The big lie

You’ve probably heard how easy it is to start an affiliate business. This is partially true. It’s far easier that developing, selling and supporting your own product. But starting your own business is really hard, so it’s all relative.

Here’s the ugly truth

To top it off you’ve been given false information. The first thing you’re taught is to pick some great products. Next do some keyword research. Then to use keyword-based advertising to send visitors to the product. And finally get a fat check for all the sales. But, it’s all wrong.

Don’t bother with keywords

There was a time when this worked. But the competition has shot the price of keywords through the roof. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

A brand new formula

All is not lost. Follow this method and win again…

• Start using CPA marketing
• Instead of researching keywords, research demographics
• Market on display networks

Start using CPA marketing

CPA stands for Cost Per Action. It’s so much easier than promoting products. Because your visitor doesn’t have to buy anything. Your commission is generated when they complete an “action”. Like completing a survey. And getting them to do this is so much easier.

Utilize demographics data

Keywords are no longer relevant (you’ll see in a minute). So spend your time doing demographics research. First, select the CPA offer you want to promote. Then hop over to Quantcast.com. And research what kinds of people will be interested.

Do image ad marketing

Now you have your offer and your demographics. You can advertise directly to them on display networks. And let images do the work. No keywords required. The biggest advantage is price. Keyword ads are expensive, but image ads are still cheap.

Summing it up

This is a great way to make money fast. Because getting started in CPA is free. It’s much cheaper to do image ads than keyword ads. Display networks let you do demographics targeting. And you get paid for having them take a simple action.

What is info marketing?

First, understand that this is the simplest kind of business there is. You take information and turn it into a digital product – like and ebook. And other people buy this product to get the info. Pretty simple, wouldn’t you say?

How do you make it work?

OK, the concept is simple. However, to succeed there has to be value in the info you’re selling. 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. Head over to ask.com or Yahoo! answers and see what kinds of questions people are asking. Your goal is to find a common problem. For things that are causing people discomfort. And solve the problem for them by writing an info product on it.

Power tip

Don’t worry that info product creation is difficult. It’s not! Put it this way: An ebook is just a series of articles. Writing a whole ebook can be overwhelming. Focus on one article at a time. And once you have bunch of good ones, expand and embellish them and voila! You’ve got an ebook.

OK, what’s so hot about digital products? Well, that bring me to the tile of this article How about 7 reasons why:

1. Simplicity

An info product business runs on auto-pilot. And your customers need very little support. So you can just set it up and let it run. It really is like and automatic money machine.

You have no physical inventory. There’s nothing to ship. It’s all delivered online.

2. Product combos

When you have a created a few information products. You can combine them together to create new high ticket products. It’s a simple matter to merge a few ebooks into one. And your new product will be able to carry a much higher sticker price. There’s greater perceived value in a single big course. As opposed to a bunch of little ones.

3. Private label right

When you own the product, you can sell resell rights to it. Recently, resell rights have become extremely popular, because it’s much easier to get the resell right than to make your own product. And what’s more you’re selling the same product . . . but for 3 times the price for the rights!

4. Leverage

Leverage your ebook by using the content in different ways. 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

Don’t stop there . . . break it into several smaller reports. Then use these to generate leads for the main product. You can make these low cost or even free. And you’re creating targeted leads for your main product all along. You can even make these viral by allowing your affiliates to give them away. Which brings us to…

6. Affiliates

This one is huge. When you own your own products. You can get other people to promote it for you. How would you like to have an army of affiliates selling your products? You can’t do this unless you have your own product.

7. Joint Ventures

OK, this is by far the biggest reason why. Joint ventures are the biggest short cut to success known to man. That makes this is the biggest reason for creating your own info products. Without your own products, you can’t do JVs.

In closing

If you’re not convinced to start selling information products, 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
• See what people are asking about
• Write about the answers

Don’t make info product creation any more complicated than that. Before you know it, you’ll have your own info product.

What makes it so effective?

There’s no real mystery. The web is mostly silent. Audio adds a human quality to your site. And adds the feel of a real live person. In short, it makes your site come alive. Which fascinates greater interaction from your visitors.

Here are the benefits

Adding audio increases your profits in two ways. You’ll convert more visitors into buyers. And you’ll spend less getting those customers. You won’t have to hire someone to write your sales letter. Simply record an audio message yourself. Your honest message about your product will sell better than a professional copywriter.

