Tony Robbins Business Mastery

Showing posts with label affiliate networks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label affiliate networks. Show all posts

Sunday, 7 June 2015

7 Reasons Your Affiliate Products Won't Sell

Are you finding it difficult to sell affiliate products on your website or blog? There is little doubt that affiliate marketing presents an excellent opportunity to make money online, but it is never as easy as many of you may think. On the one hand, you'll find a lot of online or affiliate marketers who are earning a six- or seven-figure income by selling affiliate products. On the other, there are many who are unable to make only a few sales even after trying really hard.
Given below are seven potential reasons that you should watch out for if you are unable to earn a good income from affiliate marketing.
#1. You've Chosen Too Expensive Products
Many online marketers will have just money on their minds. In order to make more money, they choose expensive affiliate products to promote. Actually, the price range will vary depending on the characteristics or the traits of the target audience. If you aren't selling enough affiliate products, you need to take a quick look at the price of products you are trying to sell.
If you see that the products you are promoting are too expensive, you should pick those products that are low cost. If you have an established site with a good amount of traffic, you can quickly increase the number of sales by choosing low cost or cheaper affiliate products.
Even if you are selling low cost products, you'll earn a good commission because you'll get more sales on a high-traffic blog.
#2. You're Selling Non- or Semi-Relevant Products
In desperation to make more money quickly, many people will start promoting or selling even those affiliate products that are distantly or not related at all to a specific niche. There's a simple question - 'Why would a target audience want to purchase a product they don't actually need?'
Whether you are just starting out or have spent some time in the affiliate marketing industry, never get swayed by hyped products that have little or nothing to do with the niche you come from.
#3. You've Not Used the Product Yourself
If you are trying to sell those affiliate products that you have not used yourself, you'll be less likely to get more sales. One of the most important rules in affiliate marketing is to know a product really well before you want to sell it. When you have used a product yourself, you'll also feel more confident to promote or sell the same. Without using a product yourself, you'll never know whether it's good enough to be promoted to an audience. Low quality products will also reflect badly on your reputation, killing your sales in the long-term.
#4. You Don't Have a Compelling Story
Your target audience needs to be told a story, which inspires them and encourages them to go ahead and make a purchase. If you are only selling a product, you'll hardly sell. If you are selling an experience, you'll sell more, and more. That's one of the biggest secrets of successful affiliate marketers.
Before you want to pitch an affiliate product to your audience, try to come up with an engaging story of your own. In this story, try to explain how using this product changed your life for the better. Talk about what makes this product really unique and different from others in the market.
So, craft a compelling story right now!
#5. You've Chosen a Wrong Niche
This can be yet another reason. Do you think you have chosen a niche that's really profitable? If you aren't selling any affiliate products even after trying hard, you may have stepped into a wrong niche.
Though affiliate marketing brings you excellent opportunities of making lots of money online, choosing a wrong niche will easily lead you to failure. While choosing a niche, you should pick one that's less competitive yet offers a good market for selling products.
Most importantly, you should always choose a niche market that you know really well about. If you lack adequate knowledge about a specific niche, you won't be able to sell products. It's because you won't be able to build trust or talk to your audience with authority.
#6. You're Selling Too Many Products
It's difficult to get a good number of affiliate sales also when you are offering too many products. Many affiliate marketers, particularly those who lack experience, think that selling tons of affiliate products will bring them more money. In fact, you'll easily confuse your blog readers or target audience if you are promoting plenty of affiliate products.
Rather than joining every affiliate program that you think is profitable, you should become more selective. When you are promoting too many products, you'll not be able to give the kind of focus each product promotion requires. By being selective, on the other hand, you'll find it easy to focus more on the promotion of each of the products. So, you'll make more sales.
#7. You Don't Have a Good Sales Pitch
Also, you need to have a strong sales pitch or call to action. Though your audience will want to buy top quality products, coming up with good sales pitches will allow you to make more sales. If you want your readers to take a desired action, you must always ask for it. So, don't miss it!


http://ezinearticles.com/?7-Reasons-Your-Affiliate-Products-Wont-Sell&id=9053809

Thursday, 28 May 2015

Top 10 Commandments of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate programs can be a big source of revenue. The key to maximizing your earnings is engaging your readers. Unlike traditional ads where you are paid for impressions or clicks, affiliates are only paid when/if a specific action is performed. The action might be a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, but regardless, you are not paid until you've compelled your readers to act.
With that in mind, here are the Top 10 Commandments for affiliate marketing success.

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.
If you are writing about sports, don't put up affiliate ads for printer toner just because everyone has a printer and those programs have a high payout. The people who are coming to read commentary or get stats for their favorite teams aren't thinking about those things when they're on your site.
The more relevant the ads are to your readers, the more likely they will use them.

Learn modern prospecting techniques that work! Free 37-pg PDF download.
Stream the web to your TV wirelessly. Find out more.

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.
If your visitors don't think you're being honest, they won't read anything else you have to say.

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 put up a list of your favorite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the books (just because you listed them), so you can cash in on a sale. Take some time to write a detailed review, 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 book and readers buy the book because of it, you should get something for that.
But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors.

Unlimited Earnings, Up To 30% Rev Share And $300 CPA. Apply Now !
UK IT Decision Makers with Email UK Technology Infrastructure Data

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.
Honesty and full disclosure is a necessary part to building a loyal reader base. They know they are supporting you by using your referral links. Make them happy and eager to do so.

