Absolutely Everything You Could Ever Need To succeed In Affiliate Marketing

• Affiliate Marketing Explained
• Making Money Through Affiliate Marketing
• Why Many People Fail In Affiliate Marketing
• What You Need To Succeed In Affiliate Marketing
• Setting Up Your Affiliate Marketing Internet Business
• How Much Do You Need To Invest?
• Finding The Right Affiliate Products
• What Affiliate Products To Sell
• How To Build A Great Affiliate Website
• Getting Paying Customers To Your Site
• Viral Marketing And The Myths Surrounding It
• Creating Great Content That Keeps Readers Hooked
• Ezines Banners And PPC
• Advanced Affiliate Marketing Models
• Joint Ventures
• Upselling
• Direct Mail
• First Steps On The Affiliate Marketing Road
• Marketing With A Personal Touch
• The Best Autoresponder Software
• Affiliate Marketing Glossary

This article is designed to help you through the most difficult time in your affiliate marketing business.

Outlined in these Wealthness articles is absolutely everything you’re ever going to need to succeed in affiliate marketing. We’re truly dedicated to doing whatever it takes to help you.

Now the reason we separate the business strategies off from The main Omniscience book is because the Internet is fluid, constantly changing. As new ideas and formulae develop we’ll be adding to and updating the relevant sections… so what you’re reading today might well be totally different in 12 months. But if you stay subscribed and keep building your business, you’ll always have everything you need. There really will be no need to look elsewhere.

As I mentioned earlier, we do all the hard work so you don’t have to!

Soon, you will be standing on the shoulders of giants…

Now there is an awful lot of information coming your way and frankly, I don’t want you to get overwhelmed. I’ve brought you Accelerated Learning Techniques’ in The Omniscience Principle which will enable you to take in and retain more information, many times faster than the average person. Hopefully this will speed up your journey to total personal and financial freedom.

The sheer volume of information is precisely why each section is delivered one month at a time. Nowhere is affiliate marketing covered in such depth as here… and nowhere will you find such a hot selling products to profit from.

But, this isn’t simply a plan whereby you purchase a product and make money from reselling it… although you do! It’s a lot, lot more than that.

For example, I’ll cover this first stream of income in intimate detail, then I supply product. No one else does this – the gurus simply give you an overview of how to make money, then send you out into the wilderness alone to struggle your way through the vast internet desert.

No wonder so many would-be Internet entrepreneurs wither and die before getting anywhere.

I promised I wouldn’t do that and I’ll do everything in my power to deliver on that promise. I want to be 100% unique in providing you with applicable, step by step methods that you can immediately start profiting from.

But the beauty of my systems are that you are not tied to them. Yes, I supply the tools to get the job done but as information is king in the 21st Century I supply it in abundance so you can go it alone. Simply take the systems I give you and apply them to whatever application you feel fit.

So, I’ll outline the systems you need to start your first stream of income… and introduce you to the products. Some of those products are developed by GAUK Media (my company)

You don’t need to worry about being paid… We pay you.

You don’t need to worry about sites going down… We run the show.

You need never worry about lack of communication… We support you.

Now can you see what I mean about always doing the very best you can in everything you do? There’s still a lot more work to do and if you’ve a suggestion or a problem that needs to be resolved just let us know.

Every product we produce has an affiliate programme and they’re published in an easy to use portfolio: GAUK Media

“There are More Websites on The Net Than People on Earth”… GAUK Media has Developed Some of the Busiest, and YOU Can Profit From Them Right Now!

Many of our sites rank highly among the busiest in the world as certified by Alexa

Our Sites have featured on numerous television and radio shows; in regional and national press.

Wherever you see our logo you can be assured that the site is engineered to the highest standards and has an excellent moral and ethical grounding.

The products we promote are often unique and found nowhere else on the net.

We often endorse other sites and this is because we’ve checked out the product and company behind it to ensure it meets YOUR exacting standards. When you spot the GAUK Media logo you can enjoy peace of mind.

We have lawyers who keep an eye on the legal stuff to ensure anyone promoting our products can feel confident of doing so.

We have also developed some incredible marketing techniques. One of our greatest achievements to date was generating over 11 MILLION hits, 30,000 visitors a day to our FREEnetleads.com site in the first 30 days…

And it didn’t stop there. Traffic kept growing until we completely fried the server.

We did the same for ResultsTracker.com and ToolbarTrafic.com earlier this year (this time the server held!)…

We learned some lessons from that! We now host on cast iron, dedicated servers that are able to cope under massive pressure. They are protected by Cisco systems (bank standard security) and are mostly twin hard drive with Raid back up; backed up daily.

Our data center is equipped with fully managed air conditioning and fire suppression, and all our servers have UPS and generator coverage. Our data center has 24×7 onsite security, with CCTV motion sensors internally.

We now have a team of freelance, specialised programmers on hand who can pretty much bring to life our ideas and over the years we have built a substantial portfolio of sites. This is a basic overview of some of our websites. Most have affiliate programmes and we have some great marketers aboard making substantial incomes from our unique and exciting products.

“What on Earth do you Have to do to Earn BIG Like The Internet’s Top marketers”…

Repeat Billing Affiliate Income

If you consider yourself a complete beginner in the game of affiliate marketing, then you’re most definitely in the right place at the right time. here you’ll find every possible resource you could need to learn, experiment, implement, start and succeed in affiliate marketing.

And if you’re familiar with affiliate marketing there’s a lot here for you also!

Following is the order that we “suggest” you use this website – you do not have to follow our suggestions. Every “beginner” will have a different level of prior knowledge – even as a beginner. You may find some aspects of this website more interesting than other and choose to skip around.

Getting The Most From This Section

The beginners section is written for someone who is completely unfamiliar with Affiliate Marketing. At this point it is assumed that you know nothing.

I’ll outline exactly what affiliate marketing is. I’ll show you how you make money from affiliate programmes and help you determine how affiliate marketing is your best choice for an online business in the future.

Unlike so much crap out there this tutorial is an educational tool. Print it out and work on it offline.

The tutorial is broken down into manageable modules. Each one builds on the prior. Study this at your own pace, remember this is not a race.

Pay attention to the details, much of your online success will depend on it and they will help cement the finer points of affiliate marketing.

At the end is a more challenging assignment. You’ll be reading one of the more advanced tutorials and be making notes of any concept you don’t understand.

This will get you into the habit of learning by doing and never taking your knowledge for granted. When starting out it’s easy to make expensive mistakes in money and time because you think you’ve mastered the details. God knows I’m living testament to that!

So, we start at the beginning, learn the basics and as we progress the modules get progressively more difficult. This is intentional!

Don’t be intimidated. Simply work through the modules in your own time, at your own pace and the more you grow, the more will be demanded of you. But it’s well worth it.

On completion you’ll be fully conversant with all the principles and strategies developed by the most successful affiliate marketers in the world… You’ll return to this resource and your rock solid solid foundation over and over again.

AFFILIATE MARKETING EXPLAINED

What is affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a concept that has it’s roots in traditional business practice but has transcended to the Internet beautifully, a solid method of making money whilst eliminating a whole heap of work.

The affiliate system brings these benefits to a business that uses ‘affiliates’ to sell it’s product and to the ‘affiliate who sells a product. It is a system which is based on a very old business model… paying someone only when they produce results.

When selling as an ‘affiliate’, ‘programme partner’ or ‘associate’ as they can be known, you are paid when you make sales on behalf of a merchant who sells goods and services on the web. When surfing the web you may often see links to ‘affiliate programme’, ‘affiliates’ or ‘webmasters’. Click on them and you’ll sign up to their ‘affiliate program’.

This simply means you are joining their un salaried sales team. Affiliate marketing is big business these days and is estimated to be worth $14 billion in annual online sales.

The concepts behind the affiliate marketing business model

Affiliate marketing is just like having a job on a commission-only basis or being paid a referral fee. Make a sale, send a paying client, get paid. The more sales you make or paying clients you refer, the bigger the cheque the merchant will send.

