The big lie

You’ve probably heard how easy it is to start an affiliate business. Well, that’s true . . . to a point It is the easiest business you can possibly start. But “easier” doesn’t mean “easy”.

The cold hard truth

The worst part is that the information you’ve received is all wrong. You’ve been told to find quality products. Next to look for easy keywords to target. Then buy some keyword ads that send traffic to the product. And just enjoy the commissions. But it doesn’t work.

Forget keywords

Keyword advertising used to work. But the competition has shot the price of keywords through the roof. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

The NEW game

There’s still hope. Here’s how to win at this game.

• Start using CPA marketing
• Utilize demographics data
• Do image ad marketing

Get into CPA marketing

CPA stands for Cost Per Action. It’s far superior to product promotion. Because you don’t have to get people to spend money. You get paid when they take an “action”. Such as filling in a form. And getting them to do this is so much easier.

Do demographics research

You’re not even going to use keywords (explained below.) Invest your research time into demographics. First you select your CPA offer. Next, you go to Quantcast.com. And find your target demographic.

Market on display networks

Now you have your offer and your demographics. You can advertise directly to them on display networks. And let images do the work. And there was no keyword research required. The biggest advantage is price. Display networks charge a fraction for image ad clicks vs. keyword ads.

In closing

This is a great way to make money fast. Because getting started in CPA is free. Image ads are cheap. Display networks let you do demographics targeting. And you get paid for having them take a simple action.

Info marketing explained

First, understand that this is the simplest kind of business there is. You create a product that provides information. And then sell it to people who want to learn the info in it. It couldn’t get much simpler.

But how does it all work?

You’ve got the basic concept – exchange info for money. However, to succeed you’ve got to provide information people want. So step one is to discover what kind of info people want. How do you do that?

A super simple trick is to just to check “answer” sites. Just go to Yahoo! answers or ask.com and look at the questions being asked there. You’re looking for popular questions or common themes. Something that most people don’t already know. And solve the problem for them by writing an info product on it.

An encouraging word

If you’re concerned about information product development Consider this: An ebook is just a series of articles. Don’t try to write a whole ebook. Focus on one article at a time. And when you have a collection, refine and expand on them and put them together into an ebook.

So, what’s so great about ebooks? Interestingly enough, we’re back to the name of this article How about 7 reasons why:

1. Simplicity and ease

As soon as you have the pieces in place, it’s virtually maintenance free. There is almost no support. So you can just set it up and let it run. It’s like having an automated cash machine.

You don’t have any inventory. You never have to deal with shipping. It’s digital.

2. Repurposing

After you’ve created a few ebooks. You can just combine them into a more expensive product. It’s very easy to package multiple ebooks together as one new one. And your new product will be able to carry a much higher sticker price. People will be willing to pay a lot more for one big ebook. Instead of several small ebooks.

3. Private label right

When you own the product, you can sell resell rights to it. Resell rights are very hot right now, because most people simply don’t have the time, money and effort it takes to create their own products. And the best part is you’re selling the same product . . . but for 3 times the price for the rights!

4. Leverage

It’s your content, so you can use it in as many different ways as you want. Take parts of your info product and turn it into a email training series. And build an email list that you can sell other products to.

5. More leverage

Utilize your content in as many ways as you can – like creating a few reports from parts of the ebook. These reports can then become lead generators for your ebook. They can be free or low prices. And you’re creating targeted leads for your main product all along. And if you’re really clever, you’ll let your affiliate use these reports as marketing tools. Affiliate, you say? Yes!

6. Affiliates

This is one of the biggest reasons of all. Once you have your own product. You’re able to let other people market it for you. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bunch of other people doing your marketing for you? You’ve got to have your own products to have affiliates.

7. Joint Ventures

Last, but definitely not least… Setting up joint ventures is the fastest way to gain success. Period. So, I’d say this is the most important reason to have you own products. No products of your own = no way to do joint ventures.

Summing it up

If you don’t want to sell digital products by now, then you haven’t been paying attention. With your own info product you can write your own ticket. Because you’re the boss! So, decide to just start:

• Go to answers.yahoo.com
• Find out what people need to know
• Write about the answers

The steps on how to write an ebook are really that easy. And in no time you’ll have an info product ready to go.

