The promise

You’ve been told it’s easy to get started as an affiliate. Well, that’s true . . . to a point 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

And to make matters worse, you’ve taught to do it the hard way. The first thing you’re taught is to pick some great 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.

Don’t bother with keywords

There was a time when this worked. But the competition has shot the price of keywords through the roof. Adapt and change…

The NEW game

There is a solution to this problem. Here’s how to win at this game.

• Start using CPA marketing
• Do demographics research
• Do image ad marketing

Get into CPA marketing

CPA stands for Cost Per Action. It’s so much easier than promoting products. Because you don’t have to get people to spend money. You earn a commission for having them perform an “action”. Entering their email into a form, for example. Which is much easier than getting them to buy something.

Instead of researching keywords, research demographics

Keywords are no longer relevant (you’ll see in a minute). Invest your research time into demographics. First you select your CPA offer. Then go to a site like Quantcast.com. And research what kinds of people will be interested.

Use image ads

So far, you’ve got your CPA offer and your target demographics. You can target these exact demographics on display networks. And use images as your ads. And there was no keyword research 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 it’s free to get started in CPA. It’s much cheaper to do image ads than keyword ads. You can use demographics to target your ideal prospect. And you get paid for having them take a simple action.

Info marketing 101

First, understand that this is the simplest kind of business there is. You create a product that provides information. And other people buy this product to get the info. Pretty simple, wouldn’t you say?

How do you make it work?

We’ve established that it’s a simple concept. In order to be successful there has to be value in the info you’re selling. So the key is to figure out what people want. How can you find out what people want?

One very simple method is to do a little research. Just go to Yahoo! answers or ask.com and see what kinds of questions people are asking. Your goal is to find a common problem. For things that are causing people discomfort. Then just give them the answer in your ebook.

Power tip

If you’re worried about how to write and ebook. Put it this way: An info product is just a bunch of articles strung together. Don’t try to write a whole ebook. Just try to write one or two articles a day. And when you have a collection, flesh them out, add to them and combine them into a single ebook.

OK, what’s so hot about digital products? Funny you should ask . . . 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. You’re building a completely automated business.

You don’t have any inventory. You don’t have to ship anything. It’s all delivered online.

2. Repurposing

When you have a created a few information products. You can put together bigger more expensive information products. It’s nothing to combine the content from several ebooks. And you’ll be able to charge much more for this “new” product. There’s greater perceived value in a single big course. Instead of several small ebooks.

3. Resale rights

Since it’s your product, you can offer other people the resale rights. This is a very popular topic right now, because most people simply don’t have the time, money and effort it takes to create their own products. And what’s more you get to charge two to three time as much for these rights.

4. Leverage

Leverage means doing something once and reaping multiple rewards. Break it apart and create a multi-part email series with it. And build your list with it. A list is it’s own reward!

5. More leverage

Don’t stop there . . . break it into several smaller reports. Then use these to generate leads for the main product. They can be free or low prices. And it still benefits you because it in a lead-in for the main product. Taking this technique to the max, you can let your affiliate give the reports away for you. Which brings us to…

6. Affiliates

This one is huge. If you’ve got products you own. 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? Well, you *need* your own product to get affiliates.

7. Joint Ventures

OK, this is by far the biggest reason why. The number one way to launch your success is through joint ventures. And this is probably the number one reason to create your own product. No products of your own = no way to do joint ventures.

Summary

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 100% in control. So, don’t waste any more time:

• Head over to Yahoo! answers
• Find out what people need to know
• Write about the answers

The steps on how to write an ebook are really that easy. Before you know it, you’ll have your own info product.

What makes it so effective?

It’s simple. The web is mostly silent. It adds a human touch to your site. It also makes your site feel more real. Basically, audio brings your site to life. Which fascinates greater interaction from your visitors.

