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Affiliate Marketing Techniques Which Will Create A Cash Flow Explosion For Any Affiliate Program
by Jason Mann


Personally, I teach my clients to develop their own products. Affiliate programs, however, do indeed have their place in your arsenal. Not only will you uncover some serious profit boosting ideas and tactics in this article, you will also learn how to add affiliate programs to your existing profit centers. Let's proceed shall we?

Affiliate programs can add income to your existing business easier if your selling your own products and already have a few customers, or a lot. However, if you market some ones product through an affiliate program, the following tips will also help you.

Here's The Tips

Buy Them First: How can you honestly sell something when you really have no idea that it really deliverers what the sales letter says it does? Buying the product adds creditability to your referrals, you can find the really juicy details only someone who actually bought the product knows and use them to your advantage.

Bottom line is to get the product. I'm still amazed at the amount of people selling affiliate products who have not purchased them. Simply put, this is bad business. Buy them and review them. You may find they suck. I know I've found a few I was going to resell, after getting the product though, I decided against it.

If you already have your own products (if you don't, listen up!) you can add an instant source of additional income to your business. A simple order form makes the difference. When some one orders one of your products, have the order form redirect the customer to a page which offers related items. Click here to see a working example.

Get Them While Their Hot:

Adding a simple "redirect" to your order form which leads the customer to related products works. When I started using this my sales increased the day I employed it. I use 3-5 products, all generally in the same price range and all related to the initial product.

Get this, doing this makes it easier for people to do business with you. They are already in the mood to buy. Ever go to the register at your favorite clothing store and the cashier asks, "We're having a special on shirts, would you like 2?" What about when you hit the Mcdonalds drive thru, "Would you like fries and a coke with that?"

The owners of these stores train their employees to "upsell" instantly because they know your in the mood to buy. You have my permission to use this page for yours. Just change the links to fit your own and change the wording to what you want.

Set up "Redirect" Web Pages: Having your own domain is not only a critical element for successful Internet marketing, you can use your domain to "mask" the affiliate URL that was issued to you when you signed up. All you need to do is go here and copy the code. Make sure you hit your "Stop Button" quickly. Otherwise you will be forwarded directly to the site.
People are used to seeing affiliate URL's. One of the draw backs is, once the product starts getting popular with "insiders" it gets even harder to sell with the long URL's. By using a redirect and sending people to your site, this gives you a distinct advantage over the other affiliates selling the product.

Devote Your Site To One Product/Service: One of things I've seen hundreds of web site owners do is put all their affiliate products or services on one page with general headings. Like, "For some great tools check these out!" I know this doesn't work. I used to do it. Instead, take your main page, preferably the one which gets mega traffic and focus it on your best selling product or service.

If the products is for example, a book, and it offers a free download of chapters, use that link on your site. Make it prominent and offer the free trial chapters to visitors along with your endorsement.

Place Your Affiliate Links Inside Your Products: You can create, "front end" products. Like a 10 page report on your industry, you can add them to your web sites free resource section and offer the free articles or downloads, there are many things you can do. Placing them inside your lead product works great.

Again, this works because you catch them in the mood to buy. Make your lead product small enough so people can read it in one to three days. Your product must deliverer high quality, value driven information about the chosen topic. Otherwise this won't work. Basically, your showing people they can trust you before they buy from you. I call this the "art of the give away." Which means, give your lead product away for free.

Are Affiliate Programs Really Worth Getting Involved With?

Yes. They are. When you use them to your advantage. I can't bring myself to gloat the benefits of affiliate programs without showing some major draw backs as well. With that in mind, here's the good, bad, and ugly concerning affiliate programs:

The Good

Low cost or No Cost To Start: Most affiliate programs let you re-sell their goods for free. Which gives you a no cost way to start making money. You don't have to create anything. Just set up a few pages of HTML and your ready to rock and roll. However, ads will cost some money. No biggie though.

More Time To Market: Your time is free to market, instead of setting up web sites, forms, handling questions (you will get some, not many though), or any other administrative tasks. You can spend your time with what makes money, advertising and getting your site visited.

Learning Experience: While most affiliate dealers are looking to make money with the product, you can learn how they are doing what they do, and do it yourself. A great learning experience. I learned how to install, set up, and operate my own affiliate program from an affiliate program I was in. Study their model, is it working? Then use the idea for yourself. I don't encourage stealing HTML, ad copy or anything like that, what I'm talking about is using the idea of affiliate marketing. You can start your own for less than $200!