But why?

There’s no real mystery. Audio breaks the silence of the web. It adds a human touch to your site. It also makes your site feel more real. Basically, audio brings your site to life. And this aliveness creates more interaction with your visitors.

Here are the benefits

Adding audio increases your profits in two ways. You will close more sales. Secondly, you will not have to spend as much to make the sales. You see, you’ll be able to skip the expensive copywriter. You can just add your own audio. Your visitors will respond better to a heart-felt message from you than some fancy copywriting.

You’ll also get better conversions on your list opt-ins. Most people need to be led by the hand. Just add a short audio message saying: Fill in your name and email and click submit. Just this one simple thing will boost opt-ins up to 315%!

How to use website audio

Add a welcome to my site message on your main page. Most websites are cold and in-human. Grabbing their attention like this helps you keep them on your site.

A guided tour. The same principle the we used to boost opt-ins applies. Use an audio message to lead your visitors through a process. And take them all the way through buying your product.

Get testimonials for your services and products. Written testimonials are good. But an audio testimonial is better. You can just make up written one and people know that. Audio adds a level of higher believability. Which boosts your sales for sure.

Here’s a bonus tip

Something you may not have thought of is using audio for the product itself. You’ll be able to produce audio products faster than any other kind. Plus people love audio products. Podcasts are still popular, so this is a great format. And once you record the audio, you can pay someone to transcribe it for you. This is the easiest way to “write” an eBook!

Is it hard to add audio?

It’s actually really easy. There are quite a few audio streaming software programs out there. You don’t actually have to do anything yourself. The software creates the audio button code for you. Just paste the code you copy from the software. So don’t let this stop you.

In closing

Here’s a recap of the benefits. Using website audio will increase your conversion rates. No doubt your sales will go up. You will also increase your subscriber opt-ins. And you can quickly produce products and website sales copy. You’ll be one of the few you use these strategies. But you’ll save a lot of time and money. Don’t be lazy! Add some audio today.

Affiliate videos

No one would deny the power and popularity of video. The reason it’s so pervasive is because everyone loves it. Keeping people’s attention is so much easier using videos. So you can put this to great advantage in your affiliate marketing.

Here’s how to use videos for affiliate promotions:

• Testimonials
• Walk-throughs
• Ordering
• Sneak peak

Do a testimonial video

This one is super simple. Just click record on your web cam and start talking. Don’t worry about quality. Just seeing another real person endorsing a product helps your viewers decide to buy. And the mess-ups or mistakes just make the video more real. So serious, just turn on the camera and talk. Use one of the other ideas if you’re feeling shy.

Walk-throughs

This is a great way to promote something without selling it. Basically you’re doing a tutorial on how to use the product. And while they watch you use it, they think, “I should buy that.” As long as the product is good, the tutorial makes them want it. So just make sure you’re demoing a good product.

Ordering

This could be the most powerful method of all. Do a screen capture of the ordering process. Nothing inspires your viewers to buy like watching you do it. First of all it’s what’s called “social proof”. In general people are more likely to something they’ve seen other people do. Second, it builds trust. They are much more likely to take your advice to buy when you’ve taken it yourself. And finally, it creates envy. They see you getting the satisfaction of making the purchase and that makes them want it. You can add some extra punch to this by ending with: If you want to see the inside, you’ll have to order it yourself.

Record a preview of the members area

Here’s an easy way to show the value of the product. What you do is record a tour of the back end. They get to see everything they’ll receive when they order. And it helps soften the skeptics. It’s much easier to trust they’re getting something if they actually seen it.

Anyone can do it!

You don’t need any special training for this. Some very easy to use programs make the videos for you. The software really does all the work So you don’t have to worry about the technical part of this at all. Keep focused on the rewards:

• More sales You’ll earn more affiliate commissions when you add video. People like video, so start using it.
• Lower refund rates Less of your commissions will be clawed back, too. Thanks to you people know what’s inside before buying. So, very few of them will cancel their order.
• Beat your competition! This is a really easy thing to do. But pretty much no one does it. That puts you ahead of the pack.

Get started right now and take your affiliate marketing to the next level. Not using video is detrimental to you business. So do it!

So, how do you build a list?