Of course, it is wise to remember tat if you don’t make a sale, you don’t get paid.

What makes affiliate marketing such a powerful tool?

So we know what affiliate marketing is, the million dollar question is HOW do you make money as an affiliate, how do you sell their product or service?

When you sign up to an affiliate programme you are actually signing up to some pretty sophisticated tracking and management software. Once accepted the merchant will issue you with a unique number usually in the form of a full url.

You use this ‘affiliate number’ in all of your advertising and marketing. When someone clicks on your link they are tracked right through the sales process. If a sale is made the software will register it in your name and allocate the relevant commission… 50% in the case of Money King.

You need to remember that just because someone clicks your affiliate link, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will get paid… You need to make that sale!

Your challenge as an affiliate marketer is to get people clicking on your link and hopefully the merchant has done all they can to convert those sales once you’ve sent the visitor.

Try adding your own creativity into the marketing mix. For instance, place your link on a web site that offers a detailed review of the product then people visiting the merchant will be more inclined to buy. Their are many methods which we’ll go into later on.

MAKING MONEY THROUGH AFFILIATE MARKETING

Different ways to make money as an affiliate

Pay per sale: As explained earlier, you get paid when people buy a product using your unique URL anywhere between 20% – 75% depending on the product or programme.

Repeat billing and repeat revenue: Residual income programs pay you a repeat commission on payments to monthly services, such as web hosting and of course our subscription programmes.

Pay per lead: You get paid a flat fee for each ‘qualified lead’ you send to the merchant site through your affiliate link. There can be various requirements from the prospect for the merchant to considered it a real lead.

Pay per click or PPC: There are certain special advertising programs that do pay just for clicks on your affiliate link. You display certain adverts on your site and get paid an amount for each click. Google’s Adsense is the most well known and profitable. i make several thousand dollars a month just by inserting a bit of code into my web pages.

Pay per search: Similar to pay-per-click except that you receive a few cents whenever a visitor searches the web via special search box that you have to put on your web site.

Hybrids: Sometimes merchants combine different payment programs. They might offer 10 cents per banner click and then 15% on sales made after someone clicks. Some will also offer bonuses after you make a certain number of sales. Others offer a scale that pays higher commissions the more sales you make.

AFFILIATE COMMISSION TYPES

There are straight forward commissions of varying amounts, then there’s what’s know as TWO TIER, these pay on two levels. You’ll find that your single commission is usually broken down between yourself and the affiliates you introduce.

They generally work along the lines of 40% for your sales and 10% of sales made by the affiliate you introduce. A good system but card companies aren’t too keen as although they are only two tier they get associated with MLM by burocrats.

AFFILIATE PAYMENT TERMS

Merchants decide when to issue checks and this will be outlined in the agreement. This is why it is important to read the fine print when you sign up.

The good news is, most merchants pay on a regular basis, generally monthly, quarterly or whenever you hit a sales target – usually a $50 or $100 minimum.

COOKIES – NOT THE BISCUIT – AFFILIATE COMMISSIONS FOR LIFE

You will sometimes read lifetime commissions on sites. This is achieved by the affiliate software placing a small bit of tracking software on the computer of the person who clicks on your affiliate link. They are harmless and used web wide. Their life can be set to expire at any time.

In the case of a lifetime they remain ‘live’. When someone revisits the merchants site any time in the future and makes a purchase the affiliate tracking software will be alerted by the cookie that they were originally referred by you and you’ll get the credit.

Of course, if that customer gets a new computer, the cookie is gone! But merchants who offer lifetime commissions usually combine cookies with other, more sophisticated affiliate tracking tools.

Affiliates like lifetime commissions for obvious reasons and the merchants usually rely on their affiliates for sales. As a rule they are good to work for.

WHY MANY PEOPLE FAIL IN AFFILIATE MARKETING

Affiliate marketing is often touted as an easy way to make money. Get people to click your links, and you make money! Nothing to it – right?

Estimates put a figure of 90% for affiliates that never even make a single sale. of course, many will not even bother promoting their affiliate links but other do, and still fail.

The most common reasons why affiliates fail:

Too much effort involved

Affiliates fail to take their busyness seriously. Because of the simplicity of the sign up they fail to treat their marketing as a ‘real’ business. You must put profitable, you must monitor sales and responses, you must source advertising medium and the right price for that advert… making sales is just the reward for all the hard work that goes on being the scenes.

This is true whether you want affiliate marketing to replace your current job, or whether you only wish to make a modest second income.

Top affiliates put in the hours week in, week out. They understand that business is business and nothing comes easily.

Remember 90% of all traditional businesses fail in their first year and for the same reason – the owners fail to take the required action to see it through. Part-timers work a few of hours a day to fit in around their work schedule, while those who make a full-time income put in full time hours. But ALL of them, without exception, devote considerable EFFORT to their business.

If you don’t treat your affiliate business with the same respect you would if you’d invested in a franchise or other ‘high investment’ business you’ll join the 90%… and worse still you’ll probably blame the affiliate system for letting you down!

Cash flow

As I’ve explained before affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick fix. While you may get paid instantly by some merchants most will hold back for a period of time. This is mainly due to the ability of a customer to ask for a refund or make a charge back through their credit card company.

Most card companies allow a customer to make a chargeback for up to 6 months after the purchase and believe me, they do! customers make up all sorts of stories to get their money back and this leaves the merchant out of pocket. Even worse they may have paid you a commission.

Most merchants will monitor this and not hold onto your payment for 6 months, a charge back will usually rear it’s ugly head within 60 days so most merchants are willing to pay out between 30 and 60 days and take the risk.

If a chargeback does come in the merchant will normally inform you and deduct it from the following commission run.

So factor this into your business plan. Those who do not usually don’t have another source of backup income and become discouraged, these people usually join the 90% casualty group.

The steep learning curve

Affiliate marketing used to be a lot easier that today. It was merely a case of scattering your affiliate url in the right places and the sales would come in… not any more!

To become successful at affiliate marketing requires a considerable amount of study because it is now a much more sophisticated business. There’s understanding online sales, learning how to build a site, getting your head around the myriad of ways to get visitors/traffic to come to your web page.

Then there’s learning how to write persuasive copy, although good merchant will provide this. Many people think that it’s not as easy as they thought so give up… What do they expect!

Give me an easy route and I’ll take it any day… THERE ISN’T ONE!

The complexity of the Internet

There are vast swathes of people who are scared stiff of the net. The standard comment is that ‘it’s far too complicated’. You can understand this to an extent when you consider that we are only now rearing the very first computer literate generation.

There are a million and one excuses to fail… That’s easy, but you have to sit and learn.

I couldn’t turn a computer on in 1998. I remember being sat there for days with the computer frozen, not being able to restart it!

You can’t build a site – hire someone!

Can’t write good sales copy – learn! Otherwise how will you be able to tell the difference between a good writer and bad one.

Search engines seem too complicated? Study them – they’re important.

Procrastination

The worst decision an affiliate can make is INDECISION.

Affiliates join a scheme and then fail to do anything at all to promote their link. Do I put my link in the emails, do I build a site, do I go pay per click, do I write a press release??? In the end they do none of these, no sales, affiliate schemes don’t work!

WHAT YOU NEED TO SUCCEED IN AFFILIATE MARKETING

The right attitude

The ability to work from home – this is covered extensively in The Omniscience Principle.

Be prepared to ascend the learning curve

The bad news here is that the curve seems a steep now as when I started. I’m right up there but the gradient isn’t easing.

Because of the nature of the Internet things constantly change and to be at the top of your game you need to be at the cutting-edge.

You have to be prepared to do what it take to keep the sales coming in.

The top affiliates possess a wealth of knowledge – how to get web site visitors from Google and other search engines – how to build web sites that convert like crazy – they understand how to code links into web sites, and how to test them.

