset in you. Keep in mind that you are a zero-risk investment to your merchant; so do not be shy about requesting for addition in your commissions. Just try to be reasonable about it.

Write strong pay Per Click ads. PPC search engine is the most effective means of advertising online. As an affiliate, you can make a small income just by managing PPC campaigns such as Google AdWords and Overture. Then you should try and monitor them to see which ads are more effective and which ones to dispose of.

Try out these strategies and see the difference it can make to your commission checks in the shortest of time.

Go and check out the Secret Affiliate Code or read a honest Secret Affiliate Code Review. And your dreams could become true!

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June 14, 2008

Affiliate Marketing in a Nutshell

Filed under: Better Marketing @ 4:36 pm

What exactly is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is the single fastest growth industry on the Internet. It’s also true that affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and most creative ways to make money and have a career on the Internet.

Simply put, affiliate marketing is selling products on a commission basis. You own a business that advertises and sells products for other companies. You may have a product of your own to begin with or not. The things that a successful affiliate marketer must have are:

1.Your website is the jumping off point of all your marketing efforts. So the first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. You must build a user-friendly website, which will attract your prospects and motivate them to click on the links to the products and services you are promoting and make a purchase. There are companies whose business is building websites that you can hire to build one for you.

2.You must find products to sell, you must be able to determine whether there is a demand for those products and if people will actually buy them. You may either have your own original product or products that are made by others. Which ever way you go, you must believe in the products.

3.It will be necessary for you to become an adept advertiser and be able to tell whether the advertising you are paying for is producing more income for you than the advertising is costing you.

4.It is necessary that you have good mathematical skills. You will need to be able to track your sales and determine profit, as well as, see to it that your suppliers are paid in full and on time.

5.You need the full and unwavering support of your family so that you can devote the time and energy necessary to launch your affiliate marketing business.

Learn more about affiliate marketing with the Secret Affiliate Code

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June 13, 2008

Affiliate Marketing Released

Filed under: Better Marketing @ 12:29 pm

There are no great secrets to affiliate marketing, just create a website for each product you are promoting. Affiliate marketing is a great way to sell other peoples products etc., while earning a commission. It can be done just by simply creating a simple web page with the information people are looking for. This can be an inexpensive way to start an internet business and in particular if you do not have a product of your own to sell at this point.

Before you start you will need to have a product to market so how do you go about this task? To protect yourself, read the terms and conditions of the affiliate program you want to sign up for and if you do not agree wit them, move on to another product. If you are taking your business seriously then this is something you would do in the ordinary world so do not be fooled by the ease with which the virtual world appears to work. It is not uncommon for there to be restrictions where you can be located to get paid and there have been instances where people have been accepted to programs and not been paid because they do not live in an approved location.

Be wary of affiliate programs that pay less than fifty percent commission unless you can guarantee a high turnover. If you have never researched affiliate marketing before you can try to free web resources to find products and they are: google.com/trends/hottrends and Clickbank.com where you can also sign up for the programs using their own payment gateway. There generally is no need to pay for membership of any affiliate program, be very careful of companies that ask for an up front fee. As far as payments are concerned, stick with companies you know you can trust; Click bank and Paypal are two such companies with good reputations. There is no reason why you cannot use other companies when you become more experienced at affiliate marketing.

When you are new at marketing affiliate products there is a great deal to learn, but take heart as there are a huge number of free resources, ebooks and websites, to help just do not try to take in too much at once. Although some free ebooks contain affiliate links so the author is paid for his work, you do not have to click on these if you do not want to. It is easy to start using the free techniques first in the early days and then stat paying for worthwhile programs etc. when you are making some money. Services provided free is often a way for the person selling them to build up a trust that can generate sales later on.

Of course the way to increase traffic to your affiliate marketing project is to use other forms of advertising because people can miss your online efforts but this can help direct them to your site. If you provide people with the information they require and point them towards your affiliate website, you cannot go far wrong. One of the key to success that all top affiliate marketers use is tracking where their sales originate from and dropping those forms of advertising that do not work. The potential income that can be derived for affiliate marketing is huge with so many companies to choose from. A great deal of information is out there but you are warned about some which will be out of date or misleading.