Here are the three components of list building:

• The Squeeze Page
• The Bribe
• Your Confirmation Page

Your Landing Page – Your opt-in page is the page you send visitors to to build your list. This is where they will enter their email address. So, obviously it has to be well designed. And have an easy to understand opt-in form. And your call to action must be clear!

Failure to include a great “call to action” will result in failure. This “close” tells your visitors what you want them to do. And if you don’t include it, they won’t opt in. The funny thing is that people just don’t know what to do unless you tell them.

One way to really spice up your squeeze page is to add a compelling video to the page. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. Plus it give you a chance to tell them to opt in multiple times. Then at the end of the video you can print “sign up now” on the video.

Now, don’t worry if you have no idea how to make videos. You can hire freelancers to do this for you for a few hundred dollars. There are also list building systems that have everything pre-built for you.

The Incentive – The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. People need a good reason to part with their email address. Most people are very protective of their email address. So make your “bribe” a good one!

The only way to make this work is to provide real value. Then it becomes something people want to get from you. And something from which they can derive a benefit. It could be:

• An eBook
• Software
• A video
• An email training series

You’ve got to create some great content. And make it both helpful and informative. And of course it has to be free. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

Now, if you don’t know how to create the bribe don’t worry. It’s super easy to hire someone to create it for you. You just pick the topic and they create the training. A 5-part email series is a good freebie. You can have ghost writers create emails for under $25 an email. So, a great premium will cost you around $100 – $150.

You can also get email list building tools that include the premium. Two things to keep in mind when writing (or buying) and email training series. The first thing is that it delivers value to your subscribers. And second, it needs to make you money. The easiest way to do this is to market affiliate products in the emails. Affiliate products are easy because you don’t have to do anything at all. And you can earn some commissions immediately from your emails.

Your Confirmation Page – The “thank you” page is the final piece of the puzzle. This is the page your subscriber sees after they opt in. It’s a great idea to give them some valuable information right on the thank you page. Then they feel good about giving you their email address. It also helps to build the relationship. So when they get your email, they’re happy to hear from you.

This is another case where you can get a complete marketing package. Or you can go the DIY route. And write it all yourself. Or pay a freelancer to write the content for you.

Summary

It doesn’t matter if you do all of this yourself. Or pay a freelancer to write produce it all for you. Or if you get a ready-done package. The key is to start building your list. Because as soon as you’ve got your own list . . . You’ve got a license to print money!

If you want to make more money as an affiliate, you must presell.

Before we begin, we need to first define what preselling is. Well, it is an art. And it’s also a science. And it’s function is to prepare your reader to buy something. Then you send them to the site that sells what you’ve prepared them for. And when it’s done correctly, they don’t know it’s happening.

Basically, you give them some content. And give them a link to the product you’re preselling. We’ll get into how to do it correctly in a minute. Before we get into that, you should understand what’s in it for you. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

• It helps your reader trust you – Once you have your readers’ trust, they will click your links more readily. And the more traffic you can send to the sale page, the more commissions you’ll earn.
• It disarms your reader – When you’re preselling vs. pitching, you’re reader doesn’t feel the need to be guarded. This means they are more open to what you’re saying. And your intention is conveyed more easily.
• It creates buying readiness – Your readers are now receiving your message. And in turn, they’re open to other messages, as well. For example, the sales message on the page you’re linking to. Being open to a sales message is what it means being in a buying mood.
• You make more money – You’ve prepped them and referred them in the right state of mind. Open to the sales message and feeling safe. The only possible result is more sales!
• It boosts customer loyalty – Your referral now feels like they decided to buy. Instead of being manipulated into buying. And this makes them feel better about the product they purchased.
• Preselling increases your bottom line – Satisfied customers are less like to refund. Less refunds means more affiliate money stays in your pocket.

The need to presell is clear. You make more money. And produce happier customers. Everybody wins!

How does it work?

Now you know whey preselling is critical. And hopefully you’re convinced you need to start doing it. So, let’s talk about how to make it work. Remember, there are two components – art and science.

The art of preselling

First, you have to gain the trust of your reader, so they let their guard down. And the only method of doing this is to give exceptional value to your readers. Now, providing enough info to be useful, but still making them want more – that’s the art of it. So you send them to the product website with a hunger for more of what the product provides. And because you’ve gained trust, they’re more receptive to the sales message and more likely to buy.

