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Automate Your Way To Affiliate Marketing Wealth

If you want to earn a sustained online income with affiliate marketing, you'll have to automate both the front end and the back end offers. Following are a few proven secrets to ensure that you'll be effortlessly earning affiliate commissions while you count sheep...

1. Research and determine the most desireable affiliate products and related affiliate programs which best fit your target market and that will help you to generate the most amount of money for the least amount of work in the shortest amount of time.

You want to ensure that the "affiliate vendor" (if they offer their own program) or the affiliate network (who manages a variety of affiliate vendor products) has a reputation for paying affiliates within committed timeframes with a simple method for affiliates to register (get their affiliate ID/link), track their progress (clicks, sales, etc), and get paid (ie: direct deposit into a paypal account versus receiving a check). Choose products or services that pay high commissions and that have a high quality sales page that gets high conversion rates (turns lookers into buyers).

Be sure to look over the sales page to determine if it entices youto buy the product. If not, it probably won't entice others either. Keep in mind that digital products or services generate a much higher commission percentage than a physical product due to the fact that they cost less for the vendor to develop, market, inventory, and deliver to the buyer. If you do chose a physical product, try combining it with a related digital product to increase your overall commissions. An example could be promoting a gardening tool with an associated "how to grow the biggest, juiciest tomatoes" downloadable report.

And don't forget that an affiliate product or service with a monthly recurring fee (ie: a gardening club membership site)
provides an ongoing steam of income for work you did once. For the most income possibilities, you try to have a combination of "one time charge" and "monthly recurring cost" products that relate to your targetted market.

Since you should also plan to market additional products to those that have purchased from you, be sure that the affiliate network you decided on has a variety of "complimentary" products you can sell. Since people usually purchase more than one product on a subject they are excited about, this will ensure a recurring stream of money from your initial marketing workd. Although you can transparently offer products to your market from a variety of affiliate programs simulatneously, it will be much easier on you and your ability to stay on top of your affiliate tasks if you have as few affiliate product owners and/or affiliate programs to manage as possible.

2. Concentrate on ONE product or service at a time to avoid "activity overload".

You need to know if your sales efforts for a specific product or service are making you money or if you are just wasting your efforts. You need to monitor and modify until you have a steady stream of income from your selected product or service. If it doesn't happen, drop it and move on to another product. Get all marketing and upsell tasks (ie: squeeze page, pre-sell page, free reports, autoresponder series, etc.) determined and set up to function on autopilot before moving on to selling a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. Automation of each affiliate product or service's procedures enables you to turn your focus to developing additional streams of income without sacraficing your previous affiliate income stream.

3. SMART affiliates ALWAYS capture prospects name/emails for maximuming income potential

Since the affiliate vendor or affiliate network doesn't provide you with a visitor or buyer's name and/or email address, if you route your prospects right to the affiliate vendor's webpage, you have lost them forever (even if they buy, you won't know who they are only that you completed a sale). Therefore, you won't be able to leverage your initial marketing efforts by selling other products or services to those who either expressed an interest or actually made a purchase.

Therefore, prior to sending your prospects to the affiliate vendor's webpage, you first want to send them to a webpage that you have set up to capture the prospects name and email address. This webpage is referred to as a "squeeze page" or "opt-in" page. On that webpage you'll need to give something for FREE (ie: a report, mini-ebook, software tool, newsletter subscription, etc.). Something with VALUE that will entice them to give up the information you want.

Since it is a known fact that most people won't buy on their first introduction to a person or product or service, you also have to follow up with the people that have downloaded your FREE item (your list). Since statistics have proven that it usually takes 7 exposures before a prospect feels comfortable enough to buy, you need to have a process in place to make sure that you follow up in a timely manner. Setting up an autoresponder with a series of emails that are automatically sent at predetermined intervals, is the best way to make it happen. This email series should be set up so that it helps you to establish a relationship as well as establish you as a trusted consultant in your targeted market. This will make it easier for your propsects to buy from you.

By continuing to offer FREE, valuable information to your prospects along with additional promotions built into your email series, it will ensure that your potential customers will continue to stay "subscribed". That they will continue to open your messages and eventually purchase one or more of your affiliate promotions.

4. Get maximum exposure to your affiliate offer

There are a number of ways to achieve exposure for your affiliate promotion (both free and paid). In other words, traffic to your promotional offer. The major marketing effort is made upfront. After that, if done correctly, a "viral" effect happens and your marketing efforts will take on a life of their own.

Free ways:

Article writing - Write related articles and send to article directories. Articles are then picked up by a number of website owners, ezine owners, and others looking for internet content. Your article's "resource box" should have a direct link to your promotional "squeeze or "opt-in" page (which can't be removed by the publisher). So, each time someone publishes your article, you'll get free traffic.

Forum participation - look for related forums and join in the discussions. Ask questions, offer feedback from your experience/educaton (not a sales pitch). Just set up your "signature" to route to your promotional "squeeze page" and Let your "signature" do your selling for you. Just be sure that the forum OKs this type of signature (most do).

Blogging - seek out related blogs and make comments, again with a link to your promotional "squeeze page" or "opt-in" page.

Joint Ventures - find others in your target market that have "lists" that you can market to and vice versa. If they promote your promotional link to their list, you'll present their product in your autoresponder series to your list.

Paid ways:

Google Adwords PPC (or other PPC Services) - Write & publish PPC (pay per click) ads. Whenever someone clicks your ad, you are charged a certain fee. Keep in mind that you are charged this fee when they "click" your link, not if they "buy" the product. So, if you aren't managing your PPC allowance closely, you may spend lots more money on "clicks" than you'll ever earn on affiliate commissions. Don't forget to read and understand the terms and conditions of any PPC program before you start to use this marketing resource.

If you are too busy or simply don't want to do these tasks yourself, you can always/could easily outsource them to be performed by others. But, make no mistake, they must be done. As always, its a trade off of your time or your money.

5. Make more cash than other affiliates promoting the same product or service

Once you have established a solid track record as an affiliate who can bring in the sales, you can ask for a higher than normal commission from the merchant. Just contact the affiliate product owner and negotiate a bigger percentage of the pie. Since the merchant pays you nothing unless you make a sale, they have a zero risk investment in you. If you have been a producer with them or can demonstrate your success with other affiliate efforts, most will work with you. Since only about 5% of their affiliates ever produce revenue for them, they won't want to lose one that does. Just be reasonable in your request.

Use these tips and you'll soon see a HUGE increase in your affiliate commissioins in no time at all.

Article Source: http://www.noviceinvesting.com/Article

Cleo Craig is the founder of Internet Marketing Scout, a research group dedicated to helping newbies find proven, low cost, and easy to implement stratagies for generating an online income. See her latest recommendation at www.internetmarketingscout.com