The Bad

Commission is Small: Your commission on sales is between 5-30% in most cases. Unless your selling a product or service which costs $500+ your not going to create a large income. Even with a product that pays $60+ per sale, it takes hundreds of sales to generate serious income.

Limited in Advertising: Like a multi-level-marketing business. Your ads must get approved by the owner of the affiliate program. You could have a killer ad and they turn it down. It happens. Plus, when you write your own ads for the product or service, its just professional to present them to the owner of the information. You may be misrepresenting their stuff. Not good.

Huge URL's: Affiliate URL's scream your a dealer for a product. They are impossible to remember for one thing. People will not type it into their browsers. When using them in articles they tell the publisher some one's trying to sell and mask the article (ad) by acting as if it deliverered content.

I've had articles come to me from people wanting to get published in my free tips newsletter which were awesome. I'd read to about the middle and see a URL the size of a railroad, I instantly scan the rest and then either A) send it back and ask them to remove the URL from the body or B) delete it. Unless its very good, I delete it.

I'm going to reveal to you something most won't even tell their own mothers about publishing an ezine. 98% of the articles I receive get deleted! Why? They are selling something in the article and trying to "mask" it as content. Even high profile marketing professionals who send me their stuff try this. And I delete those to! Keep your ads for the eZines advertising section. Put your one or two line resource on the bottom with your name and URL/email. You'll get more articles published.

The Ugly

Cheese balls And Cheats: Despite the fact that most people are honest, there are thieves in the mist. They will cheat people and take their money and run like convicts from dogs. Your good name could get smeared in the process. You have no control over anything except marketing their products or services. The rest is their job. What if they don't return products to people who want their money back?

Who will these people blame for this happening? You! I know it sounds crazy. But its true. I've had people call me and say, "Jason, I can't believe you talked us into that MLM. Your a cheat!" When all I did was answer their questions professionally, and help them order products! When they enrolled I gave them all the tools I had, all the training I had, and they did nothing with any of it. Yet, I was to blame for them quitting. I know this is an MLM example. But it still applies to affiliate programs.

Takes Forever To Get Paid: I've made as many as 57 sales for a product in one day. I've also made 2 in a week. I got paid at the same time. Takes weeks, even months to get your checks. By that time you owe on your bills again. I make my living online. Waiting only makes me late with my bill payments. Even if you have another source of income, like a Job, your "fun money" might not arrive when you have time to have fun.

I was going on vacation once for a week in Wisconsin (I love that state!), and I had to dig into my "living" money to be able to go. My check didn't arrive until 3 weeks after I returned from the trip.

You Lose the #1 Asset Of Any Business: On or off the net, the #1 asset of any business is customers. Your giving them away to other people so they can sell them again and again. Rarely do affiliate programs cut you in on the "rear door" sales. Even if they do its like 5%.

Buying customers are the holy grail of marketing. You will never have a better prospect for products or services than a paying customer. Why? They have paid you money. Deliverer the goods and they will pay you again and again and again... And again! Forever.

One customer may be worth $1000 or more in sales for your business over their lifetime. Now add 1000 customers to that. That's one million dollars in sales you just gave away!

Ask any marketing millionaire what their #1 asset is and I guarantee they respond with customers! Or they may refer to the asset as their list. Either way, its a given. I preach, create your own products and grow wealthy. Why? I've been involved in multi-level-marketing (still am), I've been involved in stocks, futures, Internet malls selling advertising, affiliate programs and all of them have not even come close to making the same amount of income that is produced by my own products.

In fact, I've thought about chucking all my other products and devote myself to creating even more hard hitting products. Decided not to though. The fact remains you have more control over your own stuff, you make larger profits, you get to keep customers and prospects, you can make 100% of the back end sales, you don't have to worry about thieves, you don't have to worry about getting ad copy approved. You are the one who controls what happens, when and how.

In Conclusion

Affiliate programs have their place in your arsenal. Don't get wrapped up in them though. Your "gravy train" is creating your own products. Implementing the order form tactic above, your sales will double very quickly. This article alone has given you $50,000 worth of hard hitting information. Use it. Don't be shy. Use these tips and take what you learned and apply it.

Ever hear, "Knowledge is Power!" I'm sure you have. Its not complete correct though. Rather "Knowledge Applied is Power!"

All the best,



About the Author: Jason Mann is a profitability consultant who works with small and medium web business to increase their overall profit using easy to deploy, cost effective marketing strategies. Visit his web site at http://www.majorprofitmargins.info