It’s also a science

You also have to include some very specific things.

First of all, it’s important HOW you present your information. You need to know where you’re going before you begin. Your end goal is to make a sale of the product you’re preselling. How can providing information accomplish this goal? The first method is to provide enough info to get them started, but not enough to finish. Or you can give them so much information that it feels overwhelming to do what you’re talking about. In either case, the product you’re referring them to solves the problem for them.

Next, you have to use “convert linking” methods. Instead, you use a direct link to the product website. When you do this, you’re click-throughs go way up. But, without your affiliate link, how do you get credit? This is all part of the science of preselling. You use an image tag to cookie your reader before they leave your site.

You also want to link to the sales page from inside your article’s content. Hyperlinked words are clicked more than anything else. And if the words you hyperlink relate, your reader will naturally click them for more information.

What you have now is a super powerful system for affiliate marketing success.

OK, here’s the not-so-good news:

It’s extremely difficult to do this correctly. Let’s look at the skills required to pull it off: Awesome content. First and foremost, you have to be able to write a great article that provides valuable information. This means you have to be able to write well, and have enough knowledge to be useful. Strategic writing. First, you have to give good information. But, you also need to know how to present the information in a way that give value to the reader. And somehow also make them want to learn more. Or provide so much information that they see how hard it will be to implement.

Picking products. After that you have to figure out which products you want to promote. If you can manage to get the article written well. All your efforts are wasted if you send your reader to the wrong sales letter.

Techy stuff. To be most effective you have to use the “covert cookie” method. This is fairly simple – you use a 1 X 1 image and set the “source” to your affiliate link. (Just don’t mess it up. Otherwise, you won’t get credit for your sales.)

Wrapping it up:

Now you know what it takes to be a Presell Pro. Preselling properly will boost your affiliate profits up to 500%! It’s absolutely critical to do this every time – and to do it correctly. Don’t wait another minute. Make the extra effort required to propel your affiliate business to the next level.

Let’s talk about how to generate traffic…

Here’s a short list of great, free traffic generating methods:

• Web 2.0 Methods
• Article Websites
• Video Marketing

Let’s talk about each of these.

Web 2.0

A Web 2.0 site gives its users the ability to interact with each other and create the site’s content together. These are great sites to work with because they allow you to participate in this content creation. And because of the highly interactive and popular nature of these sites, Google and other search engines “index” their content regularly. Which means the content on them gets “indexed” faster and with more weight. By placing links to your websites in this content you’ve created, you get traffic from the site and search engine ranking for the keywords you choose. This is the hidden benefit of using Web 2.0 sites. How to generate web 2.0 traffic is something we’ve only scratched the surface on. I don’t want to be exhaustive – I want to give you an overview of all the methods…

Articles Sites

The natural next topic is article marketing. This is because article websites are really web 2.0 site. In typical web 2.0 fashion, article sites rely on user-generated content (i.e. your articles). Just as with the other web 2.0 sites, having your content included gives you immediate traffic and search engine ranking. And in addition to this, other users can take your article and place it on their own website. And because the terms of the directory say they have to include your “resource box” you get links back from all these other sites, too. If you want to generate traffic from articles follow these steps:

• Do your keyword research
• Tailor the content of your article for the keywords
• Use anchor text links in the article and the “resource box”

Video Sites

The last of this group is video marketing. Just like article directories, video sharing sites also rely on user-generated content. So, just like article marketing, video marketing enables you to add content to authority sites. The extra top secret benefit of video marketing is that it’s much easier to rank for competitive keywords than in any other medium.

Here’s how to get free traffic using video…

• Sign up for YouTube
• Turn off all the modules in your account profile
• Add tags to your profile
• Include a link to your main site in your profile
• Add 1 or more videos to your profile
• Include your keywords in the title, description and tags

Putting it all together.

If you want to get traffic to your site, then follow the advice in this article.

