Online Affiliate Marketing Info: February 2013

Online Affiliate Marketing - How To Use It To Make Money On The Web

Imagine having the ability to increase your sources of income and amount of income year after year regardless of what the economy is doing at any particular time. Would that make you feel better and get more sleep at night ? Well the good news is that online affiliate marketing can provide you with just such an opportunity.

What Is Online Affiliate Marketing

Basically it is a performance based marketing program in which affiliates are compensated for helping merchants make sales by sending interested prospects to the merchants site. There are a large number of well known online merchants like Clickbank.com, Amazon.com, CommissionJunction.com, etc, etc, that have affiliate programs in place.

How Does Online Affiliate Marketing Work

The process is very simple and pretty straight forward, which is one of the reasons that it works so well. Here are the basic steps that you would need to take :

Step 1.) Your first task is to pick a profitable market sector or niche that you would like to work with. Next you will need to identify a few good products that you would like to promote and which also have affiliate programs in place.

Step 2.) Once you have found a merchant that has a product or service that you would like to promote, you would then go to the merchants home page and look for an affiliate program page. From the affiliate program page you will be able to learn more about the specific details of there affiliate program and you will also be able to fill out an affiliate application.

Once your application is approved, (which may vary in the amount of time it takes and is solely up to each merchant) you will receive an affiliate link which is used to keep track of all of the visitors that the merchant receives from your marketing efforts.

Step 3.) Now your goal is to find the most effective ways to get interested prospects to click your link and visit your merchant's site so that they can purchase the product or service that they are interested in.

You as the referring affiliate will then earn a commission on each qualifying sale that you helped to generate through your affiliate link.

Benefits Of Online Affiliate Marketing

There are a lot of different benefits that you can enjoy as a result of learning how to make online affiliate marketing work for you. The list of benefits will vary from person to person depending upon everyone’s individual situation, however here are 5 of the most popular benefits that most people seem to like the most :

+ No sales experience required - You do not have to do any actual selling, order fulfillment or customer service responsibilities. All of these items are handled by the actual merchant or product owner. Your primary focus will be on marketing and promoting to generate interested buyers to your merchants site.

+ Flexible Work Schedule - As long as you are productive enough to generate the number of sales that you need in order to achieve your income goals, you can work at what ever times or locations (your bedroom, the kitchen table, a coffee shop, etc) that works best for you.

+ Low Startup Cost - A traditional brick and mortar business could easily require a $10,000.00+ initial investment for things like renting an office, purchasing furniture and equipment, etc, etc.. In most cases you can start your own online marketing business for a couple of hundred dollars (or less) and be in profit mode within a few short weeks.

+ High Earning Potential - Some products allow you to earn as high as 75% commissions for each sale made. This is often the case with products that sell for less than $100.00 however there are plenty of cases where you can earn a 50% commission on products that sell for well over $200.00 and up.

+ Unlimited Income Potential - There is no set minimum or maximum amount of income that you can make. It all comes down to how much do you want to make and how long and how hard are you willing to work to achieve your goals.

How To Use Online Affiliate Marketing To Make Money Online

As an affiliate you do not need to worry about trying to sell the actual product or service, that is the job of the merchants sales page. Your job is to find as many different, effective marketing strategies and methods as possible to generate sales through your affiliate link. This can be done in a variety of ways such as :

* Content Creation - Creating high quality search engine friendly content that you can post on a blog or website.

* Email Marketing - Building a subscriber list from your blog or website and then creating an autoresponder list to provide regular content and promotional offers to your subscribers.

* Social Media Marketing - Posting engaging content on popular social media sites like Facebook.com, Twitter.com, LinkedIn.com, etc, etc...

* Forum Marketing - Posting useful content in forums related to your niche, with a link back to your site in your signature profile, is a great way to generate traffic to your site.

* Classified Ads - Using websites like Craigslist.com, backpage.com, Freeads.com, etc, etc...

* Paid Advertising - Starting out with small media buys such as banner ads and then expanding to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a great way to get traffic to your site quickly.

These are just a few examples of the basic steps that can be used to help you quickly and easily learn how to use online affiliate marketing to work from home, supplement your income and begin to make money on the web.