They also know a great deal about the practical aspects of business, including calculating their profit and loss. You should, too.

You must want to become an affiliate marketer

If you don’t want to succeed on the net then get a job or set up something you want to do.

Affiliate marketing is one of the mainstays of any successful Internet marketer, If you don’t want to get involved then it’s simply not going to work.

You need a hands-on attitude toward your affiliate marketing business.

Get this business right and it can be so rewarding, you don’t need staff as you can out source, in fact most jobs can be automated but… If you don’t like the idea of advertising, selling, or calculating your profit and loss, you’ll need to get over it. Remember, you don’t make money until you make a sale!

Embrace the technology

When starting out is can be a real head fuck… the technology can make your head spin and seem insurmountable. All successful affiliate marketers have started in the same place as you and over time have become 100% comfortable with Internet technology.

No six figure income affiliate would profess to have mastered every single aspect, but they have a good grasp of all the basic principles of getting traffic and making online sales, and can assess whether page code is good or bad.

If you already enjoy computers and the Internet you’ll need to continuously expand your skills and technology through further reading. Over the months I’ll give you pretty much all you’ll ever need. But, keep looking out side the box, read everything you can – the net is such a big place and even I don’t know it all!

Be disciplined

This goes without saying and is covered extensively in The Omniscience Principle.

And finally TAKE ACTION…

SETTING UP YOUR AFFILIATE MARKETING INTERNET BUSINESS

What you’ll need:

A decent computer – doesn’t have to be state of the art but it will need a reasonably fast modem (56K or higher), or a network card for higher speed Internet. If you can get broadband it’s a must.

Comfortable work station and space – get a good chair and workstation and ensure it’s set up in the best possible place for you to concentrate, somewhere from the nagging partner, screaming kinds and barking dog!

Software – Most modern computers come with a Windows operating system, basic office software, and Internet Explorer already installed. Although you will need virus protection and other Internet tools.

Virus protection – DO NOT LOG ONTO THE INTERNET WITHOUT IT. There are all sorts of horrible things floating around out there that infect you in an instant. Even free programs are better than nothing.

AVG is free and an excellent tool

Web browser – You’ll have Internet Explorer already installed but I thoroughly recommend you get Firefox,.

Adware killer – Adware and scumware are evil and your virus protection software will NOT work against these. there are lots of good programmes out there.

Ad-Aware is free and does an excellent job.

Web builder software – I can only recommend WordPress and Divi at this stage based on thousands of hours of web development. WordPress started out as a simple blogging platform but these days it powers some 30% of the world’s websites

FTP program – this is the software that allows you to upload your html pages to the server connected to the web – you’ll learn more about creating web pages later

To become a truly successful affiliate you are going to need your own web presence. You’ll will either need to build your own, or hire someone to do it. Your web site will contain the following components:

• Domain name – This is your www.dot.com name.
• SEO strategy– SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is the method of designing web pages so they can easily be found and indexed by search engines, like Google. We will cover this later
• Web pages – To start out, your site will need a home page, at least 10 SEO content pages ), privacy policy page, disclaimers page, contact page, site map page, graphics, and links. These are all part of your site.
• List Building and auto-response system – Most affiliate web sites benefit greatly from having an opt-in mechanism. This allows visitors to submit their email address for you to follow up with information and offers.

An investment budget – “What, it’s going to cost me money to set up in this business!”

Anyone who thinks that to become truly successful in their Internet business and not have to make investments in time, energy and MONEY is frankly, deluded!

Gurus will have you believe that you can get started in affiliate marketing with little or next to no money. All you need is a free web site, some free autoresponder software… and wait for the sales… 100% pure profit.

You know this isn’t true!

Only a a rank amateur would ever use a free web site or free software. They are free because they contain advertising banners or text ads that compete with your own offers. Not good!

So you must be prepared to spend money to make money… How much?

HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED TO INVEST TO GET YOUR AFFILIATE MARKETING BUSINESS STARTED?

I’ll assume you already have a computer or access to one otherwise you’d not be reading this would you! While affiliate marketing is an very low overhead business, you still need to count on monthly costs. Figures given are estimates in U.S. dollars for people residing in the U.S. Costs can vary considerably depending on where you live in the world.

ISP (Internet Service Provider): $10-$30 (monthly)

Hosting: $15-$30 (monthly)

Domain name: $10-$45 (annual) Depending on the level of service

Web site design 15 page starter site: $300 – $1,500 (initial cost, does not include content or updates)

A starter web site requires the following pages:

• Home page
• 10 SEO content pages
• Privacy policy page
• Disclaimers page
• Contact page
• Site map page
• Graphics, links, opt-in form

Web site content (there are ways to get free content but factor in a cost)

You’ll to learn to write your own content for your web site but it can be out source – occasionally a professional writer can make you more money in the long run, they know their trade and are generally quite good at writing persuasive copy. If you feel you can write a page like Money King then great, most can’t and a good copywriter will pay dividends many times over.

If you hire a copywriter, hire the best. Dull, lifeless copy is worse than none at all.

Budget for GOOD professional copy writing services anywhere between: $200 – $2,000 per article or web page – For comparison I would charge $10,000 for a sales page like Money King, but then they don’t come much better and a good campaign will recoup that on the first mailing

Email auto response system: Auto-responder system: $15-$40 (monthly)

There are third party services that will store email lists for you, send messages on a timed sequence, and automate many of your online promotions and communications. I also have a system contact me for more information and costing.

Advertising

After you have built your first web site, you will test various forms of advertising.

Even if you are making good money from free promotion, the right advertising can help boost your profits considerably.

Here are some costs for very modest advertising tests:

• Ezine advertising test budget: $100-$200 (quarterly to monthly)
• PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising test budget: $100-$150 (quarterly to monthly)
• Banner advertising budget: $50 (quarterly to monthly)

FINDING THE RIGHT AFFILIATE PRODUCTS

Now my reason for going into affiliate marketing in such depth is to give you a through grounding in the techniques and strategies to be successful in just about any affiliate programme. i have also developed some of the best selling products for you to sell. You are free to sign up for any affiliate programs you wish directly with merchants. To find these type of affiliate programs, type in the product or market of interest into Google search, followed by +affiliate or +affiliate+program.

Or visit:

• Clickbank.com
• Associateprograms.com
• cj.com
• JVZoo
• Clixgalore.com
• Shareasale.com
• Tradedoubler.co.uk
• Affiliatewindow.com
• Affiliatefuture.co.uk

WHAT AFFILIATE PRODUCTS TO SELL

Although I have given you access to my full portfolio of products I understand that they have a limited, niche audience. There a billions of people looking for millions of products. Simply choose your niche and present a target product.

Here are just a few ideas:

• Current events, mass media.
• Regional interests, local products.
• Politics, election campaigns, party interests.
• Holiday and seasonal interests.
• Entertainment, fashion, home, cooking, and trends.
• Sports and fitness.
• Religion and spirituality.
• Advertising supplements and classifieds.

Look in specialty, trade, and niche magazines for popular topics. Here are some favorites that translate well to affiliate sales, just find products to match… and if you can’t then you have just found a great area ripe for one that you can develop!

• Collectibles. Stamps, coins, salt shakers, jewelry, etc.
• History and memorabilia such as Civil war, Victoriana
• Music. Rock, classical, jazz, folks, country, hot stars, etc.
• How to & hobbies. Car & motorcycle repair, carpentry, astronomy, etc.
• Health and fitness. Body building, athletics, etc.
• Sports. Don’t forget obscure sports or extreme sports.
• Animals. Don’t overlook exotic pets like parrots and lizards.
• Arts & crafts. Model airplanes, ceramics, watercolor painting, etc.
• Outdoors. Hiking, backpacking, camping, etc.
• Money. Investing, saving, bargain hunting.
• Cooking. Regional, gourmet, desserts, wines, beers, spirits.
• Kids & parenting. From infants to teenagers.
• Home & garden. Gardening, home improvement.
• Men & women’s issues.
• Fashion. High fashion, large sizes, etc.

