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Collect Visitors Info First Before Sending Them To Affiliate
Honestly, I'm not a big affiliate fan because in the past I haven't gotten 90% of the money promised either because they disappear before they pay out or they have so many exceptions -- paying out once a quarter, has to be over X dollars first, etc. Another negative side is that some of them think that 10% commission or some low amount is worth the 20 hours it takes for us to sell it. Usually the 10% equal $10 and $10 isn't worth my reputation even $1000 actually. Today's article is not about the pros and cons of being an affiliate member. There are some good affiliate programs out there where you will get a check, their exceptions are small or nil, and the commission reasonable for the amount of time, risk, and reputation you place on the line for their product or program. This article focuses on collecting their information before you give them the affiliate link so you can increase your mailing list numbers or residual income. Almost all affiliate referrals are handled by providing someone with the affiliate link. The reader then goes from your place to their place. If this is what you have been doing, take the "L" (for loser) off your forehead, and read this to "get SMART quick." Stop LOOSING a valuable marketing opportunity -- and stop it now! Instead, set up a bridge page (also called a portal page or doorway page). Use the terms bridge and portal instead since the word doorway has a separate search engine meaning that can be confusing. A bridge page works simply like this. You set up a bridge page on your web site. You send them to this page instead of to the affiliate site, collect their information, and THEN send them to the affiliate site. The objective is to offer them something for fr*e*e that they must register for on that bridge page so you collect their information. In fact, you can offer several things. You set up two pages actually. One that is the bridge page and the other a thank you page. After you collect their information THEN you send them to the thank you page. On the thank you page, you thank them for whatever it is they did and then give them an option to NOW access the affiliate site. Here are a few ideas on items you can offer on the bridge page to collect their information: * To subscribe to your ezine. If you have more than one, list these all. * To register for an ecourse. * To receive an ebook. * Offer your opinion or testimonials on using the affiliate's product/program. Now, one of the main things most people do not think about is offering them something to purchase. And this is something affiliate offerers lookout for when you sign up to be an affiliate (at least the good ones do). They don't want their competition becoming an affiliate and then snatching the customer on the way to their site. I am chuckling on this one -- I think it is great actually. Most affiliates don't even know this is happening to them. Here is a duzie of a hint that I've only seen one affiliate program do. This will give you a head start and it's kind of sneaky too. You can offer something at a price on the bridge page that has to do with that topic (you have a focused buyer here). Example: The affiliate item is a software product. You can write an ebook on the same topic. Yes, will this piss off some affiliates. You bet, but guess what -- that's business. And also guess what -- it's going to take them a while to figure it out what you are doing too. They are so busy trying to obtain more affiliates they don't have the time to research each one. Offering something for a price isn't as effective as something for fr*e*e. Then again, you have to decide what is your call to action for the bridge page. Is it to collect name and increase your mailing list or to make residual income. Don't get greedy and offer both. It will bite you in the "assets". Too many choices and it confuses the visitor and so they don't make any decision at all and leave without choosing anything -- no freebie, no affiliate link. When you set up your doorway page, set up the metatags and searchable keywords that you wouldn't otherwise be able to place on your site. Make sure that these same words are in the content. Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com
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RELATED ARTICLES
Affiliate Programs - Are They A Business For You? Many people look at affiliate programs as one of the easiest and best ways to start a profitable online business. The reasons for this are you don't have to worry about having your own product, collecting the money, shipping, or customer service. The affiliate company takes care of all the hassles that come with owning your own business. Choosing the Right Affiliate Program Requesting information on an affiliate program is an open invitation to receive never ending submissions to your email account. It can be overwhelming to look at. You may feel as if you have been invaded. It can frighten a person into hitting the delete button very quickly. HOW DO YOU SORT THROUGH AND MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL? How do you know which programs really work? Following is a list of things to think about prior to choosing an affiliate program. Is It Possible To Make A Living Being An Affiliate Marketer? It may sound cliché but it is worth repeating. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to earn money online. This internet business involves a revenue partnership between a web merchant and one or more affiliates, whereby the publisher or affiliate gets a commission for referring clicks, lead or sales to the merchant's website. Once you are an affiliate marketer, then you are in business. Generate More Sales in ANY Affiliate Program ? Part Three Thinking Outside the square is where we last left off. So to carry on from this topic let me introduce you to M.E. Software. Affiliate Programs... Whos Really Making The Money? There will be a million and one affiliates out there who will tell you that the affiliate program they promote is going to be the best one for you. The Many Benefits Of Affiliate Programs Throughout the coming weeks, I am going to thoroughly cover the intricacies of making money online through affiliate programs. Consider this as an online course that is aimed for your benefit. A good affiliate program, after all, with the generous commission scheme and the liberty it provides, is one of the best, if not the best, home business opportunities in the World Wide Web. Affiliate Product Reviews - An Ultimate Selling Tactic If you truly want to generate sales, one great way to do so is to create separate web pages for each of your affiliate products and include reviews of each product. Pictures, of course, speak a thousand words, and a picture of each product is very important to closing the sale. Why Arent You Making a Ton of Cash as an Affiliate? 5 keys to you becoming a successful affiliate: High Earning Affiliate Is It Possible? Affiliate Program have exploded on the internet. Thousand of people join them every day. Amazon.com is probably the best example of such phenomenal success.If the affiliate program is so popular and so widely available and booming like mushroom...Why do most affiliate have a hard time making $100 per month ? And some never see have receive a check ? It's probably because they are not effective in their marketing campaign or doing noting at all. How To Win The Affiliate Game Are you frustrated with your affiliate programs? Reselling - Money On The Side The other night I had dinner with a friend who mentioned knowing quite a few people needing websites for their local businesses. Despite being a software engineer, my friend is not a web designer nor does he know enough about servers to actually host (store) websites. On the other hand, he suspected there was a way to translate contacts into some money on the side. That's when I told him about reselling. Finding the Perfect Affiliate Program Finding a good affiliate program can be sometimes daunting and overwhelming task, but it doesn't have to be. Luckily the web is filled with excellent resources for identifying the best affiliate programs. Here are a few tips for finding your dream program: Soliciting Referral Customer referrals are vital to small and home-based service businesses. When you need to increase sales but can't afford a salesperson and have limited selling time, focus on existing clients and let them do the selling for you. Most business owners understand the value of referrals, but not many are doing what it takes to get them. Affiliate Marketing Or Market Your Own Products? How should you organize your online business? Three Critical Affiliate Marketing Tips For Higher Commissions! Affiliate marketing is quickly becoming a very specialized form of online business. It seems that people all over the Internet are clamoring for more affiliate tips. And there are a ton of products, services, ebooks, ultra-high priced DVD sets, and a plethora of other "things" geared for affiliate marketing. 10 Things WalMart Teaches About Affiliate Marketing We already know about wal mart because of their ads in local papers, on billboards, on the radio and TV. So finding a local Wal Mart is easy, and so should it also be easy to find your web site. Although you may not need to use radio and TV advertisements, you should still use offline promotion such as business cards or direct mail. Naturally, you want other web sites to put your billboard ad onto theirs. So that's our first lesson on how Wal Mart can teach us effective affiliate marketing. Now let's visit a Wal Mart store. Once we arrive at Wal Mart, we enter a huge parking lot. Your web site must also enable a lot of visitors. If your site is on a slow server, you may be losing customers. That's lesson #2. As soon as we enter Wal Mart, we are welcomed by a Wal Mart greeter. This greeter not only welcomes us to the store, but also offers help in pointing out where to find what you're looking for. That's lesson 3a and 3b. Your site should welcome visitors and provide navigation to all the products and services you offer. You can do this by simply including a graphic on your page that says "Welcome, Click Here to find what you're looking for" and have that link go to your site map. Beyond the greeter is a wide path that branches out to different areas of the store with banners overhead that tell you what you can find in those areas. Your site map should consist of main links, as well as sub-links to corresponding pages. Now we get to lesson 4, that each page of your site needs to have a topic, a main header, that defines what each page is about, as well as provide links, pathways to corresponding pages, because you'll notice that Wal-Mart arranges their store to group products that are similar. The hardware section is near the automotive center, housewares are near food items, lawn and garden items are near the hardware and pet supply areas, etc. But you can still get from one area to