The benefits of audio

You’ll receive two immediate benefits to your bottom line when you employ the use of audio. First, you’ll make more sales. Secondly, you will not have to spend as much to make the sales. You won’t have to hire someone to write your sales letter. Just record some audio and add it to your site. 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. So you just add a simple audio that says: Fill in your name and email and click submit. Just this one simple thing will boost opt-ins up to 315%!

Some ways to use 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.

Lead them by the had. 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.

Product testimonials are great. Written testimonials are good. But what’s even better are audio testimonials. It’s pretty easy to fake a written testimonial. Audio adds a level of higher believability. Which boosts your sales for sure.

Power tip

What about creating an entire product using audio? This is by far the easiest content to produce. And your customers will be very happy with the product. Podcasts are still popular, so this is a great format. And you can get someone to transcribe them for very little money. This much easier than writing the eBook yourself!

Is it hard to add audio?

It’s actually really easy. You can find a lot of programs that create audio buttons for you. You don’t actually have to do anything yourself. The program records and then converts the recording and generates an audio button. Simply copy the code and paste it in your site. You don’t need to even consider this part.

Summing it up

Just a reminder of why you want to start using audio. Using website audio will increase your conversion rates. You’ll get more sales. You will also increase your subscriber opt-ins. And you can quickly produce products and website sales copy. No many people are doing this. But you’ll save a lot of time and money. Start using it today and you’ll be glad you did.

Video marketing

The power of video is undeniable. Video online is everywhere because people love it. About the only thing that keeps people’s attention anymore is video. So you can put this to great advantage in your affiliate marketing.

Examples of how to use video for affiliate marketing:

• Record your testimonial
• Do a video walk-through
• Ordering
• Record a preview of the members area

Record your testimonial

This one is super simple. Just click record on your web cam and start talking. It doesn’t have to be professional or polished. Seeing a real person on the other end helps your viewers make a buying decision. In truth, mistakes and mess-ups just make it more believable. So serious, just turn on the camera and talk. Use one of the other ideas if you’re feeling shy.

Record a walk-through

This technique works slightly more subconsciously. Make this more like a tutorial helping them use the product. And seeing it being used is a great way to make people want to buy it. If it’s useful, then what you’re teaching just makes people want it. So just make sure you’re demoing a good product.

Record the order process

This one is killer! Record a video of yourself actually buying the product. There is nothing more motivating than watching someone buy something live. In the first place it acts as social proof. Once they see you doing it, they feel more secure. Second, it builds trust. People believe you’re giving them good advice if you take that advice yourself. And let’s not forget about good old fashioned envy. They see you getting the satisfaction of making the purchase and that makes them want it. To really cap this one off, end your video with: If you want to see the inside, you’ll have to order it yourself.

Do a preview video

Here’s an easy way to show the value of the product. In this case you record a screen share of the inside of the product. And show them everything they get by ordering. And it helps soften the skeptics. Once they’ve seen the back-end, they know it’s real.

You can do this!

There’s no technical knowledge required. Some very easy to use programs make the videos for you. All the work is done by the program. So please don’t let technical worries slow you down. Keep focused on the rewards:

• Make more money You will increase your affiliate sales when you start using videos. Start using videos because people love them.
• Less refunds You’ll also have less of your commissions taken back. Thanks to you people know what’s inside before buying. So they’ll be less likely to refund.
• Outdo your competitors! Adding video is so simple. But only a very small percentage do it. So, you’ll be way ahead of the crowd.

Take your affiliate promotions to a higher level and getting started with this now. Not using video is detrimental to you business. So do it!

OK, but how?

Here’s what you need to build your list:

• Your Opt-in Page
• The 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. So, obviously it has to be well designed. And have an easy to understand opt-in form. And have a clear call to action.

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.

One way to really spice up your squeeze page is to add a video to it. This will grab your visitors attention and keep it. And you can repeat the call to action several times int he video. 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. 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 include video squeeze pages.

The Bribe – The second component is the reason they are opting into your list. You have to give people a compelling reason to give your their email. Email privacy is very important to most people. So make your “bribe” a good one!

