In this article, we will discuss some of the methods you’ve probably not heard of, whereas other methods you’ve thought would never work. In a real essence, it’s really only a matter of doing it right and you can make a living off affiliate marketing.
This is really fascinating because you can earn big commissions just by promoting products you DON’T even have to create. Of course, like everything else in life, it takes multiple practices to reach the top level. But I assure you that through the coming pages, I can help you reduce your learning curve significantly and you will make less guesswork and mistakes.
Without further ado, let’s quickly cover some of the methods you can use in boosting
your affiliate promotion and the commissions.
Using Classified Ads
The process of using classified ads to generate sales for any product. Whether it be an original product or an affiliate product it is often over-simplified and discouraged. This is, in part, because it is one of the harder ways in which you can advertise.
It requires you to use a small amount of words to communicate an important point, which will either make or break your ability to garner interest in the product in question.
In most cases, supposed experts will discourage you from using classified ads because they have never had much luck using them not because classified ads aren’t a viable method of advertising.
So how can you use classified ads correctly to generate a considerable amount of traffic to your affiliate product sales page?
The first step entails finding viable places to advertise. Again, many of the so-called experts will jump in and either tell you to use free sites or that free sites never work. The truth here, too, is somewhat in between free sites can work, but you must use them carefully. For instance, if you want to generate traffic from sites that allow you to post free classifieds, you will have to find ones that actually receive traffic themselves. One example of a site that receives a massive amount of traffic, but also allows you to post classified ads for free is Craigslist.
Remember with classifieds, you’re not paying by the click. It’s either free or you’re paying for a certain period of time or impressions, so your goal should be to generate as many clicks as possible, use words like “cheap,” “free,” “proven,” and “shocking” to draw attention to your ad.
Once you have successfully drawn attention to your ad through the headline, you will then want to seal the deal by providing viewers with a reason to click through, provided that your affiliate product is something they will want to buy. You can do this by explicitly stating a quantifiable benefit in the second line of the classified ad – and then stating a crucial feature in the third line.
Posting on Forums
Posting on forums is one of the cheapest and fastest ways in which you can advertise affiliate products on the Internet. However, in order to do this successfully, you must do a number of things carefully. The general procedure involves making multiple posts on a forum board before you even set up a signature file, which includes a link to your site. Even if the particular forum you are using does not specifically mandate this, you will want to do this, anyway, as it will increase your credibility – which is your real goal.
Now, once you have selected a number of directories that match your specific marketing angle and affiliate product, you will want to investigate to determine whether or not they have excess rules regulating signature files. For instance, some sites do not allow any links in signature files; others, by contrast, allow links but do not allow any commercial links. Make sure you know what the rules are before you post. Otherwise, you are simply setting yourself up to be banned from the forum.
Next, take the list of forums you have created – that are both relevant to your topic and allow commercial links – and begin developing a reputation on those forums. Post regularly, avoid meaningless fights and flaming, and contribute useful, on-target information to discussions. In a matter of 1-2 weeks, you will have developed a reputation, provided that the forum receives a considerable amount of traffic.
Advertise through your forum signature
Once you have developed a good reputation, you will want to begin advertising through your forum signature. Ideally, you will want to include an eye-catching assortment of colors, symbols, and words in your signature. This will draw people’s attention. You will then want to link them to something other than
an affiliate page – whether it be a page you created to sell an affiliate product or an auto-responder course used to capture email addresses.
Remember to repeat this process in all applicable forums. Look for high-traffic forums that allow commercial link posting in signature files – and that also happens to fit with your specific audience-targeting and marketing angle goals. Next, create a reputation. Last, add your signature in some attractive way that draws visitors’ attention, but is also likely to convert them into interested clickers. You will find that this form of advertising pays off considerably – and does so faster than other methods available.
Using Traffic Exchanges to Promote Affiliate Programs
If you’re unfamiliar with exchanges, you will want to read this over carefully and consider printing it out:
One of the best ways in which you can promote affiliate programs is through various traffic exchanges. Almost all well-defined, robust niches on the Internet have some form of traffic exchange.
For instance, casinos, gaming sites, niche forums, and Internet marketing sites all have some form of traffic exchange system. IM, in particular, has dozens of exchanges. A traffic exchange can serve multiple functions; however, in most cases, it does two important things:
- It allows you to surf sites, gain credits, and then cash in those credits
- It allows you to put banners or dynamically-generated link boxes on your site that will generate credits, which you can then cash in. Cashing in credits, with most exchanges, results in a certain amount of traffic being driven to your site via the exchange site or via banners on other sites that are members of the exchange.
A good place to start when working with traffic exchanges is to determine which ones are most reputable and which ones have reasonable point systems. For instance, some traffic exchanges allow users to cheat and some have bad systems of exchange, which heavily favor paying members over non-members. You will want to find the best possible exchange given the amount of money you are willing to spend and the product you are marketing.
Determine the best way to maximize the amount of high-quality traffic you get
Once you have selected an optimal exchange, you will want to determine the best way in which you can use it to maximize the amount of high-quality traffic you extract from it. You will want to answer the following questions to aid yourself in determining this: do I earn credits from impressions or clicks? And do I lose credits based on impressions or clicks?
This is important to ask, as different exchanges have different policies on this issue. If you lose credits based on impressions, you will want to make sure that you get the absolute largest amount of clicks per impressions. This will involve over-hyping your ads and creating flashy banners (if they allow them). In contrast, if you are getting charged per click, you will want to make sure your ads ONLY appeal to the most interested buyers. Whichever route you take, make sure that it is matched up with a model for maximum revenue generation. The last thing you will want to consider when using a traffic exchange is precisely what
you should promote.
Social Networking Sites For Affiliate Marketing
You might not know this, but social networking sites aren’t just for teenagers anymore. In fact, social networking sites have evolved into something different altogether than what they once were – networks composed mainly of teenage girls. Today, social networking sites span the spectrum of demographic groups. While teenagers are still more apt to use them than older people, there are now niche social networking sites, which target people who all share some common interest, such as skateboarding or investing.
Now, in addition to teenagers and adults, social networks are increasingly becoming used by another group –businesses. That’s right: many businesses are now infiltrating social networks to advertise in some subtle manner – and then replicate their message through systems that are already available within the social network.
If the affiliate product you are selling has a broad appeal, you may want to use MySpace to market your product, as you will be able to reach the largest crowd quickly.
One other large site is Friendster, but bear in mind though, that this site is generally very popular in
South-East Asia and other Asian countries. Facebook is another large social networking site, which caters
specifically to college and high school students. You will also want to look for niche networking sites, which will afford you an opportunity to capture a more targeted audience.
Whichever sites you decide to use, keep the following in mind: your goal should be to develop a network of people who share a common interest and could potentially be interested in your specific product. For this reason, it is always a good idea to think long-term (i.e. don’t do things that are going to get you banned); instead, concentrate on building your network and introducing them to your affiliate product.
Generate Traffic and Affiliate Sales with Free Viral Reports
Did you know that the free viral report is quite possibly the most deadly weapon in an affiliate marketer’s arsenal? It allows him o her to quickly multiply his or her efforts while slashing down on marketing costs. All the marketer has to do is develop a viral report for little or no cost, embed an affiliate link in said report, and then find various avenues of distribution that will ensure that the report is perpetuated as far as possible – from group to group to group.
Now, with this being said, when it comes to developing free viral reports, a considerable amount of precise calculation and back-end system setup is needed. Simply jotting down garbage, tossing in an affiliate link, and then attempting to send it to everyone you know in .txt format isn’t likely to gain you anything; nor is it likely to multiply your efforts by inducing other marketers to redistribute the report for you. Instead, you must start from a different point.
You must determine what topic people are looking for related to your specific affiliate product. For instance, do they need more information about the product itself? Do they need to know how to use that product effectively? Whatever your angle happens to be, make sure that it lines up with the wants of your customers and also ties in nicely with your affiliate product.
Create the viral report and embed your affiliate link in multiple places
Next, create the actual viral report and embed your affiliate link in multiple places. If you have a site and a list, you may want to instead post a link to your list – and then use back-end mechanisms to make the sale. Your last step is to actually ensure that this viral report:
- Gets into as many people’s hands as humanly possible
- Gets into the hands of people who will definitely redistribute it to others without charging any fees. This is where the art of free viral report distribution comes into play.
A good way to distribute your viral report is to create a buzz on forums. You will want to discuss some specific experiences you had related to the topic you will cover in the report and you will want to do it well in advance of your release date. You will then want to start talking up your release – and also explain that the report will be completely free. Furthermore, you may want to even start locking people in for immediate distribution via email by getting them to join a list.
Build Your Own Mailing List
Today, I want to share with you one of the biggest mistakes affiliates make. I want to share this with you so you won’t make the same mistake. The one major mistake many affiliates make is NOT setting up a list. Affiliates will often send traffic that they generated to affiliate links, rather than a list. When they do this, they are unknowingly making a bet that visitors will buy on first contact.
Unfortunately, this is generally not the case. Visitors often need to be warmed up to a product through the course of multiple visits and additional information before they are willing to purchase from a person or a business. This is where building a list comes into play. By building a list, affiliates can fix this problem. Additionally, they can retain traffic, warm it up, and then direct it to different purchases in the future. This means that it isn’t a one-shot deal: instead, they can attempt to sell the same person multiple products over the course of time. Now, in order to do this successfully, the affiliate in question must purchase an auto-responder service.
This service will not only manage your list but will also help you build it. It includes free tools that allow you to create web forms, pop-ups, and hover-ins all of which can be used to increase your opt-in rate. Now, in addition to purchasing the autoresponder service, you will need to set up your own site if you do not already own one. If you already own a related site, you can simply add your opt-in form to a page on your existing site.
Setup your site and auto responder
Once you have your site and your autoresponder setup, there are only two steps left: the first is building a course of some sort that is related to the affiliate products you will sell, and the second is creating an opt-in form that converts. The first part is relatively easy. Start by determining your topic and then outline it over
the course of five to seven days.
Once you have created your autoresponder series, you will want to feed it into your autoresponder, set up advertisements in the text for the affiliate product you are planning to sell, and then create an opt-in form for your list. Once you have set up your opt-in form, the only remaining step is to drive various traffic sources to your opt-in list, collect their email addresses – and then wait for the commissions to roll in!