another. As you browse the shelves, you see more than one type of item. If you're in the grocery section; for example, you'll see many different types of beans. Canned beans, dry beans, even beans from different companies. That's lesson #5. You should offer your site visitors more than one choice. If your site offers auto loans, for example, offer your visitors new auto loans, used auto loans, even auto refinancing loans. And, you may want to offer them more than one choice for each type of auto loan. Afterall, visitors came to your site because they are shopping around... so let them shop and choose from multiple options. Just remember not to stick cheese products in your automotive section! Another thing you'll notice as you browse the shelves, which leads us to lesson #6... although the shelves are stocked full, it's still easy to pick out your favorite can of beans. This is because the shelves are stocked neatly and orderly. The ads you put onto your site should also be neat and orderly. Mixing in tall banners with short banners and having banners for totally different products and services can make shopping your site more difficult. For example, if you have a page about auto loans, you wouldn't want to put a tall auto loan banner right next to a short casino banner. Instead, put a tall auto insurance banner next to the tall auto loan banner. As you roam the store, you frequently encounter employess who can help you find items. This goes back to lessons 3a and 3b. Each page of your site should have a help link to your site map, or you should have a site search. Since Wal Mart makes it easy to find an employee to ask for assistance, that leads us to another lesson: Does you site offer customer service? Can visitors click on a button to ask you questions before they make a decision? Or do they simply exit your site? Lesson #7: How many times have you heard announcements in Wal Mart? They frequently announce specials over their public address system. We are not suggesting that you force visitors to endure slow loading sound files. But you can make sound an option. To see how you can use this marketing option, go to www.geocities.com/pulsarmarketing We have an example there on how you can offer your visitors the option to hear your audible promotion without forcing them to listen and making your pages load slow. All you have to do is create a wav sound file, and launch it by using a graphic or text link such as: "Click Here to listen to our promotion". The personal touch of a person's voice on your site can help increase your conversions. But don't force the loading of sound files. Instead, use the method we recommend at the URL below: www.geocities.com/pulsarmarketing Another thing you can do to tell your site visitors about specials or new products and services your site offers, is to offer them a free subscription to your newsletter. Now that we've toured Wal Mart and we're ready to make our purchase, we know our way to the checkout counter because Wal Mart makes it easy for us. That's lesson #8. Your site needs to make it easy for visitors to purchase. If you do not provide any of your own products or services and strictly use affiliate programs, you need to make sure your relevant banners and text links are at the top of the page, clearly and readily visible, to the people visiting that page. When we arrive at the checkout counter, besides asking us if we want paper or plastic and if we will be purchasing with cash or credit, the cashier asks if we found everything we needed. That's lesson #9. Make sure you offer your site visitors more options when they checkout. And, once again, if you do not directly sell your own products or services and you strictly use affiliate programs, you can offer your site visitors two links to click on: One link that opens the offer into a new window so the person may continue browsing your site after they are done applying or buying from your sponsor, and another link that simply goes directly to the sponsor in the same window. Think we're done learning from Wal Mart? No. After we make our purchase, and even after we go home, there's lesson #10... the return policy. If you sell your own products or services, you need to assure your visitors that you stand behind what you sell, and make your return policy very clear. If you do not sell your own products and services, does your site have a way for customers to resolve problems, or to ask pre-sale questions? If not, you may lose customers to sites that do provide online customer service. Back-End Selling If you ask me, residual (also known as passive income) is the most important type of income of all incomes. Residual income puts money in my pocket without work and effort on my part. It is the right type of income to work for, indeed! All About Affiliate Networks Over the course of my Internet marketing career, a significant portion of my revenue has come from affiliate networks. With most networks, you can sign-up for free, earn money from several different affiliate programs at once, and get a single consolidated paycheck from one company. Are You Wasting Your Time In Pursuit Of Money? There was a time when I had no idea how I could earn money on the net. I had just purchased my computer and got an internet connection. I knew nothing about internet beyond checking my mail and do search. How to Run A Successful Affiliate Program There are many people who log onto the internet everyday looking for a way to make money online.
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