Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an online practice wherein a business rewards an affiliate for the visitors or customers brought in by his marketing efforts. 

The rewards are either cash or gifts and are given for either an offer completion or site referral. In this process, there are four players – the merchant, network, publisher and customer. Recently, this market has grown complex with the secondary players like affiliate management agencies, third party vendors (specialized) and super affiliates. 

It works by simply using the affiliate's website to drive traffic to the merchant's own site or to allow visitors to be forwarded to the merchant's main web page. 

Basically, this is also what we can call revenue sharing between the online merchants and online affiliates. The compensation given to the affiliates depend on how many user clicks, sales or registrations were made on the merchant's website via their own. Affiliate marketing enables the automation of the advertising processes and the payment for desired actions. Merchants have preferred this 


internet marketing strategy because it is a “pay per performance” model, where they do not incur any expenses for marketing their products unless the affiliate produces the results they need. 
Affiliate marketing can also be translated as a type of business relationship where you, as an affiliate, promote a merchant's services which is different from yours. 

This means that you do not need to have your own product in order to venture into affiliate marketing. You only need to promote your business provider's services and products.

This is how it works – you need to have a web page that contains a link that directs your users or visitors to the main page or online store of the merchant. 

When one of your site visitors clicks on that link and purchases something from the merchant's website, you will get a sort of commission or a referral fee. 

This way you are the one driving traffic to your merchant's website through your own web page. The merchant will pay you whenever a visitor from your site buys something or signs up for something on their site. A special affiliate link is assigned to your web page, making it easy for the merchant to track customers coming from your site. One merchant is allowed different affiliate links and all of them will direct the users to its website. 

Another strategy that works in affiliate marketing is the use of web page codes or web cookies. This is actually a very interesting way to still profit even if your visitor clicks on the affiliate link and does not purchase from the merchant's site at once. 

How does this work? The moment a user clicks on the link, a cookie is stored in his computer, indicating that he or she visited the merchant's site and recording your page as the one that referred him to that website. 

If, let's say a couple of weeks later, the user finally decides to buy something from the merchant's online store and types the web address of the merchant directly into his browser, the cookies stored in his computer will still recognize the purchase as a referral from your affiliate link, allowing you to receive a compensation from the merchant. 

Note that cookies have expiration, so you must read the affiliate program's terms carefully to check the life span of these cookies. 
The success of affiliate marketing has also paved way for the rise of many online companies such as Amazon.com, which now has thousands of affiliates.  

methods to be discussed in coming posts

The following methods that will be discussed further in the next few passages are: 

 Affiliate marketing 
 Article marketing 
 E-mail marketing 
 Blog marketing 
 Pay per click ads or PPC 
 Search engine optimization or SEO 
 Pop-up ads 
 Banner ads 
 Social media marketing 
 Mobile marketing 

These internet marketing methods are not equal at all. Each of them have strategies to reach a target market and will produce varying results based on your goal, marketing pitch and relationship with your customer. 

Whether you are going to market your own website or choose to get involved in affiliate marketing, you are most likely going to use a couple of these methods at various times. Remember, what you earn in this industry is always proportionate to all the effort and time you have invested in developing your website. 

In coming post we will proceed to the juicy part of this subject. In the next few pages, you will learn each of the internet marketing methods mentioned above. You will get to know what they are, what they do, how they work and why they are effective. 

What Is Internet Marketing?

Internet marketing is now called so many other names – e-marketing, web marketing, i-marketing, digital marketing, online marketing and the like. 

However, in plain and simple language, it can be defined as the marketing of one's products or services that a business or person offers through the use of the internet. 

This type of marketing encompasses a very broad area of the subject as it also includes many types of marketing strategies like e-mail and wireless media marketing. Under this general scope of internet marketing also falls the aspects of ECRM or electronic customer relationship management and digital customer data. 
  
Why is internet marketing a big advantage to many businesses? 
The world wide web has given us many unique and essential benefits. 

This technology enabled the entire world to be connected with each other in a matter of seconds. In terms of online businesses, the internet has provided a global portal in which goods and services can be sold and bought by almost anyone and in any part of the world.  



With internet marketing, all types of businesses have enjoyed the lower costs of information dissemination and advertisements. The internet's interactive nature has benefited business marketing through instant responses and its ability to elicit them in the fastest way possible. 