Learn more about Affiliate Marketing at secretaffiliatecodes.com

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August 4, 2007

Sale Conversion Rate Over 70% !!!

Ok so just wanted to share what up till now is the longest presale on a single item have ever done. Between the amount of articles published under my niches spuedonym, the free report that is used as an opt-in giveaway and the autoresponder course I had 120 pages of space to presell the ebook. The ebook is only 40 pages long, but is very usefull for the niche it is targeting.

So how did it convert? For the people that actually read the free report, read the autoresponder course and commented in the forums of the site I have for the niche, almost 70% converted!!!!

Now I have had some pretty successfull items before in other niches, but 70%? Its crazy. Now that is not an exact figure(I am going by the percentage of people that discuss the report/articles in the forums to those that bought.

Here was the formula I used to presell the item:

Started with writing the product, a 40 page informational guide targeteing my niches needs/wants. The book is packed though, and I meen packed with info, no fluff at all.

I then just took the information i wrote for the book and took the same information and spread it out! Took 1 piece at a time and then just wrote more on it. I generated 40 articles on the subject all from the same information. These 40 articles kind of reveal the entire book, but with tons of fluff!!

Then took those articles, grouped them together and re-wrote them into free reports to give away. Generated two different reports, one to use to lure them in, the other for ‘members only’.

Now this is all off of the same information as whats in the book. Its just milked and spread out.

So heres how it worked out:
the person opted in for their free report(drawn from the articles)and ecourse on the subject, then they read it and went to the forums that I suggested. The forums are run by me even though its kind of w/o name. They then had to pay a $5 1 time fee to be allowed in to the ‘exlusive’ forums.

So they are allready hooked basicly. After I got a sizeable amount of people in this niche forum I then sent them all a message telling them about the eBook that they could buy that was officially written by the forum, guess what…..70% bought it!

The point of this is not to say you have to do a ton of presale of your item before hand, but if you plan on building a long lasting profit formula within the niche, its well worth it.

Even though all of the same information as what was in the ebook was allready revealed, but spread out….they all gave raving reviews of it!

This alone brought in more people to the forums, and then more bought the ebook as well!

Basicly the people are telling their friends within the niche(I picked a niche where the demographics have a tight community so they would be more likely to ’spread the word’).

Anywase now I have my team of writers developing a new product to release on these ravenouse people who are willing to spend anything to cure their problem!!

This is nothing new to most of you, but I thought the formula would help out a lot of the newer people that are on these forums.

Heres the recap:
40 pages of powerful writing.
Spread out to 40 articles.
Created a 40 page free report.
Created 40 page ‘members only report’
Then after the customer base was there sold the book.

120 pages of time to presell your item, before you even write your adcopy!!!

All off of the original 40 page text. And since the eBook is all of the other information but without fluff or BS in it, they bought it up and loved it.

Hope this helps some of you.

Get more of this at www.HonestKnowledge.com

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August 1, 2007

Web 2.0 Strategies For Getting Traffic

The Most Effective Ways to Get 1,000+ Visitors a Day

How many of you here are expert Web 2.0 Strategists? Well if you aren’t, don’t worry; I am here to share with you some of the best tactics to getting millions of visitors.

No matter whom you are, this tactic can dramatically boost your rank on Google and get you more readers than ever before. Let’s continue…

Method 1 - Squidoo

Squidoo is a growing website that is getting more powerful by the day and is excellent to leverage to drive traffic to your blog.

Squidoo is really easy to use but before you set up an account, it’s important to familiarize yourself with some of the terms that are exclusive to Squidoo:

Lens – having a ‘lens’ is rather similar to owning a blog. It’s like your virtual real estate on Squidoo. And get this: you can either build just one lens or maintain 100 of them! It’s all totally free too. But more on lens later.

Lens Modules

Modules are basically the tools and resources you’re provided on Squidoo, to upload text, images and any other information to your lens.

Here are some great modules you want to make use of:

All about you: - Includes Write, Make a list, Google Maps, YouTube, Link List, etc, etc.

Blogger lens: - Includes RSS feed, BoingBoing, Technorati, Guestbook, etc.

How-to lens: - Includes Write, Flickr Pics, YouTube, The MAKE Blog.

$$ Lens: - For Ebay and Amazon

Just Add Water: - Includes: Link List, RSS Feed, Write, Amazon, Flickr Pictures, Google Maps, eBay, Guestbook, etc.