HOW TO BUILD A GREAT AFFILIATE WEBSITE

What are the components of a good affiliate web site?

Throughout Wealthness I will go into all these elements in great depth but I want you to give you some basics here to get you familiar with what’s coming up.

1. Simple and clear

Do keep your web site simple. Don’t cram it full of clutter. Unless it’s a how-to site like this one, the less text, the better.

Do make it eye pleasing. No crazy fonts or colors. The standard fonts for web sites are Arial, Verdana and Times New Roman. Whatever font you decide on, use it throughout your site. Don’t alternate fonts.

Don’t use a Flash introduction. Web designers love this, but most people click off as soon as they see it loading. The object is to get people to see your web site, not drive them away.

Don’t put music or sound files on your site. It startles people when they are surfing and suddenly hear music blaring out. Their immediate reaction is to back track immediately.

If you give people too many choices, too many places to click, too many menus, and too many bells and whistles, very few people will stay.

2. Content

Content is information. It includes articles that pre-sell (reviews), as well as purely informative or descriptive tips, specs, product descriptions, stories, how-tos, etc. It can also include diagrams, drawings, charts, and graphs; photo libraries; slide shows; databases; and pages of relevant links.

How to decide what content to put in your site? Remember that people go to the web for information. They want to find facts, answers, and news, as well as products. The more relevant information you give them, the more likely they are to bookmark your site and come back.

3. Relevant graphics

Again I highly recommend WordPress, Unsplash and Divi theme by Elegant Themes, learn to use this and you’ll want for nothing more!

Look through our sites, most are built using these simple to use tools.

Don’t put a lot of slow-loading graphics on your page. No matter how pretty the graphics are, people aren’t going to stick around and wait for them to load. What this means is that you load the image onto WordPress they will condense the size of the image for you, then let you pick the image you like from the results. Usually you can reduce the size by 50% or more without there being a noticeable change in quality.

Do make sure visitors to your site can tell at a glance what your site is about. For example, if you sell widgets, make sure that’s evident right up front. Most people will leave in the first five seconds if they don’t think your site offers them what they are looking for. They aren’t going to take the time to scroll around to see if you have what they need. Make it immediately clear to them what your site is about.

Graphics should be 100% related to your copy. If you’re selling dog collars, a small but ultra-cute and unique dog photo on each page of your site will go a long way to keeping your visitors interested.

The file size of all your graphics should be as small as possible, compressed to the max so they load fast. That means .jpgs or .gifs only, preferably under 15-20 kb each.

4. Internal Links

SEO is a science and I’ll not even attempt to cover it here but links are very important. If you’re being SEO-conscious (and you should), use ONLY HTML text links, not buttons or javascript drop-down menus. (Check out the SEO tutorials and our free SEO Secrets viral report to learn more.)

It’s always good to include keywords in your links. But don’t sacrifice usability for the sake of keywords. Links that are too long and cumbersome, or counter-intuitive, will annoy your users.

5. External links

Pages of truly useful links are just as popular today as they were when the web first infiltrated our lives. Have at least one “Links” or “Resource” page on your site. Build it from scratch, or use a program to generate topical pages for you.

These pages don’t just make your visitors happy. They can also help boost your search engine ranking, since you’re more likely to get a link back from a site you’ve linked to.

6. An Optin Mechanism – How to Add Newsletters and Counters to your Web Site

While the effectiveness of email and newsletter marketing have dropped due to Spam, that doesn’t mean you can’t collect information about your visitors. The most effective way is to offer a freebie – if people give you their email address and contact data, you’ll send them a link to the free report.

Another method is to start an update service, where people sign up to get announcements of new site content. (Check out our tutorial on Spam to make sure you include all the legally-required stuff in ANY emails you send.)

Once you build a website you may want to add a little pizazz to your site by adding some special content such as a newsletter sign up. WordPress will have these options for you.

The best places I’ve found are:

Newsletters: Constant Contact – this is a super place that has everything you need to collect email addresses and send out your newsletters. You can create newsletters here which look fantastic.

How it works is that after you sign up they give you code for a Sign Up for our Newsletter box, you just copy that code and paste it into your html and you are all set. The more people you get the price goes up a bit, but it’s still a good deal. They also give you a 60 day free trial.

7. Free stuff

Give away free reports, free ebooks, free white papers, free case studies. Update them periodically, so that repeat visitors have a reason to come back. Make sure you include affiliate links in your freebies. More importantly, make sure the free item is RELATED to the topic of your site!

8. Privacy Policy and Legal Disclaimers

Yes, it’s necessary. Especially in the current atmosphere of regulation. You can consult your attorney, a do-it-yourself guide, or purchase programs that will help generate boilerplate language for you.

9. Site map

A single page on which you list all the navigation of your site. You can buy programs that will generate site maps for you.

GETTING PAYING CUSTOMERS TO YOUR SITE

Visitors to your site are called traffic and without a steady stream of it you’re not going to make any sales. Here I’ll explain the basic ways you can let people know about your exists, and how to entice them to actually visit. As we progress further into System Ultra K we’ll be exploring many of my own systems for generating traffic.

Frequent the forums

Forums or chat rooms are simply sophisticated sites that allow users to communicate with others who have similar interests online. They are a little bit like a club meeting except it’s done via text and there can be hundreds of people reading at any one time.

The late Cory Rudle (top marketer) started selling his ‘Car Secrets Revealed’ book through forums, he went on to make $millions from it.

So how does this help you?

Forums are an easy, and FREE way to promote your chosen product or service. Simply search out the ones that are most likely to be talking about your product and sign up Most forums allow you to use a signature file. In addition to your name, you can include a link to a website. In this case, you can include your affiliate link.

If you steer the conversation towards your chosen product you will be able to mention it and include your link but be careful not to cross the line to blatant advertising, this’ll generally get you banned!

Occasionally the administrator may give you permission to show a link to one of your free viral products (see below). Using this method won’t set the world alight but it’ll get you used to the way the web works… and just occasionally your subject can become a hot topic!

Through forums you’ll be able to build your reputation and make all kinds of contacts.

Just remember you are NOT there to shamelessly plug products. Be helpful, polite, answer questions, and offer a brief free report that is ON TOPIC, you will make many friends who will send you customers and sales.

VIRAL MARKETING AND THE MYTHS SURROUNDING IT

Whole volumes have been written on viral marketing and gurus have pocketed big time from writing about it. ironically viral books are written about viral marketing!

So just what is it?

To sum it up in one line it’s simply an amazing form of free online advertising. By encouraging people to pass your marketing message on to others via an ebook, email, freeware software, etc.

Please see How to sell a Million ebooks Campaign for a full case study

We develop our own viral sign ups at our sites offering discounts and incentives to share. We also use Upviral to manage campaigns. This is an excellent tool with great support at their Upviral Facebook group.

I use this system all the time. To see it in action in it’s simplest form sign up for the world’s funniest motoring pictures delivered right to your inbox at MotorBuzz Here you’ll see viral marketing and autoresponder software doing a fantastic job… and it’s all automated!

Now I know that there’s more to these than the average viral campaign but this is where you want to be, get inside people’s psyche, find an emotive issue and fill it with a product. More later!

The viral effect kicks in because people want to forward it on – it spreads and multiplies with little effort on my part.

The funny motoring pictures work because there’s no immediate sales message, they make people laugh which cheers them up (we all like a laugh) and they get sent around the web.

i make sales from the back end because the pictures contain links to my sites and eventually people will visit if only out of curiosity.

With the Ban The Pumps Campaign we ran people visited the site because its an emotive issue. The message could equally be about the war in Iraq or the responses of politicians to Hurricane Katrina. These emails float around for years.

I’m not suggesting you use disasters or war issues to sell product but to look for something which strikes a chord, set the viral campaign off and look for the back end sales.

