Affiliate Marketing 101: Tips For Merchants

By Luis Galarza - Free Internet Marketing.

As An Online Merchant or Marketer You Should Know That A Well Manage Affiliate Program Is One Of The Best Free Internet Marketing Strategies You Can Use!





Understanding affiliate marketing strategies when you are the marketer is all about make it easy to for web publishers and entrepreneurs to know about it, easy to sign up, to promote, and easy to get support. Specially when your affiliate program is open to all type of online marketers. I said this because there are times when a merchant will hand pick the publishers to partners with, and this can be done in-house or by becoming part of an exclusive associate network, for more information about this read my post title: Affiliate Marketing For Merchants: Affiliate Network Success Elements.

So, you can said that when a Internet merchant wants to integrate affiliate marketing as another medium of web exposure, it comes down to the understanding of three imperative elements:

1. How to start a program successfully.
2. How to set it up so it works automatically and follow your marketing goals.
3. How to manage it to increase program productivity and effectiveness, and..
   
4. How to promote it to the right audience of active web publishers.

Now, this type of online referral or associate systems can cost little to no money to implement, but if you compare the same type of system in the real world or offline, which will be a franchise or vendor opportunity like Avon can cost you way more money, time, and resources to build a similar program. Thank God with have the Internet, which makes this process very easy for small businesses and even home based businesses.



The Tips!

OK, let me go directly to some of the most important factors I learn about running a successful performance based system:


1. - Expose Originality.

What I mean with this is that you need to have a brand, product or service that is easy to market. And for something to have a good marketing response from your audience needs to be unique, so focus on creating an USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that have that special benefit that is different from what your competitors are offering. Sometimes a word or even a letter is good enough to make you original, think Google Nemesis which is a PPC training course, and iPhone which is the mobile phone by Apple that turn very popular starting from the name!


2. - Offer Good Commissions.

This is a big one, because most publishers "beginners and advanced" will pick a partnership with the merchant that offers the highest revenues, specially if the associate is going to invest in pay-per-click advertising to market your goods. Many top online retailers like Amazon or Dell offer commissions of 2 to 10% depending on the product sold. But, when it comes to digital goods like ebooks or software marketers expect to get paid more, usually 40 to 80% of the sales.

So, when it comes to commissions you need to also think about what is the right amount that will keep your online sales force strong and active.


3. - Gain Trust.

One of the best ways to build credibility is by using some good PR, article marketing, and social media strategies. Simply, keep your company on the news by submitting at least one press release per month, write one article per day and submit it to some top directories, contribute to high traffic forums, and keep a constant activity in some the top social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc., this can help you build trust and become an authority in your niche.


4. - Set Up A System That Works.

Make sure you create a program that works automatically, and provide supporting tips right at from, this will reduce your customer service giving you more time to work on other important areas. You need to have a good set of pre-selling and advertising material your partners can use to promote your products. Also, remember to offer as much information about your company and services, because a good salesperson is the one that is the most knowledgeable.


This type of Internet marketing strategy can be put to work on any type of market or niche, of course there a few hot trends right now, but any online business should have a referral system in place.

To get unlimited advice about "Effective Affiliate Management Techniques" visit the IE Club. Yes, is all about having a good management process!

Recommended Resources.

- Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business Online.
- Super Affiliate Handbook.

Like I said before in this post, implementing an affiliate program to have other marketers promote your products or services can cost little or a lot of money. But, if your programs is profitable, is almost like having a complete free Internet marketing system in place. So, focus on managing it effectively.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant In Massachusetts.

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Selling On The Internet

By Luis Galarza - Internet Marketing Tips.

Selling On The Internet Is Simple And Very Effective When Is Done Right, It Doesn't Matter If Your Are Promoting Your Own Products, Affiliate Programs, Services, Network Marketing, Business Opportunities, Free Items, Or Even If You Are Selling On eBay... Here Is A Simple Internet Marketing Strategy To Help You Make Money Online Successfully!

First, you need to know that Internet marketing works best when your efforts are focus and have a well develop strategic selling process behind it, of course there are more element to an online business to reach long term success, but today I want to help you increase your sales by giving you a simple, yet effective marketing strategy that will boost your success factor on your effort for selling on the Internet.

Making money online is not rocket science, is actually a very simple process that depends on strategic elements to make it work. When I talk about strategic elements, I'm referring to the selling strategies you are going to use and to each "purpose focus" action steps that will make it do what it supposed to do, make sales.

Do you have the answer to the next questions...

- Are you feeding your audience right?
- Are you letting them know how good is your food?

Something You Should Know.

