7 Ways To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions
Suppose you could launch an online business in the next ten
minutes? Suppose that this business did not require your
own website, dealing with customers, refunds, product
development or maintenance? This is the ideal world of
affiliate marketing.
Made popular on the internet by Amazon.com, marketers can
now earn a referral fee for directing visitors to countless
merchants' website. According to Forrester Research,
affiliate program earnings will represent $53 BILLION of
all e-commerce sales by 2005. How could you earn a sizeable
piece of this pie? Here are some powerful tips that would
get you rolling in those big commission checks and laughing
all the way to the bank.
1. Know what programs and products to promote.
Of course you will want to promote those programs that will
bring you the greatest profits in the shortest time. There
are several factors that play into selecting such a
program. Choose programs that have a generous commission
structure, products that fit in with your target audience
and a solid track record of paying their affiliates on
time. If you cannot recoup your investment, then prune such
programs and keep looking for better ones. There are tens
of thousands of affiliate programs online so you can afford
to be picky. This is a case where you will want to choose
just the cream of the crop and so reduce the risk of losing
your advertising dollars.
2. Write free reports or short ebooks to distribute from
your website.
Most likely you will be competing with other affiliate
marketers who are promoting the same program. If you write
a short report on a related topic to the product that you
are promoting, then you can distinguish yourself from all
other affiliates. In this report you can provide valuable
information for free with a "recommendation" of the
product. This is often referred to as a 'soft sell'.
The report or ebook allows you to develop credibility with
your audience and your readers are more likely to follow
your recommendation. There is less resistance to this type
of selling because the prospect doesn't feel 'sold', just
informed. The next step is to make this ebook 'viral' by
allowing those who bought the product through your link to
'brand' the ebook for their own promotional use.
3. Collect the email addresses of those who download your
free ebook.
Research has shown that over 60% of the sales of any
product are made after the fifth exposure to the sales
message. In other words, most people do not make a purchase
on the first solicitation. You may need to send your
marketing message over six times before a sale is made.
This is the reason why you should collect the contact
information of those who download your report. You can then
follow up on these contacts to gently remind them to make
the purchase.
4. Never send prospect directly to a vendor's website
without collecting their contact info first.
Affiliate marketing is ideal but not perfect. You must keep
in mind that you are providing free advertisement for the
product owners. The merchants only pay you when you make
the sale. If you send prospect directly to their website
then these prospect are lost to you forever. If you collect
these names instead, then you can always send other
marketing messages to them and earn an ongoing commission
instead of making a one-time sale.
5. Publish an online newsletter or Ezine.
It is always easier to recommend a product to a friend than
to sell to a stranger. This is the philosophy behind
publishing your own newsletter. A newsletter allows you to
build a subscriber list and develop a relationship of trust
with this list. Your subscribers will then trust you to
recommend products that will benefit them.
This strategy requires a delicate balance of providing
useful information along with a 'sales pitch'. In other
words, if you send out frequent advertisement to your list
and little valuable information you are likely to lose
credibility with your audience. But if you write
informative editorials you will build a sense of
reciprocity in your readers that will lead them to
'support' you by purchasing your affiliate products.
6. Ask merchants for a higher than normal commission.
If you are very successful with a particular promotion you
should approach the merchant and negotiate a higher
percentage commission for your sales. If the merchant is
smart he or she will likely grant your request rather than
lose you. Keep in mind again that you are a zero-risk
investment to the merchant, so don't be shy in your
requests. Just be reasonable.
7. Learn to write strong Pay Per Click (PPC) ads. One of
the most effective means of advertising online is through
PPC search engines. As an affiliate, you can make a
sizeable income by just managing PPC campaigns on services
such as Google Adwords and Overture. Monitor your campaigns
to see which ads are pulling their weight and trim those
that are not.
You can use the ClickBank? Market Place, for example, and
just choose a hot-selling product and start promoting. Once
you are earning a decent return on your investment then you
are in profit! Just this strategy alone can make all the
difference to your commission checks.
Affiliate marketing is an entrepreneur's dream come true.
Minimum investment, zero inventory, no employees, no
product development-just BIG checks!
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