Mistake #1: Don’t Invest in a Good Autoresponder Tool
Your autoresponder tool is the crux of your whole operation. The entire thing is set up on autopilot, and if it crashes, you’re going to lose your entire affiliate operation.
Skimp on your autoresponder and it might cause you to return to square one with your earnings. I recommend Aweber – it’s the tool of choice for most marketers and has a high level of support that helps your emails get through to various ISPs.
Mistake #2: Go After the Make Money Niche (when you haven’t made any)
Look, I know right now you’re absorbing all you can about making money online. You see products everywhere teaching you how to make money overnight, and it makes you drool.
So your first instinct is to go after the make money niche – after all, it has you hooked, doesn’t it? Here’s why you don’t want to go after the make money niche – all of your subscribers will know what you’re up to!
Try promoting to people who are also learning the tools of the trade is more difficult. Some of them opt out the minute they see two promotions in a row (so you get a much higher opt out rate).
Others will know that you’re using affiliate links and they’ll go buy the same product through their own link, effectively stealing your commission out from under you.
Dog owners, singles, and golfers (for example) don’t pick your emails apart as a marketing strategy. To them, you’re just a great guy (or girl) delivering fantastic free information to them on a regular basis.
Mistake #3: Starting Off Soft and Leading to a Hard Sell
When someone signs up to your list, they get a feel for who you are right off the bat. Do you email daily, weekly, monthly? Do you have a promotional link in every email, or every once in a blue moon?
Get them primed to receive affiliate links in every single email by starting out with a system that does it early on. Don’t send out four emails with no links and suddenly begin bombarding them with sales pitches. They won’t react well.
Get Started!
Don’t delay your affiliate success by trying to make this harder than it is. Start by finding your niche, gathering great PLR, and plugging in your affiliate links. Set up your domain and your system runs itself!
Wash, rinse, repeat.
If you want to use site building software to make your domain look a little more professional, go for it. You don’t have to hire an expensive graphic designer to do this.
You can also outsource unique product creation if you prefer not to use Private Label Rights or spend time writing your own reports and emails. If you do outsource, you can try a site like Elance or Rentacoder.
Your autoresponders don’t have to be long newsletter length. Some just provide a catchy headline based on something in the news. For instance, when I type into Google the phrase, “dog training news,” I get the San Francisco SPCA site as one of my results.
On it, it talks about how they’re launching classes dubbed the “Harvard for Dog Trainers” based on positive reinforcement techniques. So you could use that as your hook and just give them a tiny bit of information about it followed by a short ending that says, “To learn more about positive reinforcement, visit _________.”
Coincidentally, your link will be to an affiliate program you promote that teaches this exact same method.
Many people prefer short tidbits of information they can choose to read more about (or not). You can do a mix and see which type converts into more sales – a longer email from you or a short teaser with a link to more information.
Remember – while everyone’s busy branding their name on the ‘net for their niche, you’ll be worry-free about who’s thinking what of you. Your business will be void of the burden of personal branding.
Not only that, but you won’t worry about if you’re marketing the “right” way. You’ll just do it and see what kind of affiliate commissions you generate. If you’re always worried about unsubscribes, you might prevent yourself from making as much money as you want to.
You’ll start limiting the number of affiliate links you put in, or you’ll spend more than enough logical time scouting out the “perfect” product to promote. With your name absent from the equation, you’ll only be worrying about where to plan your next vacation with all of your affiliate earnings that you raked in last month.
“But what about JVs and web 2.0 – you haven’t touched on that yet?”
What about them? Forget about leveraging other people’s traffic and building content on other people’s networks. Focus your efforts solely on your own networks and you’ll reap the rewards in a bigger way.
“Shouldn’t I be making my OWN product to promote to my list?”
Sure, if you want more work to do! There’s no need to build your own product and launch affiliate programs of your own and network for joint venture deals. If you want to stay really busy, then go for it.
But the system as I’ve described it is all you need to be financially secure with affiliate marketing. You can feed off of affiliate programs for a long time, moving one visitor from one offer to another and keeping them within your own network to buy for as long as they’re hungry for more information.
This system is basically similar to what AdSense income is all about – only the return on your investment is more lucrative than AdSense. You still abide by the same tactics – mass valuable content and strategic links.
The only difference is you’re capturing names and promoting higher priced products. More is better – and don’t pay attention as much to conversions per site as you do to your entire affiliate earning increase from month to month.
You may actually see a small trickle of traffic to your site, but you have a hundred sites, so that small number of sign-ups is actually growing your list pretty healthily. Or, you might have only five sites, but a ton of traffic. As long as your list grows, you’re good to go.
I’m going back to what I said earlier in this report:
Quit trying to reinvent the wheel!
Don’t make this hard on yourself. Don’t spend months trying to learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or thousands of dollars on professional web designs and unique content from the top ghostwriters on the web.
Setting Up Your Affiliate Marketing Simple System
Choose a More Narrow Niche
Find Affiliate Products to Promote
Set Up Your Home on the Web
Content For Your AutoResponders
Affiliate Marketing Autopilot
Taking Your Affiliate Marketing Simple System to the Next Level
Don’t Make These Three Critical Mistakes
Choose a More Narrow Niche
Find Affiliate Products to Promote
Set Up Your Home on the Web
Content For Your AutoResponders
Affiliate Marketing Autopilot
Taking Your Affiliate Marketing Simple System to the Next Level
Don’t Make These Three Critical Mistakes