Before I give you the answer about those questions that will actually reveal the marketing strategies for selling on the Internet, you need to know what your campaign should do before it makes the sale, the fact is that if you don't know this your campaign will not be as effective. Every strategic selling element and action steps need to make your audience take the path that will bring them to the order form and make the purchase. This process can be different depending on your strategy, market, target audience, and products, but for the Internet marketing strategy that you are going to learn today the process should do the following:

1. - Promote your brand to a target audience that will be difficult to reach with your site.

2. - Build your web authority in your niche.

3. - Create a trusty relationship that will increase your credibility.

4. - Will give your audience a strong reason why to follow the sales path.

5. - Will increase the value of the product or service you are selling, even for affiliate marketers.

6. - It needs to build your data base of hot sale leads.

7. - Needs to make money even if your visitors don't follow your sales path.

8. - Needs to have a multiple stream of income build in the process.

9. - Also needs to increase profits during and after the sale.

10. - It must build a strong relationship that will generate future easy sales.

Internet Marketing Is Simple Not Easy!

Remember that to make money online you need to put some hard effort or some money or both if you want to be successful, I going to teach how to do it using free web tools, but the same basics will apply to paid services.


The Answers.

So, do you have the answer to the question above? Maybe you do, I need to answer it anyways, because many of my visitors are newbies to selling on the Internet, and I want everybody to be on the same page before reading and using the marketing strategy. Why do I relate this tactic with food? The reason is simply because many successful restaurant use this technique offline and online was first introduce by in the adult industry marketing.

The technique is simple:

• First you show the goodies to your audience and make their mouth watery.
• Then you give them a little sample that will make them want more or the whole thing.
• And then you show them how to get the whole thing right now.

How many products can you sell if you follow that method. It works great for restaurants and the adult industry, it can also work for you if you apply it right. Let's get to the action...


The Strategy.

This tactic don't have every single element but it works excellent, and you can add all those strategic elements I talk about before, just make sure is focus and relevant to your campaign goals and your audience.

OK, here is the free tactic for selling on the Internet whatever it is that you're selling (nothing illegal, I hope):

Step 1 - Show the goodies with article marketing.
You need to write quality unique articles and submit them to article directories, I recommend yo to start with Ezine Article, because it gets a lot of traffic and Google love that site. Now when righting the article you need to make sure that you only show the goodies, don't give them a sample, or worth, the whole enchilada. You can right about some facts about that market and tell how your product can fix the problem. Don't sell, educate.

Step 2 - Give them a sample or a taste with a landing page or Squidoo.
For this part you need a landing page or better a detail recommendation where you are going to pre-sell your visitors on your product or service. If you don't have a website or money for one, you can use a blog from Blogger or a Squidoo lens, both of these services are free and easy to use. For better results use Squidoo to build recommendation pages for each of your campaigns because they can be optimize to get on the top of search engine result faster than a blog, it has a affiliate program build in the system for you to add another stream of income to your Internet business.

But, you can use the blog to build your web authority, provide traffic to your Lenses and to syndicate more content. Also, you can make money from your blog too. Pre-sell and educate more.

Step 3 - Show them where to order and make the sale.
This step for selling on the Internet is divided into two different approaches, the first is to be use if you're selling your own product or service, and the second one works well if you are promoting affiliate programs.

• If you are selling your own product online you can just link directly to your product sales page or sales letter and let the copy do the rest.
• If you are using this technique for affiliate marketing, the best way to do this is by sending your visitors to a squeeze page or lead capture page, where you can collect their emails before sending them to the merchants landing page, or you can send them to your review post on your blog, if you don't have the money or time to set up an autoresponder system. But, I personally recommend you to set up an autoresponder to build your list of hot leads, because if you use good email marketing tactics you can make more money in the long run. You can also do this when promoting your own products. You can also read my 48 Affiliate Marketing tips post for more advice about selling other people's products.
  

I told you it was simple, now to make it effective you need to put some work in it. So, start writing article, building Squidoo lenses or landing pages, and a lead capture page or review post. The trick here is "The more the better", this mean the more articles, the more Lenses or landing pages, the more money you are going to make.

I know this strategy works, just take the time to set it up right, if you have any question just click on the "comment" link below to submit it, I'll be happy to answer or clear any part of this tactic.


To learn how you can be part of an online association full with expert on selling on the Internet and web business advisers by visiting the Internet Entrepreneurs Club.


In Conclusion: Plan you strategic selling process to have most of the success element that I mention before, and keep each campaign focus on one product or service, this will make it more effective. Also, try to build lenses or landing pages targeting the long tail of the main keywords, this way you can see sales faster.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant In Massachusetts.

