Affiliate Marketing & Promotion Tips
5 Basics of Affiliate Marketing:
1. Track Your Results
Without this, you have no way so see if the affiliate program is producing for you. Fortunately we have this built in for you *wink wink*. Check your stats on a regular basis. For cold traffic, a good rule of thumb is that it will take 50-100 clicks to generate a sale. With warm traffic, it can take as few as a handful, but clearly nothing is guaranteed.
2. Use Your E-mail List or Newsletter
Don’t forget to add a paid affiliate advertisement link at the end of your e-mails. Hotmail.com grew it’s members by simply advertising their service at the bottom of every "hotmail" sent. This is known as viral marketing.
3. Don’t Spam! …don’t even think about it!
You will get dropped and will lose all your commissions! The bottom line here is that it’s not good for you business or your reputation. You don’t want to receive SPAM (unless perhaps, it’s fried with a bit of mustard), so don’t send it.
4. Text Links Have A Higher CTR (click thru rate) Than Banner Ads
These work best if included within a testimonial. For example,"…. the quality of content at smarternetworker.com is insane…" Be strategic with you affiliate link & most importantly…
5. Be Relevant
Out-of-context links and advertisements perform poorly. It’s as simple as that. Provide relevant, quality content for your readers or email list, and you’ll receive relevant, quality engagement in return. Despite how fancy you might think you are, readers see through the wash.
7 Tips For Marketing on Your Blog:
1. Know your audience
The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to anticipate and meet the needs of your readers. Consider why they are coming to your site. What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience’s problems.
2. Be Trustworthy
Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don’t believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they will leave and never come back.
It is your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give you linkbacks, spread the word, and recommend your site as the go-to place for valuable content. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content.
3. Be helpful
Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content. Give value to your content by making it helpful, useful, and informative.
Don’t just put up a banner, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the Pro Membership (just because you listed it), so you can cash in on a sale. Take some time to write a detailed review, share your experience and results and use affiliate ads to point them in the right direction if they decide to act on your information. That’s what affiliate ads are for. If you write a great review recommending a product or service and readers buy because of it, you should get something for that.
4. Be Transparent
Always disclose your affiliations. Your readers will appreciate your honesty, and will feel better about contributing to your earnings. If they sense that you are being less than honest about your affiliations, they are savvy enough to bypass your link and go directly to the vendor just to avoid giving you referral credit.
5. Write Timeless Content
Your old content can still be valuable even though it’s no longer on your front page. Take advantage of the long term opportunities by making sure you provide timeless content.
If visitors come across your older content first, and find that it offers dated information, they will leave right away. Of course, information moves forward, so relevant content changes quickly. You can make your content timeless simply by adding links to your updated articles on your old ones.
6. Be Patient
Affiliate revenue grows and builds up with time. Remember that some programs offer lifetime payouts. If you refer a visitor, you may continue to make money from that one visitor even if he doesn’t come back to your site. Also, as long as you have referral links still active in your old posts, they may still payout for you.
Affiliate programs aren’t a get rich quick plan, but it provides opportunity to make passive income in the future.
7. Content Comes First
Above all else, your content must be your highest priority.
Your content is your foundation, the life blood on which the site exists. Without valuable and helpful content, readers won’t come. Focus on providing excellent content, and the monetizing strategies will work out.
5 Uncommon Approaches:
1. Host a Group Call
Old school or not, it works. And it’s easy. This is especially useful and influential if you’re building a team in your home business.
2. Host a Webinar
Before you think you’re overwhelmed, consider this: webinars are actually quite easy to pull off these days. Whether you are the speaker or you simply host it with a guest speaker, you inevitably become an expert in the attendees eyes. beyond that, webinars produce outstanding conversion rates because of the personal connection.
3. Post a Video to YouTube
Folks wonder if Smarter Networker is all it’s cracked up to be or if it’s a hype-laden beast. YouTube is an ideal avenue for you to share your story and be the hero who convinces them to try it out. End result? If you do it well, you’re looking at repeat, cold-traffic commissions.
4. Custom Email Signature
Insert a snippet of your Smarter Networker testimonial into your email address and use your affiliate link to direct them to smarternetworker.com. Example: “This free training turned my business around“
5. Handwritten Notes with Bit.ly Link
Bitly.com is a link shortening service that will turn your affiliate link url into as few as 10-11 characters. (example: bit.ly/R5zmVw). So what? Now you can easily jot your affiliate link on the back of your business card, a note to a friend or on personal stationery without having to remember a crazy long URL. And yes, curiosity can still kill the cat.