Promote The Products You Believe In

When it comes to an affiliate program, one of the most common mistakes a program participant makes is choosing to sell a product that they do not believe in or fully stand behind, one hundred percent.

Although you may be making money, you may also be creating a bad name for yourself. That is why it is important that you promote or sell products that you believe in.

When it comes to promoting a product that you believe in, one of the most commonly asked questions is “how?” The best way to promote a product that you believe in is to actually try out the product. For instance, if you are promoting an e-book, you may want to think about reading the e-book in question. In fact, if you ask, you may be given the e-book to review for free or for a discounted price.

If you are interested in joining an affiliate program set up by a retailer, you will earn commission for all sales, not just a particular product. To test the waters, you may want to think about placing an order, even just a small one. This will give you a first hand look at the affiliate program that you will be promoting on your own site.

Perhaps, the greatest reason why you should test out a product is because if you don’t like it, there is a good chance that your customers won’t like it as well. In a way, you can look at it as providing a service to the general public, at least internet users. By not agreeing to sell a poor quality product, you will be saving other consumers, just like you, money. In fact, you should be proud of yourself for refusing to do business with an affiliate program that doesn’t live up to par.

Another reason why you should avoid doing business with an affiliate program that sells a poor quality product is because of your reputation. Although you are only directing customers to the site where they can buy the product in question, you may still be remembered for your part in the sale. Do you really want to be remembered as the guy or the woman who recommended a product that wasn’t even worth the money spent?

As it was mentioned above, you may be making money with an affiliate program, even if the product being sold isn’t as good as it could have been. Although you may be making money, it probably will not last forever.

In fact, you may soon find your sales decreasing, if the decrease hasn’t already started. You need to remember that customers talk. If a customer was not satisfied with the product that they purchased, they will likely talk to their friends, family members, and coworkers. They may even write negative reviews online. These negative reviews may cause other consumers to avoid purchasing the product that you are selling, as well as your whole website in general.

The money that you can make, right away, may seem nice, at the time, but you need to remember to think long-term. Do you know what you want to do in the future, whether it is now or in a few years? If you are like many people, there is a good chance that you have no idea. What if you want to create your own products to sell online? As it was mentioned above, what you do online now can come back to haunt you. That is why it is important that you think about your future, in the business sense, and it what it may entail. If your dream is to one day start your own online business, you will want to refrain from bad publicity; bad publicity that may come in the form of a poorly run affiliate program.

Although it was advised that you actually test out the products that you will be promoting, through an affiliate program, testing isn’t your only option. You can also research a product online. Reading customer reviews, both good and bad, may give you insight into the product you may have to sell. Better yet, it may help you decide whether or not it is a product that you want to be associated with.

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5 Simple Steps to Improve Your Affiliate Offer

As affiliate marketers, we're fortunate in that we don't have as many 'Achilles heels' as the merchants who own and deliver the products we promote for them. Both our investments and our risks tend to be lower.

However, we do have one significant 'weak' spot, and that's in how far we can go in improving 'the offer'. There are certain things we simply can't do. For example, we don't have the authority to offer discounts or deliver upgrades.

But, this 'weakness' doesn't mean we're stuck with 'weak offers'! In fact, I can think of at least 5 ways to improve any offer, and really send our sales soaring:
1. Increase The PERCEPTION of Value -

The real value of any product is always in the customer's mind, and you can increase that perception in dozens of ways. For example, you guide the customer through a comparison of similar products, while pointing out why the one you're promoting is really the best deal for the money.

2. Demonstrate the Immediate Benefits -

Show the customer how they can put the product to use from the moment they buy it. You should already own your own copy of most of the products you promote. So, create a tutorial or some way of showcasing the results you've gotten from the product.

3. Give More of Yourself On a Personal Level --

Similar to Step 2 – There's always added value in social proof. Discuss your own experience surrounding the questions, problems and ultimate solutions in regards to the product at hand. Empathize with the customer's position and point out the things you share in common.

4. Put Them At Ease --

Your relationship to the merchant should enable you to give the customer a sense of security in making the purchase. Let them know about the product's guarantee and/or refund policy. Let them know the transaction is secure. You want to remove as much of the risk as possible from the purchase.

5. Provide Additional Incentives --

Check with the merchant first to make sure you're allowed to do this. Its usually no problem when you're promoting things like e-books, membership sites, etc.. You can really sweeten up an offer when you add your own products to the mix. E.g., “order this e-book, and I'll throw in a free copy of this other product over here..”

So, you see, all it takes is a little creativity to add value to any affiliate offer. Use the 5 steps and you may even blow the merchant's offer clear out of the water!

About the author:

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A Missing Piece of the Profit Puzzle: Applying Leverage In Your Affiliate Business

We all want fatter commission checks. What affiliate doesn't, right?

If you're like the average affiliate marketer – let's say you'd class your experience at the “intermediate level” -- then you're probably wondering how move up the next rung of the ladder, and really start skyrocketing your income to super-affiliate levels.

I've got one word for you: LEVERAGE.

Forget all the latest 'sure thing' tactics for a moment. They're not what you really need. This isn't to say they won't be useful additions to your arsenal, but its not a new bag of tricks you need at this level.

What you need is leverage, and the type of leverage we're talking about here is financial leverage. It is time to start re-investing your profits.

If you're already doing this, I commend you. If not, then read on. Its really important that you appreciate the power of this concept.