Furthermore, internet marketing has tied together all the aspects of creativity, technicality, advertisement, sales and product development. 

With its inexpensive cost, internet marketing has also enabled businesses to save on their means of reaching their target market or audience. 

Through a small fraction of the cost of traditional advertisements, businesses can further allow their customers to conduct research and eventually purchase their products in the most convenient way. This also makes them more appealing to their clients because they can provide results in a very short span of time. 

Internet marketing has also allowed these businesses to measure their statistics in a much easier and inexpensive way. Since almost all the aspects of this marketing type can be measured, tested and traced through the use of ad servers, advertisers can easily use and observe their data as to which ads reap the most customer views or purchases. 

This way, online businesses will be able to determine which of their advertising messages are more appealing to their target customers. The results of all their campaigns can be tracked right away since this marketing initiative simply requires a customer to click the ads, visit a certain website or perform a desired action like filling out a form or purchasing a product or service. 

Now as a beginner in the world of internet marketing, you will be responsible for the task of bringing in potential clients by providing them the services or the company that suits their needs or preferences in various internet venues. 

You will help these customers find the product that they are looking for. The targets are the people who have computers with internet access. Entrepreneurs like you can visit your online store anytime.

Consumers can also do the same whenever they want. The future of the world wide web is so bright with its projected online consumer traffic reaching almost 60% and over 80% of these customers shopping online. 

So if you are determined to make it successful for you, you may just find yourself enjoying the benefits of having an online business that will give you more profit in the long run. 

With that said, internet marketing brings you many advantages of incurring minimal costs in starting up your business including cheaper advertising options, a global marketplace, becoming your own boss, promoting stuff that you are passionate about and profiting from these passions along the way. Sounds amazing doesn't it?  

Though there are many benefits from internet marketing, it does come with its own share of risks and investments. You must understand that this process will not let you rake in a lot of cash quickly. Your time, diligence, persistence and passion for learning more are very important in your success in internet marketing.  
  

Those who think that this is a get rich quick scheme are bound to be disappointed. Though many businesses have become extremely successful, you will find that those who have failed in this venture have simply wished to become overnight millionaires. The realities of a physical business are still applicable to your online store, including tax payments, customer services and even hiring employees.
  
Furthermore, it is important that you know that starting an online business is not free. There are costs that may be less than what will be used in building a physical business, but you will still have to shell out for web design, software, hosting, domains and advertising costs. 

Another reality of having an online business is site downtime. Yes, your site may go down due to technical difficulties or glitches, and this will probably bring a lot of frustration not just on your part but also on the customers’ end. Every single minute or second that your site is unavailable to visitors and potential customers, you will be losing money. You need to be prepared for this. 

Furthermore, you cannot just rely on a certain system and have it run on autopilot to generate profit. Technology changes and the industry evolves rapidly, making any “autopilot system” that is supposed to generate cash a complete lie. 

A marketing tactic that worked for someone in the past may not work for you at all in the future. Therefore, it is very important to keep yourself updated with new technologies and marketing trends.  

Competition will always be around so if you do not keep yourself informed and you do not work hard, you will not stand out in the crowd. You have to make an impact! Work hard because if not, you can be sure that one of your competitors is out there doing so. 

Besides, if you want your business to be a long-term investment, your first profits should go back to your site's services and advertising efforts. Maximize your profits and do not just cash out your first earnings. It will also be helpful to learn about taxation and other related laws that affect this industry. This way, you know what your tax and legal advantages are once you set up your business. This will also help in protecting your assets, thus, it should never be overlooked. 

With all these realities in mind, you will need to be very determined to stand out in this industry. Internet marketing is not for the person who likes simple routines. You should be flexible in learning new strategies and trends in order to keep up with your competition. 
Now that you know what internet marketing is and all the good and bad that comes with it, you will now learn the marketing methods that online businesses have been using in order to promote their services and products to the global marketplace.

If You are tried of working for some else this is the best way to work from home on your own teams.  

Internet Marketing Introduction

Introduction To Internet Marketing.

Welcome to the world of Internet Marketing! 

My next few posts are designed especially for those who are new to the world of internet marketing…or IM as some may call it. 

In the next few posts, you will be introduced to the basic policies of this industry and also to the much higher-end and more complex systems of internet marketing. 

