Affiliate Marketing is possibly the easiest way to get started with your online business. Having said that, you can't just sit back and expect the money to pour in; you need to take some steps to get your affiliate earnings moving and then work to increase them. Here are seven easy ways to increase your affiliate earnings:
1. Create a free report or eBook.
Create a free report or eBook and embed in the content links to both your website and direct links to your affiliate products. Add in a graphic advertisement too. The key is to make the report or eBook highly relevant to your target customer. Think along the lines of the problem your customer is looking to solve, describe the problem in your report or eBook and give some advice, hints & tips on how to address the problem but, of course, lead in to saying that the best or easiest solution is the product or service you are promoting! This works particularly well if you can describe a solution which takes a lot of effort & time which the product will cut out.
2. Take part in chat rooms and forums.
Take part in chat rooms and forums relevant to the product or service you're promoting. But, a word of caution here: do NOT immediately start pushing your product or website. You need to build up a relationship with the other forum members first. Get into conversations and genuinely help people out. Once you've built up a reputation as being helpful, you can start to mention your website or affiliate product.
3. Make use of your signature file.
Your signature file (or sig file) will be a key in the forums but don't initially put any links in it (some forums won't allow you to put a link until you have a certain number of posts anyway). Later, when you are seen as a trusted member, you can add in a link to your website or product. But keep your sig file short.
Now, here's a tip: add a signature as soon as you join a forum but make it a motivational quote or something similar - NO LINKS. Then later, when you have a larger number of posts you can change your signature to include a link or two and, in most forums, the sig file on the older posts will be changed to include the links as well.
4. Create your own ezine.
This needn't be a major magazine publication! A simple email sequence loaded into your auto-responder will work just fine. Many internet marketers simply use their blog posts as content. In fact, the better quality auto-responder services will provide templates for your ezine and can even automate the creation so, for example, you can automatically send out a version after every four or five posts on your blog. How cool is that!
You can use your ezine to advertise & promote your affiliate programs. Just don't make every issue a pitch-fest!
5. Trade adverts with other ezines.
If you have even a small list to which you regularly send emails, you can 'trade' advertising space with other list owners. This means that in exchange for placing an advertisement in one of your email, they will do the same in yours. This is a great way to do a joint-venture by sharing commissions and it also has the added bonus of helping to build up your list.
However, you need to do this carefully so your list doesn't get upset at receiving adverts from other people.
6. Write your own affiliate adverts.
Most affiliate programs will provide you with example adverts and banners. The trouble is that if all the other affiliates are all using the same materials and same wording, how do you stand out from the crowd?
Why not rewrite the adverts into your own style to give yourself an advantage over the others.
7. Test. Test, Test.
Most affiliate marketers will simply take whatever adverts the affiliate program gives them and use them without change. You saw in the last tip that changing them can make you stand out from the crowd but how do you know if your changes are helping or harming you?
The secret here is to test, test, test! There are free and paid tools to help you do what is known as 'split testing'. This enables you to make subtle changes to your web pages, ads and text and to track the impact. You can quickly find out what changes are increasing sales and which ones aren't.
The top affiliate marketers never stop testing.
So, apply these seven easy ways to increase your affiliate earnings today and watch as your commissions flow automatically into your bank account!
1. Create a free report or eBook.
Create a free report or eBook and embed in the content links to both your website and direct links to your affiliate products. Add in a graphic advertisement too. The key is to make the report or eBook highly relevant to your target customer. Think along the lines of the problem your customer is looking to solve, describe the problem in your report or eBook and give some advice, hints & tips on how to address the problem but, of course, lead in to saying that the best or easiest solution is the product or service you are promoting! This works particularly well if you can describe a solution which takes a lot of effort & time which the product will cut out.
2. Take part in chat rooms and forums.
Take part in chat rooms and forums relevant to the product or service you're promoting. But, a word of caution here: do NOT immediately start pushing your product or website. You need to build up a relationship with the other forum members first. Get into conversations and genuinely help people out. Once you've built up a reputation as being helpful, you can start to mention your website or affiliate product.
3. Make use of your signature file.
Your signature file (or sig file) will be a key in the forums but don't initially put any links in it (some forums won't allow you to put a link until you have a certain number of posts anyway). Later, when you are seen as a trusted member, you can add in a link to your website or product. But keep your sig file short.
Now, here's a tip: add a signature as soon as you join a forum but make it a motivational quote or something similar - NO LINKS. Then later, when you have a larger number of posts you can change your signature to include a link or two and, in most forums, the sig file on the older posts will be changed to include the links as well.
4. Create your own ezine.
This needn't be a major magazine publication! A simple email sequence loaded into your auto-responder will work just fine. Many internet marketers simply use their blog posts as content. In fact, the better quality auto-responder services will provide templates for your ezine and can even automate the creation so, for example, you can automatically send out a version after every four or five posts on your blog. How cool is that!
You can use your ezine to advertise & promote your affiliate programs. Just don't make every issue a pitch-fest!
5. Trade adverts with other ezines.
If you have even a small list to which you regularly send emails, you can 'trade' advertising space with other list owners. This means that in exchange for placing an advertisement in one of your email, they will do the same in yours. This is a great way to do a joint-venture by sharing commissions and it also has the added bonus of helping to build up your list.
However, you need to do this carefully so your list doesn't get upset at receiving adverts from other people.
6. Write your own affiliate adverts.
Most affiliate programs will provide you with example adverts and banners. The trouble is that if all the other affiliates are all using the same materials and same wording, how do you stand out from the crowd?
Why not rewrite the adverts into your own style to give yourself an advantage over the others.
7. Test. Test, Test.
Most affiliate marketers will simply take whatever adverts the affiliate program gives them and use them without change. You saw in the last tip that changing them can make you stand out from the crowd but how do you know if your changes are helping or harming you?
The secret here is to test, test, test! There are free and paid tools to help you do what is known as 'split testing'. This enables you to make subtle changes to your web pages, ads and text and to track the impact. You can quickly find out what changes are increasing sales and which ones aren't.
The top affiliate marketers never stop testing.
So, apply these seven easy ways to increase your affiliate earnings today and watch as your commissions flow automatically into your bank account!