The main reason to have a new version of Affiliate Marketing e-Course is to enhance, update, and expend to new technologies and trends, clarify Google new ranking algorithm (Caffeine), offer you the latest and the best productive tools to succeed.
Choosing to make your own Digital Products to sell will be rewarding.
You can take a great deal of pride in what you offer to the world, and you establish yourself as notoriety on a specific subject, niche.
I am an advocate of creating your own digital products, but it is a learning curve to get to that level, you need proper tools and skills.
This is the reason why a lot of people start with Affiliate Marketing, selling others digital products. All of us started that way, and when the time was right we created your own digital products.
I hear you – sell others products? It is legal? It is moral? It is ethic? Sure! So, what is an Affiliate Marketer?
An affiliate marketer is just a “person” who drives traffic to a product.
As an affiliate you can promote:
- A specific physical or digital product
- An entire business: promote eBay, Amazon, Zazzle…
- A website: a membership site, an on-line eStore, a Blog
- An On-line coaching program or just an e-course for a specific topic
- An Internet related Service: you sell tickets to NFL, NHL, you sell a vacation package, you create lenses for people, you sell host spaces, you create graphics on request for Digital Products… the sky is the limit
- And of course you sell your own products if you have any
The affiliate marketer in return receives compensation for his or her effort on behalf of the business, or the author of the product, most commonly in the form of revenue sharing.
Example – If you have a lens or blog in which you promote an Amazon Book, you are the affiliate of Amazon, and you receive a percentage of the selling price for that product.
Affiliate Marketing is a broad subject; you can spend years reading about it.
The purpose of this e-course is to:
- Narrow down what is important
- Establish the best practice of selling on-line as an affiliate, showing you good models
- Show common mistakes and
- Make you think as a “marketer”, this is crucial, but take time, and a mental effort
Affiliate Marketing Etiquette
- Honesty for life: Do your best to be honest from the beginning and remain honest after your name is established and you are a celebrity
- Build your reputation: Be patient and build the trust on you gradually, a reputation is not establish or acquire in an hour, or a day, or a month. It is a matter of time, how long? I honestly don’t know is based on personality, perseverance, and some native talents
- Manners, Manners, and Manners: Manners count simply because people treat you as you treat them. You have nothing to lose being: polite, caring, sharing, considering
- Volume vs. Quality. There are instances in which we need volume work but we must be sure that we don’t compromise the quality of our work. I know, it is a hard balance we must do and maintain
- Don’t hype – period!
- Follow the Rules of any kind of Resell Rights if you bought the Rights
- Do Not Spam – period! The Google algorithms are very sophisticated, they will find out and penalize you, you will end up in the Sand Box.
This is a short list but if you want more info you can read my lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/Etiquette-Affiliate-Marketing
Avoid Common Mistakes On AM
Why so many marketers don’t succeed and only a very short percentage do? This is a legitimate question.
It happens because affiliate marketing is not a walk in the park. It’s certainly easier than creating your own product but, like anything else, there are plenty of pitfalls just waiting around the corner.
This is a short list of pitfalls to avoid:
- Choosing a Bad Product to Promote. Not all products are created equal. If you decide to pick your product from Clickbank, select very carefully one which is a high-quality product, and highest commission.
- Picking a Product With Low Conversion. As an affiliate marketer, your goal is to profit. Choose your products carefully:
- Look at conversion rates
- Look at gravity and popularity
- Read the sales page carefully
- Ask yourself if you feel compelled to buy
- Did the graphics throw you off?
- Selling a product to the Salesman of that product Especially if you have a list avoid jumping on the affiliate product bandwagon for major promotions. Instead, wait until the noise dies down slightly; and then release a comprehensive review of the product. This has a much better chance of getting sales for you; and it will also help you to maintain credibility.
- Picking Products that Offer Small Commissions
- Choose products that offer a 50% or 75% commission.
- It is a paradox, but because many top name Internet marketers concentrate on promoting high-ticket items, you can still make a killing with cheap reports. The rising popularity of the $7 report is my proof.
- Failing to Collect Leads. Always, capture leads. An affiliate must send potential customers to your squeeze page first and then to sale page of the author. With other words, promote affiliate marketing Products creating a Squeeze page in your domain – just to collect leads
- Write newsworthy email – not promotional.
- Ignore Important Figures Many affiliate marketers fail to make the needed calculations in order to run a business and ensure you are in profit. If:
- You’re paying too much for traffic
- Your conversion rates are too low
- You put too much time into projects that don’t have high yields
- You don’t have automated systems
- Your numbers won’t add up, the outcome is bad
- Then you should re-think, and re-tweet your campaign, not give up!
During the entire course you will find tips on how to avoid the above pitfalls.
FTC New Rules.
It is true that we have to follow new FTC rules which started on 2010; for info in a nut shell, I have a Squidoo lens with good information about the new rules:
http://www.squidoo.com/FTC-new-rules
If you have time you can read a couple of articles from FTC website:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menus/resources/enforcement.shtm
http://business.ftc.gov/advertising-and-marketing/online-advertising-and-marketing
What is Viral Marketing
I want to clarify the meaning of a term you will hear frequently “Viral marketing”. The term was first used in a 1996 article called “The Virus of Marketing” and was adopted immediately in Internet Marketing jargon because it is so suggestive.
“Viral marketing” means that the word about your product/business will spread like a virus utilizing social and business connections that you put in place to grow your business.
It is also called “word of mouth advertising”.
Viral marketing functions on the basis of voluntary participation in the process of advertising. Relationships are the key to the success of any viral marketing approach, and can take many forms.
The basis for the connection may be:
- All kings of communities: your town, your social bookmarking, social networking, blogs, other platforms
- Family and friends, old fashion but still powerful
- Business associates: Affiliates, Joint Ventures partners, people you met on conferences, seminars
- Email lists that are associated with your niche
To put in place a viral marketing you really need:
- To start with offering real value
- Create impeccable automated services for your products
- Offer FREE products, advice, couching
- Over deliver – it is always a good surprise when you advertise a bonus, and add another 2 unadvertised bonuses, all of them really good value
We need to get in more details and find out:
- How to use viral marketing to drive traffic to your site
- How to make your product viral
- How to avoid viral marketing mistakes
- How to use Blogs and Social Media in your viral marketing campaigns
But all those will be the subjects for another post after we already discus the best practices and models. Today I limit myself to the definition.
You will find the PDF format at:
http://michaelacernescu.com/ecourseVer2/post01Introd.pdf or go to the page: eCoursePDF on this blog
Until next time be well.
Michey
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