Viral products are shared through email links or attachments, web pages, and digital downloads. Digital products, such as reports, are by far the most popular forms of viral marketing today.

Most viral reports tend to be brief, so the download time is quick. PDF documents are used extensively (Portable Document Format), are universal and can be opened, read, and printed using a free piece of software that can be readily downloaded from the Internet.

They are created by your printing software. You create a viral page or report in word, click print and you’ll be given the option to save as a pdf.

Ensure your viral reports are highly informative, explain how to solve very specific problems or how to perform a critical task. The viral effect is produced by placing a link in the document, sometimes embedded in the text, to your web site where you discuss a relevant affiliate product. As people are busy sending your valuable report around the net each reader is viewing your site as part of the experience… and some are even buying!

Give away your viral reports in forums, (see above). You can mention them in articles you write, then give the articles away on the web (see below). You can run inexpensive ezine ads, offering your free viral report and offering them to your opt-in list. (which you’ll be building).

Simply create a piece that has appeal and at the bottom place a note giving permission for its reproduction:

———————————————–

YOUR NAME:

Is a syndicated columnist.

Please feel free to distribute this report in its entirety ensuring all links remain intact and this signature is included.

YOUR NAME AND AFFILIATE LINK

———————————————–

CREATING GREAT CONTENT THAT KEEPS READERS HOOKED

Content is the information contained on your site and is been given more and more importance, after all it’s what the web was designed for. In the old days all content was free and the business model required lots of traffic to a site which in turn put advertising at a premium.

I believe that it was this fundamental error of business that drove the dot com crash. Rarely can you now find good information for free, it costs and that’s a good thing for those with the right information. (aaahhh, it’s all starting to come together now isn’t it?)

So you have a contradiction, people want facts and information and if you supply it you are looked on more favorably by the search engine algorithms (more later!). For now the algorithm is the criteria set by the likes of Google to rank your site. If you tick all the boxes you’ll end up number one position on a given search and get sent loads of luverly traffic!

BUT you don’t want to give all your juicy information away for free – free just don’t pay the bills! People surf the web looking for information. They want to find facts, answers, and news, as well as products… it is entirely possible to supply this WITHOUT giving away your valuable info and therefore kill both those birds.

A fantastic example of this in action is the content created in our newsletters:

GAUK Auctions

Incidentally, if I was to expand on this short section I could very easily create a viral report. The subject is valuable as people want to know about website content, I have links to my products, all I need to do is package it up and send it to friends.

The more relevant information you publish, the more likely people are to visit your site, stay a while, and bookmark it so they can come back time and again… and buy.

Things that qualify as legitimate content (as opposed to fluff and bollocks):

Articles – These can be reviews (whole section on reviews to come) or product recommendations, informative or descriptive tips, product descriptions and specifications, stories, how tos, advice, and news. Don’t forget to distribute your articles to sites that offer free content to other webmasters and list owners. Make it crystal clear that they are required to include your contact information when they reprint your articles. A great way to get targeted traffic at no cost.

Pictures – These include product diagrams, fun shots, drawings, charts, illustrations, software box-shots, graphs, and clipart.

Photos – Product photos, slide shows, or even your own photo! If you need great royality free pistures user Unsplash

Free stuff – These are digital items you offer for free download. MAKE SURE THEY ARE VIRAL.

Links – These are relevant links to related sites. Include a detailed description of each site AND SURROUND IT IN RELEVANT CONTENT. Pages stuffed with just links are often frowned on by Google and confusing to your visitors. You can even combine adding content to your site with sending an announcement to an opt-in list. (More later)

EZINES, BANNERS, AND PPC

Ezines

An ezine is simply a magazine in digital format – it infuriates me all the technical jargon but it’s the way of the web so you’ll have to get used to it.

Advertising in an ezine is exactly the same as advertising in any other media – you purchase some space, the ezine is distributed and depending on a whole range of factors you may make a profit! And as you’d expect I go into advertising in more detail later!

You can purchase either classified-type advertising, which is usually about 5 lines of text. Or you can buy Solo Ads, which are sent as separate, special mailings to the entire list.

Things to consider with ezine advertising:

Numb skull, scumbag filth who spam have literally destroyed the success rate of getting your message out – most people now ignore promotional mailings.

It is these first class pricks who have forced ISPs, email client developers and free e-mail companies to introduce spam filters. Unfortunately, a whole load of legitimate mail gets caught up in their sticky web (I have ways to maximize my reach, more later)

However, small niche ezines often have a very loyal following. Their subscribers will go out of their way to ‘whitelist’ their publisher ensuring they get these ezines! So if you choose an ezine that is directly related to your affiliate product or service, you may be able to purchase inexpensive advertising that brings you consistent sales.

Banner adverts

A banner advert is what you see plastered all over sites… each graphic on our portfolio page is an advertising banner which links to the relevant site and we put them where ever we can.

Even though banners are overused online and not as effective as they once were, they can sometimes bring you inexpensive traffic. Many have animation or display a changing message. Some are truly obnoxious, with ugly flashing colors that get you to click just so it will stop!

Merchants generally supply you with banners for their products – some work better than others – I always test mine and supply the most effective. Design of the banner, where it is displayed, and the type of people who will be looking at it are all critical factors to consider.

If the merchant of affiliate program does not supply banners design your own quality, high impact one then try to buy space on small websites that appear on the first page of results when you search for your topic online. You will have to carefully monitor the results though.

This can be done but having a separate affiliate link specifically for the banner. The software will monitor click troughs and sales so MAKE SURE YOU ARE GETTING VALUE FROM THE BANNER. (More in depth info later).

Don’t expect to see a huge profit – any profit at all is good. Don’t get suckered into buying space that makes a loss simply to raise your profile. Brand awareness!

This is big boy territory and if you go near it you’ll be chewed up and spat out along with your advertising budget faster than you can blink.

Place a banner and watch results like the hawk which hovers in the fields I’m overlooking whilst writing this.

Pay Per Click – PPC

With PPC you pay a small fixed amount every time someone clicks on your ad. This is a very complicated form of advertising which I’ll cover in detail later. In fact I would go as far as to say it is a science and as such requires more detailed coverage. In summary PPC costs depend on a keyword bidding system. Clicks can cost anywhere from a few cents to several dollars (or more), depending on how much competition there is for certain keywords. So you can see how you can easily lose the shirt off your back!

A keyword is a word, or a string of words, that you type into a search to find a relevant site or article and there is massive competition for the most popular. If you want your ad to appear at the top of a PPC search for a keyword like Paris Hilton (very popular?) it’ll cost.

Go to Google and type in ‘affiliate marketing’.

The column on the right hand side titled ‘Sponsored Links’ contains PPC advertising. The people who are running those ads placed bids to appear when you typed in ‘affiliate marketing’, click one and Google automatically debits a fee from the advertiser’s budget – anywhere from 5 cents to several dollars!

The good news is you only pay when someone clicks your ad however, the downside is you WILL be charged for each click through, whether someone makes a purchase or not!

List building

Again you will use this system and as far as I am concerned building your own opt in list is by far the most effective way to grow your business. I am mentioning it in passing now as you need to be aware of it… I’ll be giving you some of the most powerful list building system know to man later…

ADVANCED AFFILIATE MARKETING MODELS

And believe it or not, there are even more sophisticated methods for making money as an affiliate marketer. I’m going to share with you my most creative aspects of the affiliate business. I have turned these methods into a fine art.

I make many thousands of dollars as an affiliate but certainly did not make it using beginner strategies!

This is the con touted by the gurus “I made $10,000 this week!” But… that kind of blitz is usually the result of combining several of the advanced techniques I have mastered and developed.

Something else to consider, just because a guru says he or she made $25,000 doesn’t mean that was all PROFIT.

More often is the case that they spent a substantial sum generating quick traffic through PPC, banner ads, ezine advertising and a myriad of other advertising avenues. Then there’s the divvy up between the remaining people who helped him achieve that success.