5.  Select Carefully

Take the time to go through all the different options for products or services available through the programs. Put some thought into which products or services your readers may need or like. Also, change the ads around often, try different ones, and use different graphics and text to see which are the most effective.
It may take some time before you figure out the best formula, and you may also find that you need to continually rotate ads to attract more attention.

Manage All Your Digital Channels and Affiliate Programs In One Place

6.  Try Different Programs

If one particular program doesn't seem to be working for you, try another one.
Affiliate programs don't look the same. They offer different products, services, and payment structures. Some programs will have a lifetime payout on sales while others will limit it to 30-90 days. Some programs allow much more flexibility in the types of ad units available, as well as colors and design so it fits better on your site's layout.
Also, check your favorite vendors to see if they run their own affiliate program. Sometimes you can go directly to the source. You're not limited to big affiliate networks.
Integrate systematic ad testing into your strategy to maximize your profits.

7.  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.
Many platforms allow you to show "most recent" or "most popular" or "related articles" on every page, so no matter how old the article is, it will always show access to your new ones. Your old content can make money for you indefinitely.

8.  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.

9.  Stay Relevant

Keep up to date on the latest offerings of your affiliate programs. New ad units, advertisers, and tools are constantly being added to improve usability and be more visually appealing. Small changes go a long way in motivating action by readers. You may be left out in the dust by being complacent with your strategy.
Don't get lazy about monitoring trends and exploring new opportunities.

10.  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 monetizingstrategies will work out.
Once you start compromising your content to cater to the affiliate programs or any other money making venture, you will lose your readers. Once that happens, you will lose the opportunity to receive any earnings from any of your ads, be they CPMCPC, or referral based

Friday, 22 May 2015

Making affiliate marketing work – some top tips for success

A beginner's guide to affiliate marketing. Dan Cohen, Market Unit Leader, at Tradedoubler offers some sage advice on building an affiliate marketing strategy for your business.
Why do it?
For a publisher, affiliate marketing offers some significant benefits. Firstly, there is the opportunity to generate additional revenue. For some organisations affiliate marketing represents their entire business (for example, price comparison websites); for others it is a useful way of making some money alongside their core business activity. Secondly, carefully selected ads can bring some big brand names on to your website and boost your association with them. This can have a beneficial impact on your own brand reputation.
For an advertiser, affiliate marketing is a great way to get other people or businesses to promote your products and services and you reward them – usually with a commission payment - for each referral or sale. It extends your 'reach' in terms of audience and, if well targeted, can provide a highly cost-effective, scalable and influential additional sales channel.
How do I become an affiliate?
There are two main routes: you can either join an affiliate network run by an established affiliate marketing organisation, or you can apply directly to an advertiser to see if it has, and is accepting new members onto an affiliate programme. Affiliate networks typically have relationships and programs in place with a number of advertisers and they can help you to select the right brands for your website. They also tend to provide on-going support, development and revenue optimisation opportunities that are worth considering (see 'Seek out the experts' below.)
Making affiliate marketing work – some top tips for success
1/ Do the research
Successful affiliate marketing is not just about posting an online ad on your website and then sitting back and watching the commission pour in. A little research will help you to understand the industry, including the opportunities, risks and emerging trends, as well as the various approaches (display ad or product feed etc.) and payment options available (Pay-Per-Click, Pay-Per-Acquisition (sale) etc.). There are publications and communities devoted specifically to affiliate marketing (see for example, www.affiliates4u.com) and it is also moving up the news agenda for more general marketing magazines.
2/ Do the simple things first
These are covered in more detail in the rest of the list, but essentially it means that you should walk before you try to run. Once you have discovered how it all works, you can make your affiliate activity as sophisticated and complex as you like. For a really straightforward start you could just apply to an established affiliate program, choose your preferred advertisers and opt for something called automated ad codes. This allows the network manager to access the ads on your website and update or change them, for example with a special Christmas ad, so they are always timely and relevant. And speaking of automated ad codes, you really need to:
3/ Understand the IT
Do you have, and know how to use, the IT tools that enable your website to carry, track or upgrade the ads on your website? How about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and keywords to ensure your website and your ads come out high on the list with search engines? SEO optimisation is an increasingly specialist field and you may need some expert help here.
4/ Promote your passion
There is no point in promoting products and services that you or your company do not care about or which are not directly relevant to your business interests, personal passions or target audiences. Take some time to consider the kinds of products and services that will work best for you, or pick a niche you know a lot about. If you really want to drive sales you need to engage with the ads in some way, for example by writing about them, and you will struggle to do this if you don't really believe in them.
5/ Know your audience
What is the profile of the people who visit your website, why do they come and how can you make them return regularly? What products and services might be of interest to them?
6/ Find your ads
Once you have addressed the above two steps you will have a good idea of the brands you are looking for. Work out what will entice your audience to click on the ad: is it a voucher, a video, product feeds, banner ad or text link, for example?
7/ Content is king
It seems obvious, but if you want more people to click on the ads you carry, you need more people to visit your website. While this can be achieved in part through SEO, the truth is that people will visit your website if it carries lots of constantly updated, relevant and interesting content.
8/ Learn to market yourself
Affiliate is a sales channel; sell your ads to your audience and your audience to your advertisers.
9/ Seek out the experts
As mentioned above, there are established affiliate networks you can sign up to. These offer a range of a services and support that include access to leading brand advertiser programs, support and development, tools and techniques for boosting affiliate revenue, and tracking and performance analysis.
Lastly, once you have created your affiliate strategy it's important to keep reviewing the performance of the network and the ads that are running. Look at the ads that are performing well and those that aren't; is it because they fit the audience? Is it because they're in the wrong places? Don't be afraid to experiment and keep on testing.