Archive for September, 2011
As the Internet changes, so marketing has to change with it, and that includes affiliate marketing. My affiliate marketing tips for this year include a different attitude to how to attract buyers and toward websites and blogs.
Presell don’t sell
The whole point of affiliate marketing is that you presell products, you don’t sell them. Trying to sell affiliate products, with banners and ads that scream ‘Buy Me’ are some of the biggest mistakes I see being made by affiliates. As an affiliate, your job is to get the prospect to the merchant’s site, and let the merchant do the selling.
Be careful, though, when selecting banners and text ads from merchants. Some do not understand the need to presell either, and they will offer sales material rather than pre-sales material. Don’t use it, write your own. That, then, is the first important tip for this year.
Get a website
Many affiliates do not have a website, and rely on Adwords to make money. This used to work, and can still work with impulsive buy products, but not with many products. The problem is simple – they don’t trust the seller.
This has nothing to do with the internet, by the way, it is just a fact of life. People like to feel comfortable with firms they deal with, and need to have been in contact with them five to seven times before they are ready to trust them enough to buy their products.
If you send someone directly to a merchant’s site from Adwords, you are invisible, and they merchant is a complete unknown. So you have little chance of making a sale. It is true that many seasoned marketers do, but believe me, the bulk of their income comes from elsewhere.
As an affiliate, you need to set yourself up as an expert in your niche, and that means you need a website. It does not need to be big. Five to ten pages are enough to do the job. Here, you give information, and get the prospects to sign up for your list so you can send offers to them.
So, my second affiliate marketing tip for this year is to get our own web site.
Write a blog
My third affiliate marketing tip is to write a blog. This can be added to any site that has Cpanel and Fantastico, which will install WordPress for you in less than a minute. You can also get a blog at services like blogger.com and wordpress.com, but these have less authority than one you host yourself.
Straight away you can start posting to your blog, and you can write anything you like related to your topic. Not only is this useful, but it is fun.
So here are my three affiliate marketing tips for this year: Presell don’t sell; get a website to support your affiliate business; and set up a blog.
Viral marketing has grown to be one of the most effective and successful methods of getting customers in the online world of business and has been referred to as an advertising miracle. This is because viral marketing can make your traffic grow exponentially from just one new visitor to become an avalanche of potential customers to your website.
Done well, viral marketing is an inexpensive marketing method with a rapid and widespread response. The term viral marketing became popular in 1997, when used to describe Hotmail and their viral marketing campaign. They attached an advertisement for their service to each e-mail sent. Customers spread the word because the very use of the service promotes further use.
Burger King is one company that has used viral marketing very effectively. In 2004, they created the Subservient Chicken website, which is one of the worst web-sites the writer has ever seen, and then used viral marketing principles to get traffic to the site. Word spread quickly, with the help of a ‘tell-a-friend’ link, the site received 10s of thousands of hits in the first few months and eventually millions. Viral marketing succeeds by bringing in massive traffic when the right tools and strategy are used.
Viral Marketing is not just about when your existing website visitors, subscribers and customers refer you to others or when other webmasters send traffic to your site. Everybody knows that recommendation is by far the best way to be introduced to others. Viral Marketing is about using ‘leveraging devices’ to multiply each stage of the recommendation process. Viral Marketing is about making it advantageous for others to help you while helping them-selves and it being advantageous for you to help others while helping yourself. The motivation is not altruistic it is ice cold commercial common sense.
Here are a few examples of viral marketing.
Submitting Articles to Article Directories and Submitters is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get instant free publicity to your web site and is also an excellent way to get links back to your site but it only becomes viral marketing when you load your article with your links and allow the article to be copied without alteration and used by any-body, anywhere.
Writing your own e-book is another method. Write a book on a subject you are familiar with and, of course, there is a market for, pack it with links to your web-site and/or your affiliate sites. Enjoy the retail sales income and the commissions from your affiliate links and for as long as you can get the full price. Then reduce the price to half with a blaze of, “I’ve made my money and now I want to help people etc.” “The price will be going up again soon etc.”
When you’ve milked it almost dry and the retail sales drop off give it away free of charge with full retail rights and allow others to sell it and keep 100% of the retail sales money, (a good opportunity for more self gratifying BS about helping people). Many people will give it away as a free bonus and you continue to get the sales from the affiliate links. This is an old ‘Guru’ trick that’s been going on for years. Easy long term money!
Using a ‘refer-a-friend’ script on your site can be very effective. Put a simple “TELL A FRIEND” link that leads to an outgoing e-mail window, pre-written from the visitor to who-ever they choose with a message and link back to your web-site. Brilliant and very effective!
Indeed, viral content is a wonderful concept and especially important to us all because we all want to expand our activities and businesses. But if you’ve never used viral marketing, these are a few ideas where you can get started. These ideas all make good viral marketing. We will not write about other methods such as: great lists, videos, email accounts or chicken and hamburger sites, those are for you to investigate.