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Additional Articles :

Why, And How Online Affiliate Marketing Can Be A Smart Investment For You

The Best Affiliate Program Business Model For Your Online Business

Affiliate Marketing Coach Reviews - 3 Top Sites For Training

Why, And How Online Affiliate Marketing Can Be A Smart Investment For You

Need a way to make money from home or from your mobile device ? If you are a hard working person that believes in being of service or providing tremendous value to others, then learning online marketing could be your key to a much more fulfilling and rewarding lifestyle.

Even though you should not expect to get rich overnight, starting an online affiliate marketing business can be one of the quickest ways to become an online business owner and actually start making money online.

It can allow you to work on building an online asset that can provide you with the resources that you need to enjoy a future lifestyle of your choice. This could mean more money to spend on personal luxuries and pleasures or more free time to spend with family and friends or both, however before we go any further lets get a quick understanding of the following.

What is online affiliate marketing ?

Basically it is the process of earning money as a result of promoting a product or service for a vendor or merchant who has an agreement in place where they will pay you a certain amount or commission for each referral sale that you generate.

So, by signing up with a merchant of your choice, getting an affiliate link and then generating traffic through your affiliate link to the merchants site with your interested prospects who become buyers, you earn a commission.

The time that it will take to start seeing success and earning income will vary from person to person depending upon factors such as how much time, effort and resources that they invest into building their business.

However most serious and committed, hard working marketers will start generating an income within their first 6 to 12 months of online affiliate marketing and in some cases it can happen sooner.

Realistic Online Affiliate Marketing Business Goals

To give yourself the best chances of success it is important that you start out with the right goals in mind. You should create a very compelling, exciting vision of your future that will motivate you to plan your work and work your plan.

Here are some of the goals that your vision should include :

+ To create a business of assets that will be of high value to others. This could be in the form of stock in your company, physical products or intellectual property (content). It is important to keep in mind that for someone else to be interested in purchasing it as a business it needs to be able to run without you being actively involved.

+ To generate ongoing cash-flow - Both daily cash-flow and longterm future income as well. Creating customers and generating repeat business should be your main focus and primary means of achieving this goal.

+ To grow and be sustainable based upon effective strategies, systems and automation. This should include effective use of outsourcing and automation tools such as auto responders, etc, etc... This will also allow you to be more effective at building a successful and profitable business that can run without you being actively involved in the day-to-day processes.

+ To create short term and longterm profits - You want to generate daily, weekly and monthly sales to cover your immediate cash-flow needs while also increasing in value over time as a result of your efforts and improvements. This is best accomplished by building an authority site which accumulates more backlinks, page-rank, traffic, rankings and authority over time.

+ To Increase in Value.

Examples of online assets include that tend to increase in value include :

* High traffic self hosted blogs or websites

* Email list of targeted and responsive customers.

* List of current suppliers and vendors - These will be vendors that you have used to help you grow your business and reach your current level of success and achievement.

* Your authority in your marketplace and as a topic expert.

Online Affiliate Marketing Business Structure

It is also important to look at setting up the right business entity to help you minimize your tax liability and to provide you with the best legal protection for your particular situation. In most cases this will mean not doing business as a sole proprietor, which can be the highest tax bracket with the least amount of legal asset protection.

In addition you will also want to look at getting any insurance needed to prevent you from having any unnecessary financial exposure to legal suits, loss or property damage. In short here is a list of people who can help you build your online affiliate marketing business into a profitable and sale-able business asset.

Online Business Coach/Mentor - For business development guidance

Tax Accountant/bookkeeper - For tax advise and record keeping

Attorney - For all of you legal advise needs such as entity structure recommendations, legal documents or agreements needed, etc, etc...

Insurance Broker - For all of your insurance protection needs.

How To Make Online Affiliate Marketing Work For You

As you can imagine there is a lot that goes into the making of a successful and profitable online marketing business, however here are some of the basic, key components that you will need to get your business building efforts off to a good start :

> Get a coach or mentor to help you learn the ropes. If you are completely new to online marketing or would like step-by-step guidance on how to get started building your first money making online asset, you might want to try Chris Farrell’s membership site. It is one of the highest rated membership sites online for helping newcomers learn how to get started online with affiliate marketing. You can find out more here => http://creating-an-online-business.info

> Find a profitable niche within a large market. It is possible to create a new niche or new market by creating a totally new product but that will definitely be taking a more challenging and riskier path. In most cases if you find a big market like finances, relationships, health, etc, etc and focus on a smaller segment or niche within that market, you are going to have a much greater chance of achieving success.

