Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways of starting up a web based business – you don’t have to deal with customers, handle refunds, worry about product research and development, technical support or anything else – you don’t even necessarily have to have your own website (though this is recommended).
If you’re already signed up for an affiliate program, what should you do next? You probably want to increase your commissions – but how?
Here’s some great tips to increasing your affiliate commissions overnight.
1. Decide on the best products to promote. A program which lets you market for a product with a lot of demand behind it will allow you to earn profits quickly.
When trying to choose a program, consider the commission structure, whether the product will fit the interests of your target market and the track record of the merchant – are they known for paying affiliates in full and in a timely manner? If the program you are involved in is not helping you to increase your profits, then look for a better one.
With literally thousands of different affiliate programs to choose from, you can afford to be choosy. Pick the best program for you to maximize the return on your investment of time and effort.
You can write ebooks and reports to distribute on your website. Since you will likely be in competition with other affiliate promoting the same program, having free information to offer will distinguish you from your competitors.
These reports and ebooks will help build your credibility and draw traffic by giving away useful information. Your enhanced credibility will make prospective customers more likely to purchase the products and services you endorse – especially if you recommend them in your books and reports.
2. Get contact information from those who download your free offerings. People rarely make a purchase on the first contact; you may need to communicate with prospects as many as seven times before they make a purchase. Get those email addresses and keep in touch.
You should make a point of getting this contact information before sending prospects off to the merchant site; otherwise, you may never hear from then again and lose out on potential future profits!
Having their contact information lets you communicate your marketing messages to them whenever you have a new product or service to promote. It can’t be stressed enough; get those email addresses and you will make a larger revenue from your affiliate marketing efforts.
Consider publishing an ezine or newsletter. You can much more easily sell to someone you have established a relationship with. Your subscribers will come to see you as a credible voice whose recommendations can be trusted.
You must strike a balance between selling and informing your prospects. Be sure not to come off too strong. Providing good, useful information is a far more effective means of selling than is a sales pitch.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask for a higher rate of commission. If you are a high performing affiliate, there’s no reason not to try to negotiate a higher commission from the merchant.
A savvy merchant will more than likely grant your request rather than losing you as a marketing tool, especially if you have been effective. You are a no-risk investment to them, so go ahead and ask for a higher rate; just keep it within reason.
Write strong pay Per Click ads. PPC search engines are on of the best means of online advertising. Affiliates can make a little extra money just by managing their PPC campaigns through Google AdWords and Overture. These have the advantage that you can check on their progress and fine tune them for better performance.
Try out the strategies given here and see the difference they can make to the size of your commission check very quickly.
28 Comments
Sue Baker
November 9, 2008That’s really useful information.
One of my problems is trying to differentiate between the best and the rest
Sue Bakers last blog post..Easy Weight Loss – 5 Tips For Eating Less Without Starving
John Counsel
November 9, 2008Great advice, Reed.
I really like your take on affiliate marketing, and the fresh insights you bring to it. Very useful for new affiliates, and a timely reminder for older hands. Thanks.
It’s so important to acquire names and email addresses from freebie downloaders. The simplest and most effective way is to ONLY deliver download links by autoresponder, or you risk having idiots giving you false names and email addresses because they can download the freebie from the “thank you” page.
(Even when you only deliver download links by email, you’ll get deadheads and freeloaders giving you false names and addresses. But at least they won’t be able to download your stuff, and they won’t clog your mailing list — if you’re smart and use only verified opt-in sign-up. (They won’t receive your confirmation request, so they won’t be added to the list.)
John Counsel
CEO, The Profit Clinic
Rivers
November 9, 2008Reed..the key here is that balance between selling and serving…what is your suggestion?
Lynne Lee
November 9, 2008Good advice, but not everyone knows enough to use ppc to get traffic. What other less risky traffic strategies would you suggest?
Lynne Lees last blog post..Targeting the Right Keywords Is Crucial To Your Article Marketing Success
Jan Attila
November 9, 2008Thanks, it’s always important to keep priority in your mind cause afterall that’s what converts sales at end of the day.
normz2
November 9, 2008Good post. You have to make the right choice, so that you are not spinning your wheels. PPC can be expensive for promoting. I have a nominal amount of traffic, but it is lacking conversion. The traffic has to be more specific. I am considering Blogging. It has been on my mind for a while, but I still have to make the next step.
Dan Liptak
November 9, 2008I like to setup a presell page with an opti in box. After they opti in, send them to the merchants sales letter. Then you can start sending follow ups.
Geoff Dodd
November 10, 2008Yes Reed, I like the suggestion of giving away an ebook or a free report. Even giving away a tiny software program that contains your aff link. We can look to viral marketing by asking people to give them out to their friends. Your follow up idea is great. I just am wary of PPC because it takes a ton of fine tuning, expert measurement and keeping ONLY the keywords that are ‘profitable’ and converting. Personally I’m into SEO, natural search and placing articles on blogs and web pages. Thanks, Geoff.
Luca - Reach Success Online
November 10, 2008Traffic is the key and I agree that PPC is a quick way to get traffic it can also be costly. Make sure you understand how it works first or you nmay end up spending a lot of money with little to show for it. I went into PPC blind and now I’m more cautious
Ari Lestariono
November 10, 2008Getting lot’s of traffic is the essence for sales conversions, recently I had discussions with Internet Marketing expert, what was the key that he got US$650/month wth 1 blog and get Alexa Ranking around 100, 000 within 3 months.He adviced me to be very diligent in getting free traffic by using stumbleupon, first I thought stumbleupon was just another social bookmarking that would seem to be very average use, despite what I have thought, this young man teach me detail how to use stumble upon to get Alexa Rank 100, 000 within 3-4 months.
I hope all friends out there is not loosing hopes with low conversion sales on their sites or affiliates, what we must do as an Internet Marketing always find new things to get tons of traffic and SEO techniques, although we have learned from basic about IM, we should always kept an open mind and use the philosophy of a Samurai Master ” Never believe we are the only one who knows”
Victor Tecson
November 10, 2008That was awesome advice but for a beginner choosing the right product and implementing them to write a sales letter and setup a website to market it in the internet is one of the most reason that is holding them back.
Bryan Hee
November 10, 2008Know what your visitors want is the best way to boost affiliate commisions.Provide valuable information to them to earn trust and build up your credibility.
To Your Success
Bryan Hee
Ricardo A. - Free $250 Advertising
November 10, 2008Well written, Reed!
These strategies are simple, but are not to be underestimated. I especially like what you said about asking for a bigger commission than the suggested one.
Just makes sense!
Bob Munson
November 10, 2008I work for a city power utilities and I have been
on the internet trying to find a way to make a little extra money to help with retirement. I have a few affiliate programs that I promote but with out to much success. I would pay to have
a mentor teach me how to do affiliate marketing
on my own successfully.
Michael Beauchamp
November 10, 2008Hi Reed,
I agree that the most important thing for affiliates to do is collect your prospects’ contact info before sending them to the merchant’s sales letter.
It’s hugely important, and most often overlooked! I know I’ve been somewhat slack about it at times.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Michael
PV Reymond
November 10, 2008Hi Reed,
Your tips are really good.
It’s important to promote the products that people want, it will be easier to make more money because people are looking for what you are offering.
You only have to put out your message where these people are.
And as you said capturing your prospects and customers emails and names is crucial to make more money in the future.
And if you are doing well you can contact the merchant and ask for a higher rate of commission, why not? After all you are working for him and you are helping him to make a lot of money.
Thanks,
^PV Reymond
http://www.pvreymond.com
LUCKY O. OLORI
November 10, 2008Hi Reed,
Your write-up is fairly okay.
Your first strategy is on product selection.
Like we all know, there are thousands of products to select from to promote.
Reed, your write-up did not address the critical issue of “how to select the right product to promote”. This single ommission made
your write-up too generalised. IF I MUST SPEND MY TIME READING A NEWSLETTER, I DO NOT WANT GENERALITIES. THERE MUST BE A SPECIFIC BENEFIT.