However, before reading coming posts, open your mind to the enormous possibilities of the marketing world. 

At some point, you may find some of the things that will be discussed too complicated for you in the beginning. However, these topics and pieces of knowledge will all fall into place and will further help you understand this systematic way of marketing. 

In the long run, this will guarantee your overall success in this journey. 

Just try to think of the coming posts as  bunch of puzzle pieces which will eventually connect to give you a complete picture in the end. Sounds exciting?

Make sure to read the next post.

Next Need To Write Your Emails.......... welcome email.

Next important work you need to do is start writing your follow-up emails.  

First email should be welcome email. This email is going to be very basic.  In this email your will simply introduce yourself, and provide a link to your lead magnet. Try to explain to them how they can access the report or e-Book (free gift). 


 Now finally, you'll want to put together your download page.  Use your own affiliate product banners and affiliate links.

To create your download link, all you need to do is upload your PDF file (e-book, free report) to your Wordpress blog using the “Media” function. 

Then, grab the url of your PDF and hyperlink the product image and call-to-action on your download page with your url. Easy stuff! 

This is your early funnel.

* Next, you'll create your squeeze page.*

 On this page, you'll include a cover image of your lead magnet 

You can outsource this task on fiverr.com. 

A compelling headline (use the headline – or an offshoot of the headline – of the affiliate product you're promoting), and an opt-in form. 

You also want to include a piece of text that reads eg: “NEW BONUS: Free Video Now Included!” or something to that effect. 

>> Click Here for an Example of a Great Squeeze Page!

The next piece of your early funnel is your “thank-you” page. This can be universal. In other words, you can send both the people who opted in from Twitter and the people who opted in from Neobux to the same “thank-you” page. 

 This page is simple... You thank them for requesting their free gift, tell them to check their email in 10 minutes for instructions on downloading their gift, and invite them to watch the free bonus video if you promised to them earlier. 

Of course, this is the video you promised them on your squeeze page. What I like to do is take a screen capture image of the video (from the sales page) using Jing, then go to fotoflexer.com, upload the image, and then upload a play button image (with a transparent background... very important) that you can get from Google Images over the top of it. 

Then put this image right in the middle of your thank you page and hyperlink it to the actual sales page using your affiliate link. 

How to create lead magnet......

 There are many different ways to create lead magnet.  You can use PLR or DFY e-books or videos, which are fine... 

....but I don't necessarily recommend them because you're not really in full control of the content. So here's what I recommend instead... 

Find a good affiliate product to promote. It should have something to do with making money online. There are a few good products on Clickbank.com... and several on WarriorPlus.com and JVZoo.com... 

You can be resourceful and look this stuff up on YouTube.  But what you want to do is find a product that interests YOU. 

The sales page should be unbelievably compelling. And ideally (in fact, pretty much mandatory), it will have a sales VIDEO on the page. 

Also, it's better if the front end product is dirt cheap eg: (free trial memberships are gold... but anything under $10 is ideal),

But if it also has a deep upsell funnel that gives you MANY opportunities to make nice, additional commissions, then heck yeah! ;) 

Once you've gone through the product and are confident that you understand the principles being taught, you can construct your lead magnet as an extremely “lite” version of the product you're promoting. 

Leave your readers wanting more. Then, within your lead magnet, drop your affiliate link to the product you're promoting! It simply doesn't get any more targeted than that.

I'm not here to teach you how to do this, because everyone will take a different approach. There is no one right way to do this. A lot of it will come down to your writing talent, confidence, understanding of the material being presented, and so on. If this was meant to be easy, everyone would be rich! 

So please don't look for a copy and paste solution here. After all, a convenience store clerk who decides to earn “doctor money” can't just watch a few reruns of “House” and enter their local ER ready to go. 

They can't copy and paste their way to “resident physician” status any more than your can copy and paste your way to “successful online marketer” status. 

You need to pay your dues. If you can't effectively communicate using the written word, then you have no business trying to make money as a marketer. 

This line of work simply isn't for you until you gain the necessary competence. With that said, I know that you can do this. And unlike my physician analogy, this career allows you to outsource the dirty work. 

If you can't write a lead magnet that serves as the “lite” version of the affiliate product you're promoting, then you can outsource the task to someone who can. Again, being resourceful will pay dividends.