You have to provide value in your bribe for it to be good. That means you make it something people would actually want to receive. And will be able to actually benefit from it. For example:

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

It all boils down to content. Something that’s useful and helpful to your visitors. And nothing sells like “free”. If you make it good enough, they will give you their email in exchange.

Once again, don’t worry if you don’t know how to create the freebie. Here again, you can hire freelancers to create this for you. Just give them a topic and they will write the content. For example, you could have them write a 5-part email course. And you can get emails ghost written for about $20 – $25 each. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

You can also get email list building tools that include the premium. Two critical aspects of using a follow up series. The first thing is that it delivers 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 you can earn some commissions immediately from your emails.

Your Confirmation Page – Finally, you need to consider your opt-in confirmation page. After subscribing to your list, your visitor is redirected to this page. It’s nice to give them some great content right away. Then they feel good about giving you their email address. It also helps to build the relationship. It also makes them more likely to open your emails.

You can use a “done for you” email marketing system. Or you can go the DIY route. And do your own writing for this content. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.

In closing

It makes no difference whether you build your opt-in, bribe and thank you page. Or if you hire people to do this for you. Or go with a complete package. It’s just important that you start today building your opt-in list. Because once its built… You’ve got a license to print money!

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

Before we start, let’s talk about what preselling actually is. There are two components to it – art & 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. If you do it well, it’s completely invisible.

In a nutshell, you provide value. And then refer them to the product website. In just a minute, I’ll explain exactly how to presell. First, it’s important to understand why we do it. Here are a few benefits of preselling:

• Preselling creates trust – And gaining the trust of your readers helps them want to click your links. And the more clicks you get the more sales you’ll make.
• It disarms your reader – When you’re preselling vs. pitching, you’re reader doesn’t feel the need to be guarded. And in turn they read to understand what you’re saying. And your intention is conveyed more easily.
• It puts them in a buying mood – Now they’re open to hearing what you’re telling them. Being open means, they are open to everything you give them. This includes the sales website you send them to! And being open to the information there means they are much more likely to buy.
• It increases your sales – They arrive at the product website prepped to buy. With the guard down and trusting your recommendation. The only possible result is more sales!
• It boosts customer loyalty – Plus, they feel they’ve made the buying decision on their own. Instead of feeling pressured or “sold”. And this leads to greater satisfaction with the product.
• Preselling increases your bottom line – Happy customers ask for refunds much less often. And that translates to more commission staying in your affiliate business.

Obviously, it’s important to presell. You earn more commissions. Your customers are happier. That’s a clear win-win.

OK, so how do you do it?

OK, now you understand why it’s so important. So, hopefully you’ve decided to start preselling. So, it’s time to break down how it works. Like we talked about before, it’s an art. And it’s a science.

Mastering the art

First, you have to gain the trust of your reader, so they let their guard down. Honestly, the only way to do this is to provide real value in you content. Now, providing enough info to be useful, but still making them want more – that’s the art of it. The idea is that they want more and the sales page you send them to gives them more. And because you’ve gained trust, they’re more receptive to the sales message and more likely to buy.

The science component

There are also several key elements that need to be included.

The first is how you present the information. You need to know where you’re going before you begin. Your goal is to sell the product you’re promoting. There are two ways to accomplish this with great content. First, you can provide useful but incomplete information. Or you can give them so much information that it feels overwhelming to do what you’re talking about. Either way, the product sales page solves the problem.

Next, you have to use “convert linking” methods. Instead, you use a direct link to the product website. That’s because nobody likes to click on affiliate links. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? This is all part of the science of preselling. You “pre-cookie” your reader before sending them to the sales page.

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.

OK, here’s the not-so-good news:

It’s extremely difficult to do this correctly. Think about everything that goes into crafting an effective preselling article: Awesome content. The entire process depends on your being able to provide useful information to your readers. This means you have to be able to write well, and have enough knowledge to be useful. Preselling skills. 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. While at the same time making them want more. Or make the information so overwhelming they realize they can’t do it on their own.