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Increase Web Traffic With Expired Domain Names

By Luis Galarza - Affiliate Marketing Secret Training Guide Blog

Domain Names Are Money Makers, But If You Want To Skyrock Your Web Traffic By Leveraging The Hard Work And Marketing Investment Of Other Entrepreneurs, Expire Domain Names Is The Way To Go!

Every year there are many entrepreneurs that buy a domain name and build a web site business and spend a lot of time and money marketing the site to bring as much visitors as they can, and then they loose interest or just didn't work for them and they forget about it... and eventually the domain name expired. But, all the effort they put in it still brings traffic to that domain name, which means...

Bingo! A another Internet marketing strategy to increase your web site traffic.

Now what you need to do is catch those expired domain names before some else does (your competition), then just re-direct the traffic to your main web site, or re-build the site with content relevant to your niche market and then link to your main site or to your product and service page.

Then, let that free traffic generate more visitors to your main site and as you know more visitors mean more sales.

Where Can I Get Expired Domain Names

This is very easy, just go to DeletedDomains.com. This site does all the work for you and you get the traffic. Their service is very good and been around for quiet some time. Avoid to go to services that charge you for this service and they may even get the best domains for their own use.

Also read "How To Increase Your Web Traffic Yesterday" for more marketing tips that will help you maximize your web site visitors base.

If you looking to save some money this holiday visit Cash Back Rebates Shopping.

To learn how can you be part of the Internet Entrepreneurs Club click here.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant


About Author: Luis Galarza is a respectable Internet Marketing and Small Business Consultant in the area of Leominster and Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Also, he had teach 100's of entrepreneurs how to make money online and offline without their own product.

A proud member of

The International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs
.

Email Marketing Mistake You Need To Avoid

By Luis Galarza - Internet Marketing Training Blog

Your Email Marketing Is Not Working, You Wonder Why You Are Not Making Any Sales Through Your Email List? And Why You Are Getting Too Many Un-Subscribers?

So, why all these is happening to you if are following every single step all the so call top Internet Marketing gurus or experts are telling you. Well, they are not telling you the whole truth of the trade!

Here are a few email marketing and list building holes they didn't fill up:

1.- The told you that when you start building a list you need to make money by recommending affiliate program products or services to your members, but they didn't tell you that before you do that you need to build a strong relationship with your list subscribers. Here is a good article to help you use recommendations: Affiliate Product Recommendations To Increase Your Commissions

2.- Other "experts" told you that in order to build relationships you need to make your emails more personal and write to your members like you would if they were a close friend. But, they didn't tell you that people sign up to your list with one thing in mind, learning from the information that you promise to deliver. They didn't opt-in to see you call them "pals" or anything like it... They Want Good Relevant Content!

Remember, people go online to find information, and they will sign-up your email form because they think you are going to provide the information they are searching for.

3.- Some of then even said to write about your personal life to let them know you a little better. Wrong! You need to let them know that you are an expert in your field and you are there to help provide useful information that will help them solve there problem.

Come on, this didn't even work for a niche blog and you think it will work on your email marketing. Yes, there are ways to use personal information, but that one it's not, I tell you how at the end of this article.

4.- Another thing they told you is that when marketing affiliate programs you need to send them to your squeeze page and have them opt-in to your own list, that's good advice, but they told you to follow up promoting the same affiliate product to remind them how good is it. That's wrong!

What you should do is provide a mini course full of good articles that will increase their desire of fixing their problem, but at the same time providing some quick useful tips that they can apply right now. Then at the end of each article put a link to the affiliate site letting them know that this product will fix their problem faster and better.

Conclusion

Take a look at your email marketing strategies, right down your goals that such a list need to achieve, make sure you list focus on a niche market (use different lists for other niches), decide what is a better source of income such as: advertising, affiliate programs, joint ventures, promoting your own products, use a blog update alert, use to provide more or VIP information for your blog visitors.

Then get as much information for your autoresponder to follow through up to 12 month or 52 weeks, then write a mini course for the first part of your follow up of 5 to 20 lessons, find articles related to your niche and send them your list for even more information and put your own inputs or conclusion at the end, also you can explain why this article is good for them at the beginning.

Provide a person touch at the beginning of every email before the article, send them a link to a new post in your blog that can help them.

Always ask for referrals by asking them to forward the email to their friends, you can put this message at the end of your articles.

Well is time for me to go watch a movie with my wife, I'll be back tomorrow with an online branding tip.

To learn more advanced email marketing techniques click here.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant


About Author: Luis Galarza is a respectable Internet Marketing and Small Business Consultant in the area of Leominster and Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Also, he had teach 100's of entrepreneurs how to make money online without a their own product. For more information about his Free Affiliate Marketing Training.

A proud member of

The International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs
.