We’re going to finish off this article writing about Viral Traffic Expansion Sites, there are several: the TrafficPowerHouse, FreeViral & VitalViral are three of them, the rest you’ll find in Google. You actually get a clone of their web-site; put your own web-site on theirs in THE prime position, quite free of charge. You then market the clone, others join and market their own clone with your web-site in the second position etc. etc. The concept is explained fully on their web-sites, they are just great and they’re all free, exponential expansion is what they provide and they’re a lot easier than writing an e-book!
Only you can decide which method of viral marketing is best for you. Inform yourself while surfing the Internet. Be doubly aware of the sites you visit and look out for a viral marketing element that the site is uses. Can you do it too?
Success in MLM Opportunities is beyond reach for most people. The reason for that are the very methods being encouraged by most network marketing companies.
MLM: Past… Present and Future
You don’t have to use those old mlm methods anymore and because you don’t… you can be successful by operating your mlm opportunities from the internet. Offline mlm has a 77 year past… the methods developed over those years did work. But do you use a shovel and pick to build a road… when an excavator and grader are available? No… of course not… you use the best tools available. So with mlm you also use the best available tools.
As more and more people understand this… we’ll see mlm opportunities prosper online… and the shameful failure rate improve!
The Old MLM Methods
The very unpopular practice of ‘making-a-list’ of family, friends, storekeepers, school-teachers and anyone you meet… to systematically promote your mlm opportunities to… has caused many people much grief, family disputes, and lost friends. If your family and friends are interested in your business… they’ll ask you! But to assume that they are interested… is so wrong!
An equally unpopular old mlm method… that is also very costly… is ‘buying leads and genealogy lists’ from ‘lead’ companies. The success rate with these is ultra-low and the time consumed is extreme. They always have been a blatant waste of time and money. However ‘lead’ companies keep dressing-up leads to market them in new ways. It’s good to understand where a ‘lead’ comes from. A ‘lead’ is the often suspect details of a person who has exchanged details for a downloadable freebie. Hardly a quality prospect for your mlm opportunities.
Other time-consuming methods encouraged by mlm companies are attending meetings, seminars, ad placements, notices etc… all for a low-level of result. To the mlm company… you are the unpaid salesman and you are the paying customer. You do need to buy products to earn commissions. If a member never bought product… he/she would be missing out on commission… based on sales in his/her team. It’s reasonable that you should be ‘active,’ but the amount of product you have to purchase to be ‘active’ is often ‘jacked-up’ and unreasonable.
Membership fees of either a once-only cost or a low-cost annual fee are acceptable. That membership fee should be the only requirement for membership! The problem with some companies is that they tie mlm opportunities membership to product purchase. In fact their compensation plan rewards are based on jacked-up member purchases. This is completely wrong and product purchase should be based on customer sales and the actual buying of product as part of membership is unfair. Member purchase of product should always be optional.
Selling techniques are not taught in the old mlm model. Sharing is a word often used. It doesn’t matter what word is used… the fact is… you gotta exchange money for stuff. That is selling… and if there’s no selling… no one gets any money!
Many people are fearful of ‘sales’ and often look at mlm opportunities in the hope that no-selling is involved. What they are really fearful of is face-to-face selling. That is not a concern on the internet where you use text. Although wonderful tools like Skype Webcam (VOIP) phones as great for bringing your team members into your lounge-room. Network Marketing companies need mlmers to create large product-buying teams. Mlmers want to create a large ‘residual’ income.
This requires good relationship building interpersonal skills by mlmers. The bigger the team you build… the bigger the reward! No need for opportunity, training, or hotel meetings, or seminars… and long hours on the phone talking to ‘lookers.’ You can do all the marketing that brings results… from your home… using your fingertips at your computer… operating from your own website business.
The New Online MLM
MLM opportunities on the internet is progress in motion! As I alluded to earlier… you don’t want to be using archaic marketing methods… when there are new, better marketing techniques available. One of the best aspects of an online mlm business is you only ever… talk to or email people who have expressed an interest in your business. How much better is that? If your content information in your website business doesn’t interest people… that’s Ok… you’re only interested in those who like your content! You have ‘lookers’ and ‘non- doers’… on the internet as well!
The internet is the channel through which you will reach vast numbers of people. You’ll get a percentage of site-visitors ‘put their hand-up’ as being interested in your business… others will subscribe to your newsletter… as well others will buy some of your affiliate programs, products or ebooks. This is the new online mlm opportunities way and it is far superior than the old model. Using this marketing method… income flow will build as you increase your website business marketing.
The best Online Marketing Tools
Basically on the internet there are two main marketing methods. 1. Content or Information Marketing 2. Interactive Marketing. As well as these marketing methods there’s Online Advertising which comprises two main styles. 1. Pay-Per-Click Advertising 2. Online Classifieds.