First – Look for Fanatics

If you want your membership business to be profitable, you have to find a marketing with fanatics in it. Simply put, a fanatic is someone who’s willing to spend time and more importantly money on a topic they are interested in. Here’s how to find fanatics:

• Here’s something you may not have considered – magazines! We’re so internet-based these days, it’s easy to forget about them. Because it’s becoming harder and harder to keep print periodicals profitable these days, if you see a magazine on the shelves, you know it’s making money. And that means there are lots of people interested in it. If they can make money in a print version, you can probably make money with a membership website.
• You’ve got lots of opportunities every day to see what people are interested in. Just pay attention to what people talk about on the radio, at social gatherings, at the store or restaurants and anywhere in public. If people are talking about something, they probably want to know more about it. And this means there may be a market for information about it.
• Conventions, clubs, and organizations. Once again, if there are enough people interested in a topic to create a club or organization, then there are enough people to build a membership business around it. By the same token, if enough people are interested to hold a convention on a certain topic, you can definitely find enough people to build a membership business around that same topic.
• What about your interests and hobbies? Chances are that if you like a certain topic or hobby, other people do, too. The icing on the cake here is that you get to build a business doing something you love.
• Google Trends. This is a great way to figure out what people are interested in. Google Trends tells you the most popular current search terms. These topics are the hottest topics because lots and lots of people want information about them. Hot topics that people are excited about make great niches for your membership website.

Next – Figure out if there’s money in it

Once you found a potential niche or topic to center your membership site around, you need to figure out if you can actually make any money in it. One way to figure this out is to see if other are making money in it.

Here’s a punch list for figuring out if anyone’s making money in your niche:

• Are there blogs or forums in this niche? Take the name of your niche and search for “niche name blog” & “niche name forum” in Google to see if there is an active group of people talking about and interested in the niche. This lets you know there is a market (a group of people actively interested in the niche.)
• See if other people are creating and selling product in this niche by searching in Google Shopping, ebay and Amazon. It’s a good sign if there are because it tells you people are making money here.
• Watch Google Adwords for a period of time and look for ads the run again and again. Adwords ads are expensive, so people only run them repeatedly if they are profitable. And to be profitable, they have to be selling products and making money.

Finally – Figure out your barrier to entry

OK, so you found a hot topic and you know other people are making money on it. Will you be able to get involved and do the same? How do you gauge the ease of entry?

• Look at the product types in this niche. You want to find a niche where information products are being sold as the norm. Membership websites based on information are the easiest to start and maintain.
• The next thing to look at is the competition. You don’t want to try to break into a saturated marketing, so figure out how many people are already selling in this niche.
• Size vs. Competition. Some competition is good. It means that this is a profitable market. And as long as the size of the market is large enough to support the competition, you’re fine.
• How ready is the market for marketing messages, and how willing are the fanatics to buy. Depending on the market it can be anywhere from a couple minutes to a many months between when someone starts the investigation process to when they actually make a purchase.

Putting it all together

OK, now that you’ve figured out what niche you’re going to go into. Determined there is money to be made and that the competition is not too strong to break into it. You’re ready to start your membership business. If you’ve followed along with these steps you’re success in practically guaranteed. The only thing left to cover is exactly how to run your membership business…

Before we begin

Before you begin trying to get traffic to your site, you need to do your keyword research first. This is because you will building your traffic funnels around specific keywords. So you need to make sure the keywords you’re targeting are worth targeting.

While doing your keyword research, keep the following in mind:

• Are the keywords you’re interested in attainable? Take a look at the “strength” of others websites (and how many) are already targeting these keywords.
• Will the keywords you’re targeting bring buyers? Some keywords will bring lots of traffic, but none of them will buy. You want to generate visitors ready to buy.
• Another thing to think about is affiliates. Nothing brings more buyers like an army of affiliates. This means that some of your traffic focus should be on getting affiliates to your site.

Of course, this all takes time if you plan to do it yourself. And hiring an expert is very expensive. And that’s why most people skip this step! What I recommend is using website traffic software to save the time of doing it yourself and the money of hiring someone else. This will not only speed it up. It will give you better results, as well.

Only then can you start getting traffic

Now that you’ve completed your keyword research, you can begin using these keywords to get traffic to your website.

Powerful Traffic Tactics:

• Surveys
• “Help” Websites
• Video Websites

Surveys

People love filling in surveys. And smart website owners know this, so they will include your survey on their site if you make a good one. It’s a win-win. They get a great perk on their site and you get a link back to yours. The beauty of this is that it generates website visitors for you with no work on your part. This is a sneaky little idea that most people never even think of. The only thing you have to do is think of a novel question for your survey.