Increase Squeeze Page Opt-In Conversions With Images

By Luis Galarza - Internet Marketing Training Blog

Boost Your Squeeze Pages or Name Squeeze Sites Conversions Simply By Adding A Good Quality Image!

Improving your sales of opt-in conversions is the most important aspect of any online business that's why research, testing, and tracking needs to be your everyday task. I know for a fact that a constant research of your Internet marketing testing results, will give you a better picture of what's working and what it's not working...

And this goes to squeeze pages as well.

From personal and others online marketers research we found that adding a high quality image to your squeeze page can increase your opt-in subscribers up to 40%... Yes, a simple image, but well design image.

Avoid any crappy looking image because instead of improving conversions it will hurt it, plus your company and website branding will be damage.

So, type of graphic can you use for your opt-in capture pages?

A professional design website header, ebook cover or membership card (depending if you giving away a report or free newsletter membership), and a footer image will give your name squeeze site a quick boost in conversions...

NOTE: Not because you adding a nice graphic to your site you are going to add a poor sales copy, that will be a big mistake. The graphic will increase your squeeze pages conversions, but will not do the sale, your web copy will do the actual selling.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant


About Author: Luis Galarza is a respectable Internet Marketing and Small Business Consultant in the area of Leominster and Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Also, he had teach 100's of entrepreneurs how to make money online without a their own product. For more information about his Free Affiliate Marketing Training.

A proud member of

The International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs
.

12 Ways To Use Direct Response Video Marketing Online

By Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Training Blog

Here Are 12 Ways To Use The Revolutionary Power Of Direct Response Online Video Marketing or Internet Infomercials.

Today I want to talk a little about the potential of the right use of dynamic Internet infomercials or direct response videos. One easy way to start learning this Internet marketing strategy is by simply going offline and turning on your TV set, specially at night when most well done infomercials are out to sell you the viewer.

So, why so many marketers keep using TV infomercials?

...because it works, the video type advertising delivers an one-on-one merchant and viewer interaction that takes the selling to a more personal level (an easy to sell level).

Now, how can you integrate this successful marketing avenue to your Internet business or website? Before I give you my 12 tips of direct response online video I need you to know that using audio or video in your website can help you gain an extra 497% conversion rates.

Here are the 12 ways to use video in your business to make more money online:

1.- Customer Testimonials
Every Internet marketer knows that having testimonials on your website can increase your conversion rates. But, if you ad video testimonials you can double those numbers.

2.- Visual FAQ's
A question and answers resource web page is design to help you lower your customer service emails and phone calls. Now, by using online video you can take your question and answers support page to the next level, by providing site tutorials, product overview, and much more.

3.- Real Estate Listing
If you are a realty and have a website you can have the website to do the pre-selling by having virtual tours of each house on your list for sale.

4.- Video Press Releases
With the help of Web 2.0 video sharing sites like YouTube, Yahoo Video, Google Video and others you can upload a detail video press release about your new start-up company, new product, new store location, new website, new blog launch, etc... And have millions of online video fans to view your video.

5.- Sales Kits
You can give away video brochures and information files to show your web prospects or current customers product features, new product line, and product presentations.

6.- Video Shopping Shows
You can host video shopping shows in your ecommerce site, or blog to try to provide another way for people to see your products in action and a way to buy it instantly, by web or by phone.

7.- Training And Installation Guides
If you selling products that required a little help or training to get it up and running like a software or web script, you can make the process easier to your customers by providing a "How to" video to walk them through the installation process.

8.- Expert Interviews
If you have the chance to interview experts in your field or industry that can express how bad is to have the problem that your product can solve, and how nice it is when is fix. This can help you drive traffic when you let people know the date when the interview is going to take place or the day you are going to post it on your site or blog, we'll also increase your sales conversions.

9.- New Product Demostration
You can add a video product review and demostration to show your web visitors how your product really works and how well it performce or how easy is to use, all the thing that your buyers can do with it.

10.- Client Proposals
In this new Web 2.0 era you can forget about paper or email proposals, because with video you can make this proposal way more personal, and you an provide better details. You can use it in conjunction with an email, which will be the actual proposal, the video is your selling tool to get the customer into signing up for your proposal.

11.- Member Giveaways
If you running a membership website or email list newsletter, you can keep your subscribers hook to it by providing quality step-by-step information on video.

12.- Promoting JV Partnerships or Affiliate Programs
Using video to pre-sell your website or list members into visiting the main partner site and purchasing a product or service.

More tips coming up tomorrow....

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant


About Author: Luis Galarza is a respectable Internet Marketing and Small Business Consultant in the area of Leominster and Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Also, he had teach 100's of entrepreneurs how to make money online without a their own product. For more information about his Free Affiliate Marketing Training.

A proud member of

The International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs
.