Think for a moment about how you got to where you are today. If you're like most affiliates at this level, you started on shoe-string budget, and have worked your way up to about $1,000-$3,000 in commissions per month, max.

You're no doubt supplementing your regular income quite nicely, but probably haven't quit your day job on this income unless you're single and have very little in the way of debt.

For a lot of affiliates, this is the point where apathy (or even fear) comes into play. Its so rewarding to finally have this kind of extra income, you're tempted to spend most of it on yourself or start squirreling it away for a rainy day. After all, everything is running fine just the way you have it set up.

Now, hear this: This is exactly what's stopping you from earning more money!

You've settled on the advertising budget that's working to bring in a few grand. Maybe you do re-invest some of your profit, so that advertising is essentially free now.

But what if, by spending a bit more, you could earn twice or even three times as much?

Well, you CAN, and here's how: Starting this month, commit to leveraging 50% of your affiliate income towards the following two areas:

1. Paid advertising.

2. Getting your own product created

Here's what to do with your paid advertising. First, pull out all the performance data you have for current advertising programs.

Determine which campaigns would benefit from an extra investment of cash. This is not limited just to the top performers. You've probably got at least one campaign that's promising, but could use a little boost.

Some of the areas you might look at include:

*Increasing the overall daily budget in your pay-per-click campaigns

*Text or banner link advertising on a new site

*Running some solo ads in e-zines you haven't advertised in before

The key here is to devote some cash to both the old and the new. Inject some life into your current advertising, but also try out a new venue or a new method (like offline advertising).

Finally, its time for you to invest in getting your own product created. Choose just one of your current niche products, and have someone create a related, complementary product for you.

Why?

Because its going to help you boost your sales by improving your offers. Once you've got your own product, you can leverage it as 'bait' to persuade prospects to take you up on the affiliate product offer.

You've probably seen this tactic employed in the past. Marketer X sends out the promo email to his list, and says, “If you buy product x through me, I'm going to sweeten the deal by giving you all these additional bonus products of mine for free....”

This is really powerful. Before, all you had to rely on was the combined power of your copy writing skills and the copy on the merchant's site; but, with your own product tossed into the mix, you're able to create an even better offer.

This is the beauty of leverage. You needn't worry about parting with some extra money. You'll probably feel a little bit uneasy about it at first, and that's only natural.

However, once you see the results of using leverage, you'll wonder why you didn't start using it sooner!

About the author:

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How to Move Past 'Newbie' Status to Full-Fledged Affiliate Marketer

Every day there's at least one person who discovers 'affiliate marketing' for the first time. And, every day, there's at least one person, maybe that person is you, who goes back to the drawing board trying to figure out why they haven't yet succeeded as wildly as they'd hoped.

No matter which category you fall into, I'd like to share some concepts with you that might make all the difference in the world to your future success. In fact, you just might learn from this article the one thing that helps you start earning real money.

It really all comes down these two mistakes that beginner's make:

1. Promoting to many products at once (lack of focus), and..

2. Giving up too soon.

These two mistakes are related, and are actually self-reinforcing. It sounds obvious enough, but let me explain exactly how this scenario plays out.

Lack of Focus:

Experienced affiliate marketers do have the ability to promote several products, sometimes far afield from each other, at the same time. The reason they can do this is because they'd already learned and applied certain fundamental skills, and have developed a system for themselves which works to bring in sales consistently.

As a beginner, however, you're still learning what works and what doesn't. For that reason alone, you need a clearly defined testing ground – and this means limiting your promotion to just one product when you first start out.


Just imagine for a moment if you were in a laboratory. You're working with a new chemical and need to determine its boiling point, solubility, molecular weight and so on.

Would it be quicker and easier for you to accomplish this by working with just that one chemical, or by juggling multiple, other chemicals all at the same time...starting one experiment and then rushing over to another one midway through?

Obviously, it would be easier to work with just the one chemical, right?

Well, the same is true for marketing. Just like the variables in your lab experiment, you've also got variables in every product promotion you undertake. The variables include things like traffic generation, conversion rates, advertising response rates and so on.

So, how much data do you want to juggle? Do you want to keep track of, say, Google Adwords performance for ONE e-book...or for a dozen of them spread across more than one niche?

This is where a lot beginners get themselves into a rut. They try to juggle all of this information at once, get overwhelmed by it and simply give up.

Giving Up Too Soon:

Ok, so, information overload hits, and you throw your hands in the air in surrender.

There's no need to despair!

You can turn the situation around completely if you'll just make a commitment to do the following three things:

1. Pick ONE niche market

2. Pick ONE product from that market

3. Use just that one niche product as your testing ground, in order to solidify your skills as an affiliate marketer.

You see, its a lot like learning to ride a bicycle as a kid. You start off with a tricycle, then move up to regular bike with training wheels and from there onto riding any bike you choose.

The same is true for learning how to promote products as an affiliate.

*Learn how to generate traffic on just one product

*Learn how to capture subscribers to your opt-in list for just one product

*Learn how to write advertisements and promotional copy for just one product

*Learn how to track your advertising links and conversion rates for just that one product....

....and THEN, you'll be able to turn around and apply that knowledge to additional products, in different niches.

The key is to get some real results established in one place, and only then start building on that incrementally.

If you'll follow even just this one simple rule, I promise you'll see an increase in your commissions – and you can drop that 'newbie' label for the title of: Successful Affiliate Marketer!

About the author:

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