“Help” Websites

These sites, like answers.yahoo.com are filled with people asking and answering questions for each other. Once again, the main reason for this site is not the reason you’re interested. What you want to do is use these sites to generate traffic and leads for your business. Now, you can do this all by hand – visit a classified ads or answers site and one by one copy and paste contact info. The good news is that it’s easy to find website traffic software that can do this automatically. These tools put the whole thing on auto-pilot and just deliver the leads to you each day.

Video

No doubt you’re aware of YouTube and other video websites. In fact, YouTube has over 2 billion videos watched per day! If used properly, video sites can get you more website traffic than you know what to do with.

And don’t worry if you don’t have any idea of how to make a video. It’s really easy to just start with an article or something you’ve already written. Then just do a screen capture of yourself going through it. And like anything else, there is software available that will turn articles into videos for you automatically.

Summary

Getting traffic is not that difficult. It just takes a little time and some ingenuity. And today there are tons of options for software tools that can help with every part of this process.

So, start right now and:

• Do your keyword research
• Next, set up a survey or two with viral appeal
• Build your traffic traps
• And definitely include video sharing sites

Affiliate marketing is by far the fastest way to get started making money online. Affiliate marketing means that all you do is sendhits to someone else’s website, they handle the sales, support and billing, and you get a percentage of the sale price as your commission (usually 50% or more for digital products).

These are a some of the benefits

1. You can start instantly with no up-front costs and no need to make a product, write the sales page, develop the website, develop marketing materials, or do support, billing and maintenance.
2. It runs on auto-pilotfor you because they handle the billing, support, maintenance, etc.
3. Your efforts are risk-free, because the product owner has already done all the research , development and testing. So you know that your traffic will result in sales.

Looking at these benefits, it’s clear that affiliate marketing is the way to go!

The downside is…

You work hard to send the traffic to the product owner’s website, but once you do that you will never see those visitors again. Less than 10% of the visitors your send will actually buy the product. The 10% or less that make a purchase now belong to the product owner. She can sell them additional products, but you can never sell to them again.

What’s the solution?

It’s simple: You must get your visitors’ email addresses before you send them to the product owner’s website. By getting their contact info, you can follow up increase your odds of making the sale by sending them back to the product owner’s website multiple times. And if you’re a super star affiliate, you’ll provide high-quality content before sending them to the product website.

Here are the benefits of doing affiliate marketing like this:

1. Owning a list of potential buyers gives you the ability to market additional products at the push of a button.
2. You’re generating good will by giving them high-quality content. This way, they are much more likely to make a purchase when you send them to the sales page.

If you want to create an affiliate marketing system like this, you’ll need the following:

1. A squeeze page, and even better a Video squeeze page.
2. Several high-quality content pages
3. A multi-part email series with at least 5 emails in it

The video squeeze page is where you’ll direct your traffic instead of directly to the product sales page. This page is where you collect your visitors’ contact info and add them to your autoresponder, which in turn starts sending them the multi-part email series. Then it redirects them to your content pages after they subscribe to your email series.

These high-quality content pages provide value and build good will. This way your visitor is more likely to buy when they get to the product owner’s website. And at the same time, the email series begins following up with them to get them back to the sales page, in case they don’t buy on the first visit.

All of this together increases your chances of making the sale by up to 500% so it’s well worth the effort of setting it up. And after you get it all set up, it runs on total auto-pilot. You just refer people to your lead capture page, instead of the product sales page.

If you don’t have the time or expertise to set it all up yourself, you can use something like Affiliate Silver Bullet. These kinds of services will build the whole system for you and then just give you a video squeeze page (with video), pre-written emails, content pages, etc. The major benefit of using a service like this is that you can get started right away, and for a whole lot less than it would cost to do it all yourself. The drawback is that you won’t be the only one using these affiliate tools. But the internet is huge, so this shouldn’t really affect you.

The other route you can take is to hire people on Elance to create and implement the various aspects for you. Either way, it’s an important step that you need to take if you’re going to be serious about your affiliate marketing.