However, if you understand HOW these advanced techniques work, you can profit from them soon as part of a strategic plan. You will not simply be making a few bucks online, you’ll actually build an ONLINE BUSINESS that you can grow and grow until you achieve the income of your choice.

JOINT VENTURES

When you Joint Venture (JV), you simply join forces with another webmaster or business to make more money than either of you could by yourselves.

I JV with many top marketers and either split profit with someone who has a large or highly responsive opt-in mailing list or a very high traffic web site. Or I will do contra mailings. I’ll promote their product if they promote mine to an equal number of people on their list.

We are known as super-affiliates because of the volume of sales we make. I’ll regularly turn over $30,000 – $40,000 a month at ClickBank alone. It’s not difficult and I’m giving you exactly the same tools and techniques I use. To get here the only element I can’t hand you it perseverance.

I’ve just kept my head down and bulldozed my way to the top – no matter what has been thrown at me. It’s taken several years, granted, so fucking what!!! I’ve now got the rest of my life to enjoy the my just rewards and I know of no other business that can produce such massive profits with little or no staff, no offices and no hassle (relatively).

I went to see a top accountant recently – it’s actually been a struggle to find one who even understands what I do. Anyway he kept asking usual accountant questions and it was a joy to see his reaction. We were talking about one of my membership sites Government Auctions UK, an awesome business model which we’ll cover in detail later… there’s a lot coming up eh?

“I see you’ve put down an income of around £20,000 ($35,000) a month for this site but not much in the way of expenses, what are you’re main overheads?” he asked.

“Well there’s my processing fees, around 5% and some marketing if I choose,” I answered smugly!

“Mmmmmmm, how many staff do you employ?” He questioned over the rim of his glasses.

“Non directly, although I do outsource the data input at $2.00 per hour.”

“$2.00 per hour… Um, that’s quite cheap then, what about the hours you personally put into the site?” He quizzed.

“I don’t, it’s all run by software. I check on things regularly but don’t need to actually work on it unless I’m developing new features”…

“I see you spend a lot of time overseas, doesn’t this cause a problem???” Question, question, question!

Can you picture the scene, this accountant hadn’t seen the like – your new business just breaks the mold so treat it with the respect it deserves and grow it properly.

When you choose you affiliate niche you will need to seek out people who are likely to be in a similar but not competitive field and approach them. We have software to help us do this which I’ll introduce you to when I cover Joint Venturing in detail later.

You’ll strike a deal whereby they promote your affiliate product or service to their list with a personal recommendation. In return, you pay them anywhere from 25% to 75% of what you make. There’s an art to this because you don’t want to alert them to the product and have them cut you out by joining the affiliate scheme.

While this may sound like an expensive proposition people with loyal mailing lists can often generate a large number of sales for you in a very short period of time. With this JV it will cost you less time and money to share your profits than to pay for advertising in ezines or with PPC ads!

Negotiating a win-win situation requires determination and openness. You will need to find the right partners. This means you will invest energy in sending personal emails, keeping the lines of communication open, and eventually talking with people on the telephone.

I find contra mailings the best proposition as you’re in a far more powerful bargaining position… BUT YOU NEED A LIST!

Business networking through JVs can pay off handsomely. As a result of just a single successful JV, you will often meet many other super-affiliates. Eventually they will approach YOU with their own JVs propositions. I get approached all the time.

UPSELLING

‘Upselling’ or ‘backend sales’ are made by offering a high-ticket product or service to someone who has already purchased from you. If you stick to my philosophy of ‘always doing the very best you can, in anything and everything you do’, upsellng will be a doddle!

Why?

Because you’ll have huge databases just rammed with satisfied customers; people who now trust you to deliver and when you offer an ‘upsell or backend sale’ they are much more likely to buy from you again. A relationship of trust has been established.

The best upsells are generally related to the original product or service, and bring you an extremely high profit because you’ve already spent the marketing allocation to capture that sale. Here you have a free lead.

When you begin to create or source you own original product, this means 100% of the upsell profits will be yours. (More about sourcing and licensing product later)

For example, Take our SmartConnect product – an awesome product that sells like hot cakes – you need to be selling this as an affiliate.

The customer buys the product but our upsell is that we provide a custom service for logos and paper business cards – there is of course a fee payable. So I make money from the product but the upsell means I make far more through the monthly service.

The lifetime value of a customer who buys into this product can be phenomenal. BUT the product has to be good and ours certainly delivers on promises. I think I sold well over 1,500 copies of the digital business cards this year alone and then there’s the monthly subs from the upsell.

It’s even possible to combine an upsell with a joint venture. Perhaps you don’t have time to provide a service with the product but you find someone who can… perfect JV and upsell.

I’ll share more of my Upsell Strategies with you later. It gives you a detailed system for how to develop an entire upsell plan and carry it out.

DIRECT MAIL

Before I came online I had a fantastic direct mail and mail order business which you’ll learn about. We were going from strength to strength until we got involved with a government run scheme… we got royally shafted along with a whole host of course providers. It was big news at the time and yet another government debacle.

You would never believe the things governments get up to, well you probably would… lying, cheating, backstabbing filth!

Sorry but it gets me worked up. The good news is it pushed me over to the Internet but direct mail one of the oldest businesses around and if you get it right is still as powerful and profitable as ever. Do you think you get all that junk through your door because the companies like throwing away money?

Not a chance, they do make fortunes from it and I know the direct mail business inside out… so will you soon.

Direct mail is an excellent way to promote high-ticket affiliate products, such as some of those in my affiliate. portfolio, vacation packages or mortgages. In these highly competitive areas, PPC ads may be very expensive. A postcard mailing may actually cost less and bring in better results.

Some online marketers are now going offline to promote their online products due to the ever harder task of getting your advertising message out.

Direct mail can be very economical if you are already building your own mailing list by obtaining a physical address at the same time people give you their email address. In fact, today many people are less reluctant to give you a mailing address than an email address!

Perhaps it’s because they feel that the cost of a postage stamp means you will be less likely to send them junk. These customers make OUTSTANDING direct mail prospects. They are interested enough in your web site, products, or services to give you their mailing address. They are much less likely to throw your mailings away. In fact it will build your credibility as it shows you are a real person or company; someone physical from the real world!

Look to JV with people who own their own offline mailing list. For example, a real estate broker in your town may be happy to share their contact list with you, in exchange for a percentage of the commissions you make from leads or actual sales.

Direct mail has always been an extremely popular and profitable form of advertising and the best part is, very few online marketers are using it today with the exception of some of the biggest names.

I’ll be sharing a number of exciting and under-utilized methods for using direct mail in this way. These are just a few of the creative ways you can boost your affiliate profits once you know the ropes!

NOW REVIEW THE INTERNET MARKETING IDEAS AND CONCEPTS

Many affiliates lose their focus, or make mistakes, because they haven’t taken the time to master the basics. They lose profits because they advertise in the wrong way, or they promote their affiliate links via spam.

Take time out to review what you have just read, you can save yourself a lot of time – and possibly money!

FIRST STEPS ON THE AFFILIATE MARKETING ROAD

There are two immediate income streams available to you right now if you are interested in setting up an affiliate business:

1. Income from affiliates
2. Income as an affiliate

Both serve very different functions.

The affiliate commission structures set up in the many Affiliate Programmes are great to provide a quick, short-term income to get you up and running, which they do extremely well – but concentrating on marketing other companies products as an affiliate has its limitations.

Yes, there’s more immediate cash in promoting products as an affiliate, but you have to work hard to build sales.

The real, long term earning potential is in building a serious network of affiliates who promote YOUR products and this article I’ll begin to introduce you to fabulous methods I’ve developed to provide an endless flow of them … all you need to do is add a dollop of sales copy, spoonfuls of marketing and an affiliate script to the recipe and you’ll grow fat on the feast!

But let’s ensure you’ve cast off ship-shape and Bristol fashion; let’s make sure you’re building your Internet empire from the foundations up.