And you will increase your subscriber opt-in rate. People need to be told exactly what to do. 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. A warm welcome can be the deciding factor. Grabbing their attention like this helps you keep them on your site.

A guided tour. It’s the same as when you use audio to increase your subscribers. You can use audio to tell your visitors exactly what to do. And take them all the way through buying your product.

Get testimonials for your services and products. Written testimonials are good. But what’s even better are audio testimonials. You can just make up written one and people know that. So audio adds real believability. Which boosts your sales for sure.

Power tip

Did you ever think of making a product just by recording some audio? Audio is faster to produce than anything else. Plus people love audio products. The great thing about audio products is people can take them with them on the go. And you can get someone to transcribe them for very little money. Then you’ve got an eBook, too – but it was easy to create!

Is it hard to add audio?

It’s not hard at all. There’s software that will show you how to add audio to a website. The software does all the work. The software creates the audio button code for you. Just paste the code you copy from the software. You don’t need to even consider this part.

Summing it up

Here’s a recap of the benefits. Using website audio will increase your conversion rates. No doubt your sales will go up. You’ll get more subscribers. And you can quickly produce products and website sales copy. You’ll be one of the few you use these strategies. But audio is a really big time and money saver. Get started right now and realize instant results.

Video marketing

The power of video is undeniable. People love watching videos and that’s why they’re everywhere. About the only thing that keeps people’s attention anymore is video. So why wouldn’t you use it in your affiliate business?

Examples of how to use video for affiliate marketing:

• Record your testimonial
• Walk-throughs
• Do an ordering video
• Sneak peak

Do a testimonial video

It doesn’t get any easier than this. Just turn on your web cam and talk. It does not need to be polished or pro. Listening to your honest endorsement makes your viewers feel comfortable buying. In truth, mistakes and mess-ups just make it more believable. You can literally just press record and talk. Use one of the other ideas if you’re feeling shy.

Do a video walk-through

This technique works slightly more subconsciously. Basically you’re doing a tutorial on how to use the product. And in the process you’re actually selling the product. As long as the product is good, the tutorial makes them want it. So pick some really helpful aspect of the product and show how to use that.

Ordering

This technique is super powerful. Record a video of yourself actually buying the product. Watching you make a live purchase will inspire your viewer like nothing else. In the first place it acts as social proof. People will feel more comfortable buying after seeing you do it. This also makes your viewers trust you. They are much more likely to take your advice to buy when you’ve taken it yourself. And don’t forget about the need to “keep up with the Joneses”. They see you getting the satisfaction of making the purchase and that makes them want it. You can add additional juice to this one with: In order to get to see the inside, you gotta buy the product.

Do a preview video

This one is perfect for building up the value of what you’re promoting. In this case you record a screen share of the inside of the product. You show them the entire contents of what they get. This one also helps to remove the skepticism. Once they’ve seen the back-end, they know it’s real.

Anyone can do it!

There’s no technical knowledge required. Some very easy to use programs make the videos for you. Really, the software does all the work. So you don’t have to worry about the technical part of this at all. Just focus on the benefits:

• More sales You’ll earn more affiliate commissions when you add video. People love video, so please use them.
• Reduce refunds You’ll lose less of the commission your earn. Now they know what they get before they purchase. So they’ll be less likely to refund.
• Outdo your competitors! Adding video is so simple. And almost no one is doing it. That puts you ahead of the pack.

So get serious about your affiliate business and add video in now. It’s your profit that’s affected by not taking action.

How’s how to build a list:

Here’s what you need to build your list:

• The Squeeze Page
• Your Bribe
• The Thank You Page

Your Opt-in Page – The squeeze page is the first thing your visitor is going to see. This is where they will enter their email address. This page needs to look professional. It’s also got to be free from distractions. You’ve also got to make a strong “close”.

The biggest mistake you can make is not having a clear call to action. Your call to action tells the visitor what to do. Without this your opt-in rate will plummet. The funny thing is that people just don’t know what to do unless you tell them.

You can take your opt-in page to the next level if you make it a video squeeze page. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. It also allows you to tell them what to do several times. Then at the end of the video you can print “sign up now” on the video.