Kindly correct this shortcoming in your subsequent newsletters.
There ae too many general write-ups nowadays that takes you nowhere.
I like to add that readers are becoming more and more solution – driven.
Henrik Blunck - Denmark
November 10, 2008One has to wonder how you keep writing such good, effective, concise and to-the-point articles without releasing all of it as an e-book.
Your material seems to have the potential of becoming a best-seller. 🙂
Henrik Blunck – Denmarks last blog post..Yahoo 360
Timothy Millar
November 10, 2008Hey Reed, Hope you and your family are well,
there are a lot of good comments today and the content was great as usual. Stumbleupon is a
good source of traffic and rankings, If you are not in you should be! Linkedin is another great source, check it out and see. It takes a lot of time to do all of the great sources but it is
worth the effort in the end! Have a wonderful day. Tim
Timothy Millars last blog post..Yanik Silver’s Maverick business Insider
admin
November 10, 2008@Sue thanks
@John yeah building a list is very important
@Rivers We must serve first and then sell
@Lynne joint ventures http://thejvbootcamp.com/
@Jan that it does
@normz2 blogging has been a lot of fun but it doesn’t seem to be overly profitable for me
@Dan That model works really well
@Geoff building that list is #1 in my book
@Luca PPC is definitely a learning experience
@Ari what’s his blog?
@Victor thanks
@Bryan that always will work
@Ricardo thank you
@Bob you can join my coaching program http://thejvbootcamp.com/
@Michael thank you that method works really well
@PV not being afraid to ask someone can really make a difference
@Lucky maybe this article will help you http://www.reedfloren.com/choose-affiliate-program-promote/
@Henrik thanks it will be turned into something else at some point
@Timothy yeah all those web 2.0 things can be great.
Terence - Digital Zips
November 10, 2008Some useful tips for newbies there Reed, particularly the one about getting people’s contact information. That is a must-have part of internet marketing.
One or two people mentioned StumbleUpon as a good source of traffic and I have to admit that a new site of mine has got a fair amount of traffic from it just by submitting posts. I did an experiment using StumbleUpon and it absolutely exploded the traffic to one poorly performing site to 4000 plus in one day!
I give full details of this on my blog (see link) for anyone interested in what StumbleUpon can do.
Terence – Digital Zipss last blog post..Join The IM Dream Team And Help Improve Childrens Lives.
Jorge EZ Affiliate Blog
November 11, 2008Thanks for this post Reed. It is always nice to get more information for squeezing more online profits 🙂
Jorge
Jorge EZ Affiliate Blogs last blog post..The BEST Affiliate Programs to Make Extra Money Online with a Website
Jussi Koiranen
November 11, 2008Number two is crucial… Too many good sales are lost due to the lack of follow-up. Bacak has been promoting his report and reminding people about what marketing should be about, sales. There was a time when Marketing was subject to Sales, too often these days the roles are reversed… One funny fact about follow-up is that 60% of people buy after being asked to buy five times.
Christine Imamshah
November 11, 2008Hi Reed,
That was a very useful post. I agree that Affiliate Marketing is an easy way to start making money online, but like with everything else there is a learning curve for newbies to follow.
I’ve always believed in learning from someone who has successfully done what I am trying to do.
If any of your readers want an easy step-by-step guide to getting started as an Affiliate Marketer I would recommend that they have a look at this site;
http://www.affiliatemillionsrevealed.com
Regards,
Chris
http://www.christineimamshah.com
Geoff Dodd
November 11, 2008Reed, you’re dead right about list building being #1. When I think of all the top marketers – they all operate from a huge list. Consider Mike F., Mike G and Jane Mark and others. Pumping out emails to lists galore.
Geoff.
admin
November 15, 2008@Terrence congrats on your massive success with stumbleupon
@Jorge you’re welcome
@Jussi agreed
@Chris thanks
@Geoff yep they have huge lists and access to other huge lists to promote their stuff
delords
November 28, 2008All you have posted are true and can really help even newbies get started.
Keep on ….
delordss last blog post..What types of Affiliate Programs To Join
admin
November 30, 2008@delords thanks
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