At the outset it’s wise to concentrate on marketing just one product; a single facet of your income puzzle. You can then use the techniques to promote anything and by implementing one income stream after another you’ll build a solid, empire of re-enforced concrete.

Here is a great post which outlines the top rated affiliate programmes available to get you started.

You need to choose a product that interests you and fits into your niche. Get started marketing this by promoting anywhere you can. Everything you need can be generally found by clicking on the marketing button on your chosen product. The author will have created marketing materials. You also have to begin inviting friends, contacts and colleagues to your site.

MARKETING WITH A PERSONAL TOUCH

The greatest problem with the Internet I find is that it’s taken away interpersonal relationships – the net is a cold hardcopy environment. E-mails and websites cannot convey the sincerity and warmth of a human voice and can so often be misinterpreted. A website will never match the skills of a good keynote speaker no matter how good the copywriter.

So a good salesperson is instantly at a disadvantage because those rare and powerful attributes they have honed over years become totally useless on the net … or do they?

We can still talk people into visiting our online store; we can still show them what we’re building and invite them to join using all our ‘closing’ skills. It simply needs to be written well. Write as though the customer is standing nearby. By using the personal touch conversion rates can be sky-high.

We conducted a survey recently and the vast majority of respondents said they felt uncomfortable with promoting their current business through word of mouth. I can sympathise!

There is nothing worse than trying to promote a new business in the early days. You’re new and there is often so much information to get over. The problems immediately start when you begin to tell others about it – where do you start?

I have been guilty on more than one occasion of confusing people when talking about Wealthness and I’m supposed to know it inside-out. I begin by mentioning The Omniscience Principle then go onto my affiliate payment plans, then the online stores, then the systems, then the bonuses, then the various business models and schemes … it’s enough to make anyone’s head spin!

New business owners go out into the wilderness to promote their businesses and it’s difficult at first – because of this people will always be uncomfortable promoting during the early stages.

This is true for any marketing, networking, multi level, single level, affiliate business and is why so many fail!!!

Many hate promoting and therefore look to the net for SIMPLE answers. There is so much hype and bull about how easy it is to make stacks of money with a website and a few emails that it almost becomes believable – it’s crap!

And people soon discover this to their cost: No traffic, no sign ups, no business!

Anyone can promote successfully on the web. All you need to do is collect names and numbers using your autoresponder and use your interpersonal skills to follow up a website visit.

Develop an expensive product using the ‘product finding’ techniques I’m introducing you to today and your calls will be well worth making.

If you don’t like speaking to people simply implement all the latest marketing techniques I’m introducing you to – But better still, do both!

In the good old days off line, all a retailer had to do was persuade prospects to come along to their shop and the carefully placed products, sales talk and advertising would do all the work … the net is no different.

Just persuade people to come to your carefully worded online store and the carefully placed products, sales talk and advertising will do all the work!

If you open a traditional shop in the high street your business plan will dictate that you probably won’t make a profit for twelve months … open your online store and generally, you should be in profit within weeks!

Getting Started

To begin with, send an email to all your friends and contacts – this isn’t spamming as you’re simply ‘introducing them to something you’ve found.’

Why do we do this?

Because I want to ensure you eliminate any overheads from the outset.

Then you move on into profit. This applies to any affiliate programme you have chosen to promote but I do recommend you push your single product initially.

Here’s how you find those first ten people and how to ensure you get the very best response from your marketing. Remember the greater the response you receive, the larger the amount of sales and subscriptions, the fatter your commission cheques.

Do not under any circumstances send out your letters to a purchased or free e-mail list. I went into the reasons why last month, but for now all you need to understand is this: Mailing blindly to names in a ‘harvested’ list is probably the single most damaging action to your cause you could undertake.

Most do not wish to receive correspondence from you, they don’t know you or expect an intrusion from you. You have not been invited into their world and have no business there. You will generate large amounts of hostility and reap untold damage upon your business if you send spam.

On a more positive note:

To ensure you build an income in the shortest possible time your marketing will need to be targeted. In other words, you will need to be talking to people who want to hear what you have to say.

The mailings you will send out are only a request for the recipients’ PERMISSION for you to present your business to them. This is so fundamentally important at this early stage. All you require is a simple, precious … Yes!

“Yes! You have my permission to send me some more information.” That’s all you are looking to achieve at the moment and the ‘more information’ is presented to them at your marketing page.

Once you have those bases covered, the rest is plain sailing.

If you understand databases then you already have a distinct advantage – If you don’t then you’d best learn how to use them quickly.

Initially set up:

1. Your Purchasers List

2. Your Enquirers Database

Autoresponder software is so simple to use. Here is a great review by Hubspot (my personal choice). I use Hubspot because it is an entire contact management programme. It is also free to use when you set out giving you more than enough tools.

THE BEST AUTORESPONDER SOFTWARE

1. HubSpot
2. GetResponse
3. Aweber
4. Klaviyo
5. Mailchimp
6. ConvertKit
7. Autopilot
8. Constant Contact
9. Omnisend

Read the full report on eMail Autoresponder

At this point you’ll only be setting up the two lists and begin populating them with the names of anyone who responds to any form of marketing you do – THIS ENQUIRERS LIST IS PURE PAY DIRT SO START BUILDING IT.

For now your primary objective is to find ten people to subscribe to your business.

Make a list of anyone you can think of who would give their permission for you to approach them. Think long and hard. Once most people have exhausted their personal contacts they generally find they have at least two hundred and fifty names.

The average wedding list has one hundred people and that’s just close friends and family!

If you struggle, or have reservations about your close contacts then the next step is to market to a mailing list – but remember your ‘warm market’ (friends and colleagues) contacts are the greatest resource you have right now; right at the very beginning.

To find a mailing list of any value will entail setting up joint ventures – I introduced you to the concept in Module 1 … But to get off the ground, talk to the people you know!

It’s not wasted because as you grow your income streams you’ve already got lists to market to, you’ll get paid month in, month out.

It’s beyond me how someone could have a problem with introducing friends and family to great products!!!

I went into mailing lists in another article but at this stage you must understand that there are lists, and there are lists.

The last thing you want is to be the hundredth person to mail to someone with the same opportunity. Bear this in mind when you’re sounding out a list to mail to whilst your own is building.

When you do find a good joint venture list ensure you collect the visitor’s names so you can follow up – those people become your people!

I receive letters all the time from people who have not received a good response from a mailing. I have loaded the answer into a template and I can pretty much guarantee that it will cover what went wrong.

Here it is and be sure you don’t make the same mistakes:

‘Firstly, have you tested your mailing list?

A responsive list will be one consisting of people who have bought a similar product, at around the same price as your product within the last month or two. And furthermore, they should have been happy with the product they bought.

A list’s responsiveness goes down as each criteria is not met.

Secondly, a very responsive list will only yield about 1% – 2 %!

If you sent out only 2,500 emails you can only expect 25 – 50 people at most to respond – this is the nature of the business!

Then did you follow up on those precious leads?’

I can guarantee that people who fail to get off the ground with their Internet business do not follow the basic rules of list building, marketing to that list and most importantly, following up effectively.

Send out mailings designed to send people to your marketing page with a system to capture your prospects details’ – These contacts are worth their weight in gold!!!

Build your databases.

Follow them up with information packs and a phone call if possible. Yes, imagine the impact on your business if your prospects get to hear that warm, human voice!

This is why it is easier to mail to your ‘warm market’ initially because you will be familiar with the lead. Remember, you are only looking to find two people at this point and teach them exactly as you have done to get to this stage (not difficult is it?).

Your friend, cousin, mother, or brother – ‘warm market’ contact – will then mail and follow up to their ‘warm market’ contacts and be on their way to Total Personal and Financial Freedom! This is such a simple process if you just follow, and more importantly COMPLETE each facet.

Try ‘Postcards’. You need to fill in your contact details and sponsor url. Use your own domain to forward to your affiliate url.