Choosing your products. After that you have to figure out which products you want to promote. If you can manage to get the article written well. Your efforts are completely wasted if you don’t pick a winning product.

Techy stuff. And finally, you need the technical know-how to embed your image tag and make sure you get credit for the sale. This is actually pretty simple – just embed a 1 pixel X 1 pixel image and set your affiliate link as the “source” of the image. (But if you do it wrong, you won’t get paid for the traffic you send.)

In closing:

Now you know what it takes to be a Presell Pro. Using these techniques will increase your affiliate sales by 500% or more! It’s absolutely critical to do this every time – and to do it correctly. Please don’t be lazy. Put in the effort to reap the greater rewards.

Let’s talk about how to generate traffic…

These are the best and fastest ways to get free visitors coming to your site:

• Web 2.0 Sites
• Article Marketing
• Video Marketing

OK, so how do they work?

Web 2.0 Methods

Web 2.0 is the name given to websites that get their content from their users. What this means for you is that you can join into the community and add your own content. Because these sites get so much traffic, Google and the other search engines treat these sites with greater importance in their algorithms. And that’s important to you because it means that Google and the other search engines treat links from these sites as more meaningful than links from other sites. 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. The direct traffic from the Web 2.0 sites themselves is only part of the benefit. 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 the hidden benefit here is that your reach grows as other people take your articles and put them on their blogs and sites. 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. Here are a couple article marketing traffic tips:

• Figure out what keywords you want to go after
• Tailor the content of your article for the keywords
• Use anchor text links in the article and the “resource box”

Video Sites

Our discussion would not be complete without talking about video. Once again, this is really a sub-set of web 2.0. So, just like article marketing, video marketing enables you to add content to authority sites. 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.

OK, so how do you do effective video marketing?

• Sign up for YouTube
• Turn off all the modules in your account profile
• Add tags to your profile
• Add a link to your website
• Add at least one video to your profile
• In the title, the description and the tags for each video, include your main keywords

Putting it all together.

This is a great overview to get your started generating massive traffic to your site.

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. What’s a fanatic? It’s someone who is so excited about a certain topic that they will spend their time and money on information about it. 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. That doesn’t mean definitely that it will make a good membership business, but it’s a good starting point.
• Pay attention throughout the day in your regular activities. See what people are talking about on the radio, TV, at parties, in public, etc. People generally talk about things they are interested in. 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. Conventions are expensive to hold and attend, so if one if going on that’s another strong indication of a good niche to go into with your membership website.
• What about your interests and hobbies? 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. These are the things people are actively searching for in Google. They’re searching because they want information. Building a membership business around things people are actively searching for is a great way to ensure your success.

Step 2 – Determine the financial feasibility

After selecting a possible niche to build your membership site around, the next step is to find out if it’s a profitable niche to be in. An easy way to determine this is to figure out if anyone else is making money in this niche.

Here’s how to determine if you can make money in your chosen 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 means there is a large group of people already assembled for you to market to.
• Check Amazon, eBay and Google Shopping to find out if others are making and selling products in your niche. If other people are creating and selling products in this niche, it means there is money to be made.
• Look at Google Adwords for the same ads are running over time. If people are running the same ad over time it means they are making money in the niche. They would not continue to spend money on the ads if there were not making a return from them.

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?

• Product types. What kind of products are being sold in the niche? You’re looking for a niche that sells info products. The easiest membership website to create and maintain are information membership sites.
• The last thing you want is a marketing filled with tons of competitors. A few means it’s a profitable niche, but too many means you won’t be able to take a piece of it.
• 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 quickly do people in this market make buying decisions and are the ready to buy? Every market is different. Sometimes people are looking for information and are ready to pay for it right now. And sometimes it takes weeks, months or even years for them to make the decision to purchase.