> Develop a list or following of people who know, like and trust you. This is how you will be able to generate a consistant monthly income over time. Using a continuity business model can often be the best affiliate program business model for your online business.

> Develop A Winning Edge over your competition. Because the online marketing world has become very competitive it is critical that you strive to do your best and find a way to be a little better than your competition in some way. After all, when you think about it when it comes time for you to spend your hard earned money, don't you want to get the best that you can for what you are going to spend ?

Chris Farrell Membership Site Review

The Best Affiliate Program Business Model For Your Online Business

Imagine having a growing number of customers that keep purchasing your product or service month after month. What impact would that have on your financial outlook for the future ?

If you are interested in starting a business for long term profit potential or you are interested in expanding your income options then you should be considering using this type of business model. The best affiliate program business model is one that makes use of a continuity program.

What Is Continuity ?

Basically it is when you make a sale once and you continue to provide a product or service to your customers at an agreed upon amount until they decide to cancel the agreement. This can help you to have a consistant source of income as long as you continue to meet your customers expectations with your product or service.

This can be an effective and profitable business model when someone wants to have an ongoing relationship with a particular business, because it allows for the ongoing and continuous re-purchasing or re-billing for a product, membership or service until a user requested termination is made.

Some examples of different types of continuity programs include monthly newsletter or magazine subscriptions, monthly health or diet supplements, coaching or membership sites.

There are many large and very successful companies that use this business model some examples include cellphone companies, utility companies, fitness gyms, etc, etc…

The Best Affiliate Program - Benefits Of Continuity Programs

* Recurring Income - This is often the biggest benefit for the business owner provided you are able to meet your customers expectations by always delivering consistant high value.

* Higher overall earnings - There are cases when a product owner of a continuity program will earn as high as 400 percent more than a product owner of a non-continuity similar product. You can also scale your profits up by adding additional continuity products and services for your new and existing customers.

* Less pressure to continually generate new sales - This will allow you more time to focus on providing excellent value and service to your current customers. This will often lead to your customers doing word of mouth advertising for you, which is the best and fastest way to grow your business.

* Allows for better customer interaction - Because you have an ongoing relationship with your customers you can do surveys or encourage their feedback to find ways to make your product or service better. You may also learn of new products or services that could be created to fill an unfulfilled need or gap in the marketplace.

* Increased brand awareness and brand recognition. The more often customers and prospects see and interact with you and your brand, the more they will come to like, trust and buy from you. This can easily be used to promote lifetime customers by providing them with a loyalty discount, if applicable.

The Best Affiliate Program - Keys To Success With A Continuity Program

There are a lot of different factors to consider when building any type of business, however here are 3 of the key areas that can help you the most in keeping your customer retention levels high.

+ Continue to deliver great value - Not only should you have a great product or service to begin with but you should continue to do what you can to improve it and increase the value that you are giving to your customers on a regular basis. This can be done by keeping in touch with your market through surveys, participating in forums and other events and by doing other types of research on a regular basis.

+ Develop a genuine interest in helping your customers achieve their goals. It is important to encourage customer feedback through your blog or website, emails, social media, etc… Once you receive user comments you should deliver great content in your responses as well. This lets your customers know that you are listening and that you are interested in helping them.

+ Provide a supportive environment such as a user forum that will encourage and support growth and goal achievement. This will help to build a sense of community where your customers can communicate with other like minded people.

The best affiliate program - Conclusion

Chris Farrell is an excellent example of how profitable a membership site can be. He is one of the most successful online affiliate marketing trainers in the industry. He currently has over 5,000 members in his membership site.

If you would like to learn how to create your own online business, go to http://creating-an-online-business.info where you can find out more about how Chris Farrell can help you learn how to get started making money online.

Check Out A Quick Chris Farrell Membership Video Review

How To Be A Good Affiliate Marketer - 5 Quick Tips

Are you interested in making really good affiliate marketing income ? Are you willing to make changes and improvements in your thoughts, beliefs and actions in order to start creating good results and the success that you want ?

Learning how to be a good affiliate marketer is the key to making money online and making affiliate marketing work for you. Your first big challenge will be getting through the initial learning curve that is involved in learning and developing any new skill or ability.

However the more time and effort that you put into it, the greater and sooner you will begin to reap the benefits of your efforts. This does not mean that you should expect to start making money within your first week or so, although this can actually happen. The reality is that in most cases you will be much better off focusing by learning what you need to learn and by taking massive action on what you learn.

Benefits Of Learning How To Be A Good Affiliate Marketer

There are many different benefits to be enjoyed which will vary from person to person based upon your specific goals or objectives. However here is a short list of some of the most common ones that most people are attracted to :

* Work From Home Freedom - This can help you cut down tremendously on the amount of stress that you endure during your day. For the majority of people who commute back and forth to work on a daily basis, this one benefit can be a priceless gift, provided you are able to be self disciplined enough to stay focused on doing what needs to be done to generate the income needed to cover your financial needs.

* Being Your Own Boss - You will be able to focus on picking a profitable market/niche to work within based on your preferences. You will also have the freedom and flexibility to choose the affiliate business model that appeals to you the most, such as blogging, cost per action (CPA), ecommerce, etc, etc...

Flexible Work Hours - If you have other obligations that you also need to focus on such as taking care of a family member, being a stay at home parent, working another job, etc, etc, then affiliate marketing can be a way of getting the flexibility you need.

It is important to keep in mind that until you have a system up and running that is generating daily, weekly or monthly income for you then you may need to make building your system a higher priority than taking time off. However once you have your system working for you, that will provide you with the flexibility to adjust your work hours more to your liking without worrying about a loss of income.

* Passive Income Opportunities - By selecting the right products or services to promote, such as products that provide recurring payments or membership sites and then creating or using a system that allows you to get enough daily traffic to your site. This can provide you with the opportunity to build an auto-pilot or hands free source of passive income. You can then reinvest a small amount of your profits to have someone else do any daily or periodic work that may need to be done in order to keep your sales coming in.

* Unlimited Income Potential - Once you have learned and mastered the basic skills of internet marketing and making money online in one niche or market you can then “Rinse and repeat” it over and over and over again in other markets.

How To Be A Good Affiliate Marketer - 5 Helpful Tips

Even though making money online with affiliate marketing is a very simple business model, it is important that you do a few things to insure your success. Here are a few of them :

Tip # 1.) Start With A Strong Desire To Be Successful.

+ Have a big exciting goal that will motivate and inspire you to give your all in the achievement of that goal.

Tip # 2.) Get Into The Learning Mode

Learn the basics of affiliate marketing and keep learning as you progress on your internet marketing journey. Once you have a good understanding of the basics, things like :

* Niche Selection,

* Market Research,

* Keyword Research,

* Content Creation and

* Traffic Generation

you should continue learning and developing even more challenging and advanced skills such as :

+ List Building

+ Email Marketing

+ Product Creation

Tip # 3.) Make Things Happen

Take Action - Create a realistic plan of action based upon your specific situation. You will need to take into consideration how much time you can invest each day and what resources you will have available to work with. Once you have a good plan to take you in a step-by-step manner towards the achievement of your online income goals, start putting your plan into action as soon as possible.

Tip # 4.) Never Give Up

This may be the hardest thing that you do (learning how to be a good affiliate marketer) but the only way for you to get there is for you to keep working on it.

When something does not work for you may need to either make changes to it, try a little longer and harder or try doing something else. You may have heard the old saying that “Where there is a will, there is a way”, this is especially true with online marketing.

Tip # 5.) Develop Multiple Options

+ Diversify things like your sources of traffic, you should have one primary source which may be free search engine (SEO) traffic but you should also work on developing and using other options such as email marketing, outsourcing marketing projects and paid advertising like google adwords, small media buys, etc, etc.

In addition, you should also expand your income options so that you are receiving multiple sources of income from multiple products or services through multiple different vendors. The key here is to take things one step at a time so that you can focus on doing your best with each project and not try to spread yourself too thin.

These are just a few of the things that you should know in order to be a good affiliate marketer. If you would like step-by-step training then I recommend that you try Chris Farrell’s membership site where you can learn how to do each step in complete detail.