This is very important. Put the cards anywhere you can think of. Some newsagents and supermarkets make a small charge but that is easily offset against the leads your cards produce.

You need as many marketing tools as possible in order to boost your earnings. We’ll put them in place week-by-week. I know I keep on saying it but it needs to sink in – all the materials you receive have been proven to work.

Spend this week collating and mailing to your contacts – next time we’ll go through what you need to be saying to them when you follow up.

You need to start building your on-line database and begin marketing to it using the same techniques outlined above. Market, send out info, and most importantly – FOLLOW UP …

Remember that although many people promote the web as being the magic answer there is no proven substitute to good old-fashioned business practice.

What are you still here???

You’ll soon be receiving great and inspiring mail like this:

AFFILIATE MARKETING GLOSSARY

AFFILIATE: Someone who earns a commission for sending clicks, leads, or sales to a merchant.

AFFILIATE AGREEMENT: A contractual document, usually executed electronically, between an affiliate and a merchant. Includes terms and conditions of the relationship. Legally binding.

AFFILIATE LINK: Code that sends your customer to a merchant’s sales page. The code can either be an HTML link or be part of a graphic (such as a banner). The code identifies you as the affiliate who should be credited for the click or the sale.

AFFILIATE PROGRAM: A business model that pays a commission to someone who sends leads, clicks, or sales to a merchants via a link (text or graphic) on a web site.

AFFILIATE PROGRAM DIRECTORY: A web site that describes and sorts various affiliate programs.

AFFILIATE PROGRAM (OR SOLUTION) PROVIDER: Third party firm that that provides software, database support, affiliate ID and link-tracking, and payment services for affiliate programs.

ASSOCIATE: Another word for Affiliate.

ASSOCIATE PROGRAM: See Affiliate Program.

AUTO-RESPONDER: Software that will automatically send email messages on a pre-set schedule. Subscribers can send the auto-responder an email, or submit their mailing information via a web form.

BANNER AD: A graphical ad, similar to a billboard, displayed on web pages.

BROWSER: Software that allows the user to surf web sites while connected to the Internet. The most popular browsers today are Chrome and Firefox.

CHARGE BACK: A product return that results in loss of affiliate commission.

CLICK-THROUGH: Another term for a click on your affiliate link.

CLICK-THROUGH RATE OR CLICK-THROUGH RATIO (CTR): The number of actual clicks that you receive when you display an affiliate ad or link. Usually described in terms of a percentage.

CO-BRANDING: Permission to place your logo, company name, and other distinctive brand features on a product or site.

COMMISSION: Income you are paid for making affiliate sales.

COOKIES: Code written to your prospect’s computer after clicking on an affiliate link. Cookies are a way of identifying which affiliate should be paid a commission.

CONTEXTUAL LINK: An affiliate link that looks more like content than an advertisement. Contextual links are usually part of an article or other informative web copy.

CONTEXTUAL MERCHANDISING: Matching relevant products to your content.

CONVERSION RATE: Percentage of clicks that results in sales or leads.

CPC (COST PER CLICK): Cost of each click on a PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising link.

CPM (COST PER THOUSAND): The amount you pay for one thousand banner ad impressions on someone else’s site.

EMAIL SIGNATURE: A brief message that closes every email sent by an individual. Your email signature file can contain affiliate links, relevant site links, free offers, and advertising messages. See also Signature File.

EZINE: An electronic magazine or newsletter, usually delivered via email.

FAQ (FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS): A web page that answers the most common questions about your products.

HTML CODE: HyperText Markup Language. HTML is a set of codes that tells your browser to display web pages. When you sign up for an affiliate program, your merchant or affiliate program provider will send you HTML code to use for your links.

IMPRESSION: An instance of your advertising link being displayed in a browser.

LIFETIME COMMISSION: Affiliate programs that write long-term cookies (two years or more), or that use their own internal customer data tracking, to guarantee that affiliates will earn repeat commissions. In general, with a lifetime commission program, your affiliate ID will be permanently “attached” to your customers, so you will make commissions on all your customers’ future purchases.

LIFETIME VALUE OF A CUSTOMER: Projected dollar amount of sales that your customer is expected to spend with you.

MICRO-SITE: A 1-3 page web site devoted exclusively to selling a product, soliciting subscribers, or otherwise getting a prospect to take immediate action. (See also Mini-Site.)

MINI-SITE: A web site with a tightly focused topic and highly specialized information. Mini-sites began as single sales pages, but today these types of sites are called micro-sites (see above). Currently, the optimal mini-site contains at least 10 pages of targeted content – product reviews, specs, FAQs, recommendations, etc. – as well as sales pages. Many “mini-sites” are actually quite large – some contain hundreds of pages of content.

PARTNER PROGRAM: See Affiliate Program.

PAY-PER-SALE: Most common affiliate program, where you receive a commission for each sale of a product or service via your affiliate link.

PAY-PER-LEAD: A program in which an affiliate is paid a commission for each “qualified” lead generated through your affiliate link. Merchants often have very specific criteria for what constitutes a “qualified” lead. In general, the prospect must take some sort of action while at the merchant’s site, such as filling out an application, subscribing to an ezine or offer list, entering a sweepstakes, requesting a free sample, or downloading software or PDFs.

PAY-PER-CLICK: A program in which an affiliate is paid for each click to a merchant’s web site. Pay-per-click returns are very low, usually less than $.50 per click and sometimes as low as $.01 per click. Best for webmasters with extremely high traffic sites.

QUALIFIED LEAD: See Pay-Per-Lead.

REFERRAL LINK: See Affiliate Link.

REFERRAL PROGRAM: See Affiliate Program.

RESELLER PROGRAM: Sometimes used as a synonym for an Affiliate Program. However, a true Reseller Program is usually structured as a B to B (business-tobusiness) wholesaler relationship. Many merchants require Resellers to apply to their program, and require a transparent contractual business relationship. Resellers then purchase product at greatly reduced prices, but often also have to provide product support.

RESIDUAL INCOME: A program that pays commissions on recurring payments. These are usually memberships, subscriptions, or monthly fees for services such as web hosting.

REVENUE SHARING PROGRAM: See Affiliate Program.

ROI (Return On Investment): A method for measuring actual profit from a given sales campaign.

SIG FILE: See Signature File.

SIGNATURE FILE: Similar to an Email Signature, this usually refers to a brief message that follows your signature in a forum posting. See also Email Signature.

SPAM: Unsolicited commercial email, junk email, or junk forum postings. Today, the term is also loosely (and erroneously) applied to ANY UNWANTED email received from any source. Any email you send to a purchased bulk email list (“Mail to 1 Million People For Only $199”) is bound to be spam.

SUB-AFFILIATE: Affiliates you have referred to a Two-Tier Affiliate Program. (See also Two-Tier.)

SUPER AFFILIATES: That’s me!!! A term originally coined to describe the top 1% earning affiliates. Today it loosely refers to anyone who makes a good living from affiliate programs.

TRACKING: Recording information about sales, leads, clicks, or other actions taken by a visitor on a web page. Usually done with cookies, unique links, or unique URLs.

TEXT LINK: A link that displayed as text only, without an image overlying it (such as a banner).

TWO-TIER: Affiliate payment model in which you can refer other affiliates and receive a small additional commission on their sales. You are the first tier, your sub-affiliates are the second tier. Two-tier affiliate marketing is sometimes compared to MLM (Multi-Level Marketing). But two-tier affiliate programs avoid the complicated matrix payment systems of MLMs, as well as some of the shadier aspects of “pyramid” marketing.

VIRAL MARKETING: Advertising that spreads on its own (like a virus). Viral marketing is accomplished by offering free products with a high perceived value. These are usually delivered digitally, with permission to copy and share the product with anyone.

The best ad-libs are the ones written and practiced in advance.

Good Luck and let me know how you’re getting on with affiliate marketing in the comments below: