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Internet Marketing > Weekly
Tips > SSWT 12/03/05
Still Unsure About
Affiliate
Marketing?
I found a great question on a popular discussion forum this morning.
I've actually seen this question - or one very much like it -
so many times in the last 3 months... that I thought I would share
my response with you here by email. I know that we have some that
are very new on the list, and some are not so new - but are still
skeptical... I hope you find this helpful and useful. And of course,
if you have any questions you can reach me on the discussion
forum 7 days a week!
Question:
"There are so many Affiliate Programs out there and
so many 'guru' super marketers involved, I was just wondering
whether it really is possible for Joe (or Jane!) Regular to earn
a second inc0me in this way?"
My response:
In a word: YES!!
That said, your success depends on several factors:
A
lot of people make the exact same mistakes when they get into
affiliate marketing, so I'll share some about that with you to
help steer you in the right direction:
-
You dont have to sell "Internet Marketing" or "Online
Business" related products to be an affiliate marketer.
You can become an affiliate for practically anything - so keep
your options (and your mind) wide open!
-
Selling all things to all people (ie Internet Malls) does not
give you "more" opportunity to make money. It just
gives you more opportunity to confuse people and/or get lost
online in the sea of other people who are making this mistake.
A focused sales presentation, to a specific target market, will
yield better results - even if the target market IS 100 times
smaller.
-
You are not going to make m0ney overnight. You may not even
make m0ney in the first 30 days. However, you WILL see a profit
if you are consistent and persistent with your online venture
- and consistently track your results and tweak your campaigns
(sites, ads, etc) until they ARE profitable for you.
Give
it time, because it is WELL worth that investment!!
-
There is no certain way that you have to do things. Mind you,
there are some proven models and marketing strategies that are
worth testing and using - that's a given. But dont get hung
up on one particular concept when it comes to affiliate marketing,
and feel like you have to bend your whole promotion around this
site model or whatever.
Here are two tutorials from the main site that I can share with
you to back up those recommendations and hopefully give you some
more ideas:
Another
question that I hear often is "Which affiliate programs are
you doing well with?" People want an idea of where to start,
or what to promote. Unfortunately, most successful affiliate marketers
are not going to share that information publicly - or even privately.
Honestly,
that question is entirely too general, anyway...
The response you get with ANY affiliate program is going to depend
on how you market it, and who you market it to. If you target the
wrong market, you wont get the same response as if you target the
right market. If you market programs for one week and then "ditch
them" because they dont "work out for you" - you
arent going to see the same results as if you really invested some
time and energy into the project and consistently "tracked
and tweaked" for 3-6 months before knowing firsthand what the
profit potential is for that program. Make sense?
With that said, I am doing well with some of the larger networks
at the moment. I decided not to focus too heavily on "independent
affiliate programs" because I recently got burned with a
couple of them... Read about that here:
Affiliate
Merchants That Don't Pay
(I'll
be giving you a full report on this in a future issue)
Anyway, here are just a few of the networks & programs I am
working with
- and doing well with:
-- CJ.com
--
ClickBank.com (of course)
--
Google Adsense
--
AffiliateTraction.com
* The popular discussion forum I referred to
was:
http://www.im4newbies.com/forum/
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