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Affiliate Marketing Overview:
Does Anyone Really Make Money With Affiliate Programs?
Affiliate Marketing has definitely
allowed many women to build excellent revenue
streams with their web sites, however, contrary to what many will
tell you -
starting a business online - even an Affiliate Marketing business
- is not free.
You will have some start-up costs as well as a number of ongoing
monthly costs
to maintain your website and run your business, even as an affiliate.
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But - compared to starting a brick
and mortar business - getting started as an
Affiliate is one of the most inexpensive ways to start your online “empire”!
Most of the items you will need seem pretty obvious - (and if you
are reading this
article you probably already have them): you need a computer, a domain
name,
and a good, fairly permanent place to work (preferably someplace
that affords
you a bit of privacy - you are going to need some quality “brainstorm” time!).
To this list of basic start-up essentials add the following recurring
expenses:
• Web Hosting (for your web site)
• An internet connection (your ISP - more about this later)
• Autoresponder service
• Advertising/Marketing
• Domain Name renewals
• Phone service/fax/voicemail
Two items on this list that are absolutely
essential in creating a successful
Affiliate business are your web host, and your ISP. Although it is
often tempting
to go with the very lowest priced providers you can find - in the
long run this will
almost always cause you more grief than profit. Never use a free
hosting site,
because you will not have a true domain and web site that you own
and control.
Hosting has become a very competitive business, and you will find
that many
hosting companies now include a wide variety of excellent “add-on” bonuses
such as autoresponders, newsletter management systems, and other
valuable
scripts to get and keep your business. So - shop around and find
the host that
offers the most for your money.
We have included two excellent hosting
companies in the Miscellaneous section
of this channel (we have sites hosted at both of them!), each includes
a variety
of great “freebies”, but they are by no means your only
choices.
Do some homework and find one that
fits both your current needs and your long
term goals. One thing that many people overlook is that many ISPs
also include
a free hosting account or a greatly reduced price for hosting your
business site,
so your own ISP is always a good place to start, although they rarely
include the
additional services mentioned above.
The second area that most start-ups
tend to skimp on is their internet connection.
Although high speed access (cable, DSL etc) may seem like a needless
extra
expense (okay - a luxury probably), it isn’t, and here’s
why: If you are starting
out your Affiliate Marketing business in your “spare” time,
you have to make
every every minute of your time count. One of the most time consuming
aspects
of marketing of any kind online is the time you are going to spend
researching -
doing relevant key word searches at Google, etc, visiting web sites,
researching
Affiliate programs etc.
High speed access can cut your surfing
time in half or more - meaning you can
get twice as much work done in the same amount of time, and to be
honest -
high speed is usually 5 to 10 times faster than your dial-up.
So before you say no to high speed,
think about the cost in terms of the extra
time you are gaining - you will probably find that you cannot afford
to not have
high speed access!
So now that you have an idea of the
cost of starting...you are probably wondering
what you need to do to start making money, instead of spending it!
While there are no magical keys to
absolute success in this industry, there are a
lot of very ordinary people making very liveable incomes online.
You can hardly
open your email these days without someone trying to sell you a book
on the fast
and easy way to Affiliate wealth - and some of those stories are
true and others,
well...but the truth is that Affiliate Marketing is like any other
business - it takes
an investment of a little money, a lot of time, and a great deal
of effort...but
success is quite possible if you are willing to work for it.
The most successful Affiliate Marketers
are those that carefully choose products
that appeal to them at a personal level - perhaps because it involves
a hobby or
personal interest, or perhaps because they have used the product
or program
successfully themselves.
Successful Affiliate Marketers do
not usually try to market a product that is
completely out of their range of personal or business experience
because they
know that trying to market to an unknown “niche” is extremely
difficult, if not
impossible.
In other words - if your passion
is needlepoint - which EBook would be easier for
you to market - the ABCs of Creating your Own Needlepoint Designs...or
How
To Catch More Bass with Home-made Lures??
The key to being successful in Affiliate
Marketing is doing your homework before
diving in. Sit down and list your own personal passions, hobbies,
interests, areas
of expertise etc - then go online and do a search for sites on these
topics to see
what is currently being sold, and what kinds of Affiliate programs
are available.
Visit the WNN Ultimate Affiliate Directory and the WNN Clickbank
Directory and
do key word searches related to your list. You may wind up investing
in some of
the products, services or EBooks before you sign up as an Affiliate
- especially
if you already have a website and are going to be recommending these
products
to your current customers or members. Remember that when you personally
recommend a product to your customers - they are going to buy not
just based
on great copy - but on the trust and faith they have in you - so
don’t take a risk
on recommending something you have not used or read!
You will also need to research the
potential marketing costs for your chosen
products. The best way to begin mapping out your strategy is take
the top two or
three items of interest from your list, and see how they rank in
Google AdWords,
and 2 or 3 other search engines that offer paid advertising programs.
Don’t be
concerned if you find that the top 3 or 4 positions cost an arm and
a leg - contrary
to what you may have heard - it is not necessary to always be in
the top of the
category - but you do want to try and be on the first page of a search.
In most
cases, you will find that there is a huge price difference between
the top listings
and those that fall at the very bottom of the page. Position number
1 could be
$15 a pop - but position number 10 might be .14¢....that's a
huge difference in
your advertising costs - but the difference in sales might not be
nearly as
dramatic as one would expect!
Because here’s a rather
interesting thing to think about....serious buyers tend to
do more research and will visit more than just a few sites before
deciding where
and what to buy. Although you may not get as many visitors by being
at the
bottom of the page - you will probably get just as many buyers -
and at a lower
acquisition cost per sale. Also, by going for the lower priced key
word - you can
spread your budget out over more possible search phrases.
The biggest mistake made by new Affiliate
Marketers is spending all of their
marketing budget trying to get into the top position and it just
isn’t necessary!
When you finally have narrowed down
your choices to a few products or services
or books that you want to sell, spend some time looking at the merchant’s
site
and their posted policies:
• Do they have a clearly
stated refund or return policy?
• If it is a tangible product, not downloaded,
what are their shipping costs and policies?
• How long will you be paid for referring a customer to their
site?
• Are you paid only on the first visit or
a single sale or is it for the “lifetime” of the customer?
• What are the posted policies for commissions?
• Do you have to pay to have your check cut
and mailed or will they do an ACH to your bank account?
One of the final decisions before
launching your website is how many products
you want to feature - avoid the mistake of offering everything to
everyone! The
whole point of doing the research and choosing one or two or three
specific topics
is to develop a focused site or sites and a focused, strategic marketing
effort.
Keep the products to a manageable number - give your customers a
few choices
- but don’t make the selection process so overwhelming that
your visitors simply
leave rather than make a choice!
Last but not least - read everything
that you can about Affiliate Marketing, Google
AdWords, and search engines. Educate yourself, and understand that
online
marketing is a fluid constantly changing medium, and you have to
stay flexible
to succeed. Don’t become so tied to a product or company or
author that you
ignore the trends in the market. Subscribe to newsletters, join the
forums, and
become involved in the huge and growing community of Affiliate Marketing.
Obviously these articles are just
a very basic overview of what it takes to be
successful in Affiliate Marketing - to give you a detailed road map
- this section
would have to be several hundred pages long....not too practical
for a web site!
So, we have put together some great
resources to help you get started - ezines,
hosting companies, books and Ebooks - be sure to visit the Meandering
Mouse
recommendations in the upper right hand column of this page - many
of the recommendations are Affiliate programs...but rest assured,
we have used
them all and we really do personally recommend them!
Happy Marketing!
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