After several years online, I can tell you that the absolute fastest way for anyone to get started with their own online business is through affiliate marketing. Quite possibly the simplest form of online business, affiliate marketing is simply promoting someone else’s product for a percentage of the profits.
Simple, easy, and straight-forward. You don’t have to have your own product, your own website, your own sales team, or anything that a “big business” might have online. And you really can make a decent living just by recommending other people’s products.
But many affiliates overlook the fact that if they don’t take some vital steps, they’re only building someone else’s business, not their own. And they end up working much harder than they really have to. If you’re not doing the following 3 things, you’re seriously missing the boat with your affiliate marketing business.
1. You need your own website
There’s a big focus right now encouraging affiliate marketers to use pay-per-click and other forms of advertising to send visitors directly to the product you’re promoting without having a website of your own. That’s all well and good, but once those visitors click on your ad, you’ll probably never see them again.
With your own website, your visitors have somewhere to find out more about you and what you’re offering. And you’ve got a place where you can possibly make more than one affiliate sale if you’re using a blog or other site as you’re primary landing zone. Even if you’re just using a simple one-page site for your visitor to land on before sending them on to the product, you’re way ahead of where many affiliate marketers already are because you’re set up to do number 2 in our list…
2. You need your own email list
You can better believe that the business you’re sending your hard-earned visitor to is going to have some way of capturing their email address, even if they don’t buy anything. And because of that, they may not make a sale today, but they might in the future. You, on the other hand, are just out of luck. That visitor you worked so hard to get to come to your site just clicked your link and didn’t buy a blessed thing. No money for you.
Get their name and email before sending them on their way. Then, you’ll be like the “big boys” of internet marketing. You’ll start building a list of your own that you can mail to over and over again. Just be sure you’re providing quality content and offers, no spamming!
For this portion, you’ll need to use an email autoresponder service. There’s all kinds of these available online, but the best choice by far is Aweber. I’ve been with them since 2006 and can’t say enough good things about them. You can try them out, risk-free for 3o days and see how you like them. Aweber has a lot of great instructional videos showing you how to set up your autoresponder, and a great support staff. Check them out now.
Once you’ve put that email service in place, you’re ready to add the next component to your rapidly growing affiliate marketing business…
3. You need a promotion schedule
Think about this: brick-and-mortar businesses know exactly what products are going to be in their sales ads months before the ads come out. They base their decisions on seasons, holidays, celebrations, anniversaries, and just about anything else you can think of to give them a reason to sell something.
Why don’t you do the same thing in your affiliate marketing business? You’re building that email list, aren’t you? Take advantage of it and create a “promotion schedule” of what you’re going to market to that list and when. With most email list services, you can create and schedule messages to go out at a time of your choosing, so take advantage of that very powerful feature.
By doing these three steps, you’ll be well on your way to building a real business online, even though it’s one that is completely based in affiliate marketing. Maybe after you’ve done that for awhile, you’ll try your hand at something else, but just get started and see what you can do!
Now, I’d like to invite you to claim your FREE Instant Download of my 48 Hour Affiliate guide when you visit http://www.The48HourAffiliate.com.
If you’re thinking about start your own affiliate marketing business online and don’t know where to start, or if you’ve already started but are lost and having difficulty achieving success, this guide is for you!
You’ll get a step-by-step process that shows you how you can get your first affiliate website up and running in 48 hours and be on your way to having your own online business.
From Michael Paul – The Internet Marketing Essentials Guy and the Internet Marketing Essentials team.
Related posts:
- A Couple of New Articles to Help You With Your Affiliate Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing Tip – 4 Easy Ways to Use PLR to Drive Traffic to Your Affiliate Website
- 5 Tips for Choosing the Best Online Affiliate Programs
- Your Affiliate Link and Affiliate Marketing
- Tips For A Successful Affiliate Marketing Business