The essential content method you need to use is to have a ‘content website.’ Your website business must be based on information… freely given information that your site-visitors can use and appreciate. Having quality information can lead to a few things. 1. Your site-visitors will bookmark and return to your site 2. Site-visitors will subscribe to your newsletter 3. Search Engines will increase your site ranking… thereby increasing the numbers of site-visitors 4. Some site-visitors will buy your programs or products 5. Some site-visitors will express an interest in your mlm opportunities.
Another powerful content marketing method is article-writing. By submitting a theme article pointing to one of your webpages… you are sending more site-visitors and further increasing your site ranking at the search engines. Articles are usually 400 words up and can include photos and videos, surveys or even competitions. Maybe you can’t do this at all article directories… but certainly all the good directories. Website-Articles.net are very progressive in this regard.
Other content information methods are press-releases, white-papers and video streaming. All these approaches contribute to and complement natural search traffic generated by your content website. Content information informs those one billion plus search-box clickers. It is all about giving people the information they want, while marketing your programs, products and mlm opportunities.
Interactive marketing is becoming huge and certainly too big to ignore! Blogs, niche-forums, bookmarking sites, social networking sites and squidoo lenses are the ‘key’ interactive methods. Blogs are where you can do some serious marketing. People can learn about you and your business… from your blog you can direct people to your website business. A different approach to blogging is the mini-blog… Twitter.com A video series on Twitter training is available now and it takes you through the set-up and use of Twitter to benefit your website business. I found it very useful and easy to follow. The presenter of this series is exceptional in delivery of the content.
Niche-forums are a little different in that you can’t directly ‘market’ your buiness. You do have your signture-links though… and forum contacts will visit your site. At forums you ask questions, make comments and give advise. You are generally posting to like-minded forum users. Joining a few of these will help you and your business. Finding responsive niche-forums is essential.
In social networking sites… you’ll also find it is bad manners to directly ‘market’ your business. However you do give your signature-links a good work-over! Contacts will visit your business site and even if they are not interested, they may know others who are interested in what your website business offers. Regularily posting useful information can generate good questions and activity at social sites. Being active at about three social sites would be enough to boost site visits considerable. Also you do have to manage your time.
Except for boosting a new website or new product… I don’t recommend pay-per-click advertising. They are far too costly for most marketers. If you take the time to learn how to do them properly… you can get good results and return on investment. Generally most people don’t take that time to learn and get seriously burnt. So learn or leave!
Online classified sites like Craigs List have about 40 million visitors each month. The results are generally not forthcoming to spend too much time on this marketing approach. If you have the time… they are worth a blast, particularily if you have a high-demand product. All those site-visitors have gotta click-off to a few sites.
Conclusions
Having effective website marketing strategies in your own website business is vital to being an independent mlm opportunities operator. There are a variety of ways to generate income in your website business. You are not ‘tied’ to your mlm income. If your current mlm business ‘folds’… you find another. Your website is still standing no matter what!
In selecting mlm opportunities to market… choose ones that don’t tie ‘jacked-up’ member product purchases to the membership. Pay your membership fee to be a member and have the option to purchase or not. On the matter of company product to market… I have always felt that the best approach is to be generic. Don’t come into tying your website to one mlm company. Most companies will not allow you to mention their tradenamed products or the company registered name along with other mlm opportunities. So keep it ‘generic’… don’t mention any tradenames or company names. Just link-off to the company website. Use blogs and emails to be more specific with your interested site-visitors.
Do have a regular newsletter where you can keep your subscribers informed… and with time build a level of trust. People do not join you in your mlm opportunities without ‘trust.’ The tools you’ll use in newsletter editing are an autoresponder, to respond to new subscribers and send your regular newsletter and you’ll need a supply of relevant articles. These you’ll find at Article Directories. Providing a quality content newsletter will retain your subscribers longer!
Network Marketers are leading the ‘shift’ to the internet. The internet has evolved into a tool that all networkers can use and use well. Network marketing companies that fail to see the power of the internet for the networkers… and therefore the benefit that network marketing companies can gain from that… will be the losers! It is my opinion that ‘old model’ institutionalized networkers will be stubborn and resist this powerful ‘shift.’ They may have more to lose if they have huge downlines. However progress will not stop for anyone!
Members of network marketing companies are involved to ‘make money’… that’s the primary purpose. Forget the personal development and friendships… ‘make money’ is the primary purpose of being in mlm opportunities! Because it works better and ‘easier’ online than it does offline… that’s where you go! Get your own website business started now by building your content website!
P.S.
Ann Sieg of ‘The Renegade Network Marketer’ fame… has a new free ebook on how to actually go about your online mlm business. That information book is available now: DarcyJohn.biz. However you’ll need to stay abreast of other Ann Sieg releases on the subject of ‘exactly’ how to do this business on the internet.