If you don’t know how to make video, don’t worry. It’s very easy to hire people for a couple hundred bucks to make one for you. Or you can get email list tools that have everything pre-built for you.

The Bribe – The next thing you need is an incentive to subscribe to your list. People won’t give you their email for nothing. 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. That means you make it something people would actually want to receive. And can benefit from. For example:

• A PDF report
• A piece of software
• A video tutorial
• A multi-part email series

You’ve got to create some great content. Something that’s useful and helpful to your visitors. And of course it has to be free. Bottom line is it’s got to be worth more to them than their email address.

Once again, don’t worry if you don’t know how to create the freebie. It’s super easy to hire someone to create it for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. One easy and effective bribe is a 5-part email training series. Each email will cost between $20 and $25. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

There are also list building products that include the follow up email series. Two things to keep in mind when writing (or buying) and email training series. First, it must provide value to your subscribers. And second, it needs to make you money. Mixing some affiliate products into your email series is a great way to do this. This is such a simple solution because you don’t have to create the product. And it enables you to generate cash right away from your new list.

The Opt-in Success 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. This helps them feel they’ve made the right decision giving you their email. It also sets the foundation for your relationship with them. Then they’re more receptive when you email them.

Again, a simple solution to this is to get an email marketing package that includes everything. Or you can do it yourself. You can either write the content pages on your own. Or pay a freelancer to write the content for you.

In closing

It doesn’t matter if you do all of this yourself. Or pay a freelancer to write produce it all for you. Or go with a complete package. The key is to start building your list. Because as soon as you’ve got your own list . . . You’re free to make money at the push of a button.

The number one strategy to increase your affiliate sales is preselling.

Before we start, let’s talk about what preselling actually is. Well, it is an art. And it’s also a science. The goal is to get your reader prepped to make a purchase. Then sending them to the product sales page to make the purchase. And if it’s done properly, the process is completely sub-conscious.

Basically, you give them some content. And give them a link to the product you’re preselling. In a second we’ll talk about how to do actually it. First, it’s important to understand why we do it. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.

• It builds trust – Readers who trust you are more likely to click your links. Which obviously means you’ll make more sales.
• It disarms your reader – When you’re not hyping or pitching a product, your reader lets their guard down. And in turn they read to understand what you’re saying. So your content get absorbed.
• It creates buying readiness – Now they’re open to hearing what you’re telling them. So they become more receptive to other messages. Like the info on product sales page you’ve linked to. And being open to the information there means they are much more likely to buy.
• It increases your sales – You’ve prepped them and referred them in the right state of mind. Open to the sales message and feeling safe. The only thing that can result is increased sales!
• It increases customer satisfaction – People like to make their own buying decisions. Versus being pitched or convinced. And this makes them feel better about the product they purchased.
• It boosts your profits – 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. Your customers are happier. Everybody wins!

Now, here’s how preselling works:

OK, now you understand why it’s so important. And hopefully you’re convinced you need to start doing it. You’re ready to learn how to do it properly. Remember, there are two components – art and science.

The art of preselling

The first step is in getting your readers to trust you and open up. And the only method of doing this is to give exceptional value to your readers. The art of this is to provide enough information to be of value, but not enough to satiate the hunger. So you send them to the product website with a hunger for more of what the product provides. And since they’re more open, they are more likely to make a purchase.

It’s also a science

You also have to include some very specific things.

The first is how you present the information. You have to have your end in mind. In the end, you want to sell a specific product. How can providing information accomplish this goal? One way is to give them enough info to whet the appetite, but not enough to satisfy it. The second way is to provide all the information and let your reader discover how hard it is to actually implement it. Whichever method, you send them to a product website that solves the problem you just created.

But you can’t link to your affiliate link. Instead you link directly to the product sales page. This increases your clicks. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? There’s a trick to make this work… You use the “covert cookie” strategy.

You also want to link to the sales page from inside your article’s content. It’s habitual to click on words and phrases that are hyperlinked. Plus, if you link on relevant words, it only makes sense to click on there.

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

Unfortunately…

This process is not easy – at all! Think about everything that goes into crafting an effective preselling article: 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. Preselling skills. Yes, you must providing useful content. You also have to present the info in a way that provides real value. While at the same time making them want more. Or provide so much information that they see how hard it will be to implement.

Product selection. 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.