Custom Lens: - Here, you have the option of picking and choosing from the modules you want. What’s more, you can simply add or remove them anytime you want to.

When setting up a len, it’s important to include your main keyword in your domain. You will also need to use the right keywords if you want to show up on the first Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

Do your keyword research first before using Squidoo.

There is 3 more methods that are even more powerful than this one and you can view it at www.HonestKnowledge.com.

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July 30, 2007

Internet Marketing- The Guru Secrets

Filed under: Better Marketing, Helpful Information @ 2:08 pm

In order to be successful at being an Internet Marketer, one must understand and follow 25 rules…

25. Developing A Positive Attitude - It is so easy to get discouraged in this business. So many people expect to start their business on January 1 and be in profit by January 5. Oh how I wish it was that easy. But building a business takes time and it is so easy to start to think negatively. Therefore, it is imperative to have a positive attitude about your business each day, no matter how hard it gets. Negativity just breeds more of it.

24. Making Friendships - There is no secret that it’s not always what you know but who you know. Yes, you can make it on your own, which is why I don’t have this one up higher on the list, but if you make friendships, and you do this by offering of yourself to people with no strings attached, you will begin to see that people will be more willing to work with you. This will help you succeed that much faster.

23. Developing Tech Skills - While this is not a requirement, it will definitely make your life easier, at least until you can afford to outsource some things. Of course if you make friendships, you might be able to outsource in exchange for some skills that you DO have. But you will ultimately need to develop some skills. Having to depend on people for everything technical is going to put a terrible strain on your pocketbook.

22. Product Creation - You’re probably surprised that this isn’t up higher. While having your own product certainly gives you certain advantages, it is not a requirement to have your own product to run a successful business. Many affiliate marketers do very well. But I feel that to get to the next level, product creation is the way to go.

21. Record Keeping - So many people spend so much time running their business from the standpoint of just “making sales” that they don’t bother keeping accurate records for tax purposes and paying affiliates. Let me tell you, not keeping records can land you in a boat load of trouble in so many ways that you don’t even want to know. Please keep accurate records, not just of expenses and income but of all correspondence or anything that has to do with running your business that you’re going to want to remember.

20. Observing Trends - If you don’t know what’s going on around you, you can’t run an effective business. If one form of promotion stops working

because Google decided that they’re going to slap it silly (take the recent problems with Squidoo) and you’re not aware of this, you’re going

to be spending time on something that could be spent doing something else more profitable. You MUST know what’s going on around you.

19. Branding Yourself - So many people when they start their business, especially if they’re getting into affiliate marketing, don’t take the time to really create an identity for themselves. I did this from the very beginning by branding myself as the “no nonsense marketer”, somebody who would tell it like it is no matter how many feathers I ruffled. And believe me, I ruffled quite a few. If you don’t stand out, nobody is going to remember who you are.

18. Attention To Detail - This may be one of the most difficult things for people to do. It’s hard enough to get a handle on the big picture, but sometimes it’s the details that screw up our business. For example, putting up a sales page with glaring errors on it, or putting together an autoresponder series with missing links in some of the emails. There is just so much that can go wrong because of the little details, which is why it is critical to make sure each T is crossed and each I is dotted.

17. Focus - This is another big problem for new marketers. They start on one project or “business” and then get sidetracked by something else. I

see a whole bunch of people laughing right now because they know how true this is. Yeah, I know. I used to be that way so I am speaking from experience. I can’t stress this enough. Focus on ONE thing, complete it and then MOVE ON.

16. Establishing Credibility - The Internet has gotten to the point where nobody believes anything anymore. So it is critical to establish as much

credibility for yourself as you can. This is easier said than done, I admit, especially when first starting. But there are ways to do this. When first starting out, if you’re promoting your own product, give it out free to some people and let them try it. Let them see the value in it. If they do, most likely they’ll provide you with testimonials that will help towards building your credibility. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s something you should be working on everyday because the more credibility you have the easier it’s going to be for you to make sales.

To view more, please visit www.HonestKnowledge.com.

You will also find advanced tips and tricks on making the most of Internet Marketing.

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