In Summary

So far, we’ve talked about exactly what it takes to pick a great niche: One with a hungry crowd of fanatics, who are ready to spend money on information about their topic. And you’ve determined your barrier to entry is small enough to give it a go. 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…

Before we begin

Before you begin trying to get traffic to your site, you need to do your keyword research first. The reason this is so important is that you are going to be building content and traffic sources for specific keywords. This means it’s critical to select your keywords properly.

Here are the important considerations for your research:

• Will you be able to rank for these keywords? This involves doing some competitive analysis to determine the ease of entry for each keyword
• Will the keywords you’re targeting bring buyers? Some keywords will bring lots of traffic, but none of them will buy. This is not what you’re looking for.
• Will these keywords bring affiliates? If you want to build a huge business, you’re going to need affiliates to help you. So make sure you are also targeting keywords to attract affiliates.

Although this is an essential step, doing it all by hand can take a very long time. And hiring an expert is very expensive. And that’s why most people skip this step! 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…

Only after doing your keyword research correctly can you start targeting these keywords to get you traffic.

Powerful Traffic Tactics:

• Something you may not have ever considered is Surveys
• “Answer” Sites
• Video Sharing Sites

Surveys

Here’s the thing – people love surveys. It’s human nature. You can use this fact to provide “sticky” content for other website owners. And when they put your survey on their site, they will include a link back to your website. The beauty of this is that it generates website visitors for you with no work on your part. Most people think surveys are just for collecting data, but in this case you don’t even care about the answers. 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. Once again, the main reason for this site is not the reason you’re interested. The other thing they can be used for is to get traffic to your site, leads for your business and sales! Of course, the process of digging through these sites and pulling out the content info of leads for your business is very time consuming. So, if you’re smart, you’ll use website traffic software to do it all for you. Then you just get a daily batch of fresh leads delivered to your inbox.

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. You can even take a webpage or article that you’ve written. And use free screen capture software to record yourself reading it. And like anything else, there is software available that will turn articles into videos for you automatically.

In Closing

It’s not that hard to get traffic to your websites. Use your noodle and come up with things other people aren’t doing. And today there are tons of options for software tools that can help with every part of this process.

So, start right now and:

• Step 1 is researching your keywords
• Set up some viral surveys
• Build your traffic traps
• And definitely include video sharing sites

Affiliate marketing is by far the fastest way to get started earning a living online. What “affiliate marketing” means is that you just send traffic to someone else’s website, they make the sale and deliver the product, and you get a percentage of the sale price as your commission, which for digital products can be 50% of more.

These are a some of the benefits

1. You can start almost instantly with no up-front costs and no need to make a product, set up a website and sales page, develop the website, come up with support tools, or get a merchant account and CRM.
2. It’s completely hands-freefor you because they handle the billing, support, maintenance, etc.
3. There’s no risk for you, 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!

OK, but it’s not all rosy…

Once you send your visitors to the product sales page, they are gone forever. Unfortunately, the majority of those visitors (at least 90%) will not buy on their first visit. And of the 10% or less that do buy, the product owner will be able to sell to them again, but you will not.

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. 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 really on top of your game, you’ll then send to a content mini-site in between.

Here’s why you want to implement these affiliate marketing strategies:

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.

In order to set a system like this up, you will need the following affiliate marketing tools:

1. A Video Squeeze Page (with video)
2. Several high-quality content 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. After subscribing them to your email list, it redirects them to your content mini-site.

The content pages provide valuable information for your visitors and make them more receptive to the sales message that you’ll link to from inside the content. And even if they don’t buy on the first visit, your email series sends them back to the product sales page again and again to increase your sales.

Putting all of these pieces together will increase your sales by 500% or more, so it’s obviously worth the time and energy to do it. And once it’s set up, it runs automatically – you just send visitors to the squeeze page, instead of the product website.

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). On the plus side, you’ll save a ton of time and money vs. trying to build this yourself. Plus you can get started instantly. One negative is that there will be other people using this same affiliate marketing system. However, the odds of you and them both finding the same visitor are so small, that it doesn’t really matter.

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.