Affiliate Marketing Fundamentals: How To Succeed As A Full-Time Affiliate

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Affiliate Marketing Fundamentals: How To Succeed As A Full-Time Affiliate

The more time I spend online, the more convinced I become that making money with an online business is simple. Note that I didn’t say “easy.” Launching a business and building it to the point that it generates a full-time income for you and your family requires effort. It always will. However, the process is straightforward, regardless of whether you’re launching a membership site, creating information products, blogging, or marching down the road to becoming a super affiliate.

The linchpin is marketing.

Today, I’m going to share with you three affiliate marketing fundamentals that most affiliates either ignore or fail to learn. There is an enormous amount of money at stake. Some affiliate marketers generate millions of dollars each year in commissions. Thousands of affiliates generate six-figure incomes. If you implement the following three basics, you can become a full-time affiliate:

#1 – Learn To Presell Prospects

Judging from the landing pages and sites I’ve seen, most affiliates consider themselves to be salespeople. And they’re going for the hard sell. The problem is that potential buyers are turned off by the hard sell. This is true whether they’re thinking of buying shoes, electronics, or an ebook that shows them how to get into shape.

Your job is not to sell affiliate products. Your job as an affiliate marketer is to “prime the pump” and excite prospects about owning the product you’re promoting. You need to presell them. For example, suppose you’re driving people to a landing page that promotes a weight loss product. They’re probably looking for information to compare with similar products. Your job is to give them the information they want while subtly preselling them with your content. By the time they click through to the merchant’s site, they’ll already have their credit card out.

Imagine meeting someone new and saying to that person, “I’m the smartest and most attractive gal (or guy) in the world. You’d be crazy not to ask me out.” Very few people would be open to that kind of sales pitch. The same is true for affiliate marketing. Learn to presell visitors and you’ll see your conversion rate (and income!) rise.

You should read my Post on How does Affiliate Marketing Work Here.

#2 – Be Yourself

Affiliate marketers love to stay off the radar. They don’t want anyone (including their friends and families) to know what they’re promoting. So, they use aliases in order to cover their tracks. That way, they can promote acai products, adult entertainment, and all manner of items while leaving nobody the wiser.

There are two problems here.

First, it’s easier than most affiliates realize to uncover their identity and sites. In fact, the tools for doing so are becoming more robust. Second, the Federal Trade Commission made a move on October 5th to limit how bloggers represent products. Their guidelines extend to Twitter, Facebook, and all social media sites. The FTC’s oversight of affiliate marketers will probably grow. So, if you’re hiding behind an alias, you may have problems in the future.

Be yourself. Be honest. Use your personality to presell people on buying the products you’re promoting.

#3 – Promote High-Quality Products

Promoting good products should go without saying. While there are plenty of affiliates generating $100,000 a month in commissions from promoting acai products, that income source won’t last forever. It is a money-maker, not a business. In a year’s time, the space will have dried out. In five years (and after taxes), they’ll have a few dollars and plenty of memories. Even the adult entertainment affiliates – whose commission checks were once the envy of affiliates everywhere – have been complaining about how difficult it is to make a buck.

That’s not a way to build a long-term, sustainable affiliate marketing business. Promote high-quality products. If you’re not sure whether a product is good, try it out. If you’re promoting ebooks and software from Clickbank, contact the merchant and ask for a copy. Many of them will be happy to oblige as long as they know you’re serious about promoting their product.

Becoming a full-time affiliate marketer is simple, though it takes time and effort. Whether you’re driving traffic from PPC, search engine optimization strategies, or other internet marketing tactics, you can build a long-term affiliate business.

Learn to presell, be yourself, and only choose high-quality products. The rest is marketing.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 2:47 am and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.