The technical know-how One of the keys to this system is using “covert cookies” for the tracking. 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.)

In closing:

Now you know what it takes to be a Presell Pro. And doing this increases your affiliate commissions by over 500%! It’s absolutely critical to do this every time – and to do it correctly. Please don’t be lazy. The effort it takes is well worth the benefits…

Here are some tips for generating website visitors:

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

• Web 2.0 Methods
• Article Marketing
• Video

Let’s talk about each of these.

Web 2.0

By web 2.0 we mean any site where the users actually create the content. These are great sites to work with because they allow you to participate in this content creation. The other interesting thing about these sites is that all the search engines (including Google) treat them as “authority sites”. Which means the content on them gets “indexed” faster and with more weight. And any links in your content that point to your own sites count as a strong “vote” in favor of your sites – lending you credibility in the search engines. The direct traffic from the Web 2.0 sites themselves is only part of the benefit. There are many more web 2.0 traffic tactics we don’t have time to get into here, but this will get you started.

Articles Sites

The next thing we want to talk about is article marketing. Article sites are in essence web 2.0 websites. Article directories are sites where users (including you) can upload articles they have written. And just like other web 2.0 sites, you get all the SEO benefits from having your content on them. 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. In order to get the most free traffic make sure you:

• First, spend the time to determine your keywords
• Write specifically to target these keywords
• Hyperlink these keywords to your website – both in the content of the article and in your author’s info section.

Video Sites

The last of this group is video marketing. Once again, this is really a sub-set of web 2.0. And just as article directories give you great SEO benefits and allow others to redistribute your content on their sites. video sharing sites give you all these same benefits. And if all that wasn’t enough, you also stand a much stronger chance of getting a high search engine ranking for the keywords you want with video than you do with text-based content.

Here are just a few video marketing tips:

• Get a YouTube account
• Turn off all the modules in your account profile
• Use the tags in your profile to enter the keywords you want to rank for
• Add a link to your website
• Add 1 or more videos to your profile
• For each video use your keywords in the tags, the descriptions and the title

In closing…

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

Step 1 – Find a Fanatical Market

If you want your membership business to be profitable, you have to find a marketing with fanatics in it. Fanatic is defined as someone with an irrational enthusiasm. These are the people you’re looking for because they are so enthusiastic they’re willing to spend money on their topic of fanaticism. Here’s how to find fanatics:

• One simple idea that’s easily forgotten is to scan the magazine racks when you’re out and about. 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. That doesn’t mean definitely that it will make a good membership business, but it’s a good starting point.
• 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 it, they are interested in it. And that may also mean they’re willing to pay money to learn more about it.
• Don’t forget about clubs and organizations. If there are enough people to to build a club, there are certainly enough people to start a membership site on the same topic. 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.
• Think about the things that you are interested in. Chances are that if you like a certain topic or hobby, other people do, too. And, as an added bonus, it’s much more fun to build a business around things you’re interested in.
• One simple and easy way to find out what’s hot is Google Trends. This service shows you the current most popular search terms. The reason people are searching Google for info on these topics is because they are interested. And the fact that it’s made it into Google Trends tells you LOTS of people are interested. These are the niches you want to be in – lots of people actively searching means lots of opportunity.

Second – Analyze the “commerciality”

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:

• First go to Google and type in the name of your niche followed by “blog” and “forum”. If there are blogs and forums related to it, that’s a good sign. This lets you know there is a market (a group of people actively interested in the niche.)
• Search Amazon, Google shopping and eBay to see if people are creating and selling products in the niche. If other people are creating and selling products in this niche, it means there is money to be made.
• 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.

Step 3 – Determine ease of 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? Here are some things to look at to figure this out:

• Product types. What kind of products are being sold in the niche? You’re looking for a niche that sells info products. That’s because it’s much easier to build a membership business around information vs. any other kind of product.
• Competition. How many other people are trying to sell to this market? You want to start in a market that’s not completely saturated with competitors.
• Unless the market is just so big that it doesn’t matter how many competitors there are, you want to limit the competition. So evaluate the size vs. the competition.
• How quickly do people in this market make buying decisions and are the ready to buy? Some niches are made up of people who require lots information and have a very long lead time, and some markets are filled with people who will spend lots of money right now.

Putting it all together

At this point you’ve figured out what niche you’re going into. You found your fanatics, you know they spend money and you’re confident there’s room in the market for you. Now that you’ve prepared properly, you’re success is 99% guaranteed. How to actually run your membership website is the only thing left to talk about…

But, first…

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. This means it’s critical to select your keywords properly.

A couple things to keep in mind when doing keyword research:

• Will you be able to rank for these keywords? Take a look at the “strength” of others websites (and how many) are already targeting these keywords.
• What kinds of visitors do these keywords bring? Some keywords will bring lots of traffic, but none of them will buy. You want to generate visitors ready to buy.
• Will these keywords bring affiliates? If you want to build a huge business, you’re going to need affiliates to help you. So, it’s important to also target affiliates in the keywords you go after.

Of course, this all takes time if you plan to do it yourself. Hiring someone else to do it costs a lot of money. Which is why practically none of your competitors will do this! The smartest marketers use website traffic software to automate this and other aspects of their business. This way you get this critical step done fast and done well.

Once you know your keywords…

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

Powerful Traffic Tactics:

• Most people overlook the power of Surveys!
• “Answer” Sites
• Video Sharing Sites

Surveys

Here’s the thing – people love surveys. It’s human nature. And smart website owners know this, so they will include your survey on their site if you make a good one. They benefit by getting free content for their site and you get a link to your site under the survey. 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. Just make the question interesting enough that people will want to share it with their own visitors.

“Traffic Traps”

Sites like Yahoo! Answers allow users to ask and answer each others’ questions. However, you’re interest in these sites is not to ask and answer questions. 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! So don’t miss out of this incredible source of free website traffic.

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 simply record yourself reading the text and you video the screen with a simple screen capture program. I’ve even seen software that will automatically convert an article to a video!

The Bottom Line…

Getting traffic is not that difficult. Use your noodle and come up with things other people aren’t doing. You can even use software to automate most of what we’ve talked about.

So, start right now and:

• Step 1 is researching your keywords
• Next, set up a survey or two with viral appeal
• Make sure to use the “answer” sites
• Capitalize on video!

Affiliate marketing is by far the fastest way to get started making money online. This is when you refer traffic to someone else’s product sales page, they handle the sales, support and billing, earn at least a 50% commission

These are a some of the benefits

1. You’re able to start instantly without having to make a product, write a sales letter, develop a website, create marketing materials, get a merchant account, or provide support
2. You have almost no investment of time because you don’t have to do the customer support or deal with billing or technical issues.
3. Your efforts are risk-free. You know that the visitors you send will result in commissions for you because the product owner has already made sure the product sells.

There’s no denying that these benefits make affiliate marketing the best thing going!

OK, but it’s not all rosy…

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. Most of them will not buy on their first visit, which means you’re losing over 90% of the traffic right off the top. That’s fine for the product owner because she can sell to them again and again, but you can’t.

Is there are way around this?

Simply put, you need to capture the name and email of your visitors *before* sending them to the product sales page. If you do that, you can contact them again and send them back the product website multiple times. This will increase the number of sales you make. And if you want to do it like a pro, you’ll give them some great content before sending them to the sales page.

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. By providing great content without a sales pitch, you put them in a buying mood. So when you do send them to the product website, they’re much more likely to buy.

Here’s what you’ll need to create affiliate tools like this:

1. A squeeze page, and even better a Video squeeze page.
2. One or more content-rich “warm up” pages
3. At least a 5-Part Email Followup Series

The video squeeze page is where you’ll direct your traffic instead of directly to the product sales page. It captures the name and email of your visitors and puts them into your autoresponder, which then begins sending out the 5-part email series. Once your visitors have been subscribed to your email series, they are sent to your content pages.

You content mini-site builds the good will, so that when you send them to the product sales page, they are in a buying mood. While they’re reading the content you’ve provided, your email system is already following up with them to send them back to the product website again and again.

There’s no doubt that it’s worth the effort to put a system like this in place, because doing so will increase your profits by 500% or more. 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.

One option, if you’re not up to the challenge of setting this all up yourself, is to let someone like Affiliate Silver Bullet do it for you. Services like this design the enter system (the video, the video squeeze page, the email series, the content pages, etc). The benefit is that it’s much less expensive then you could do it yourself, and it’s instantly set up. 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.