Making Money Online as an Affiliate Marketer

The easiest way for any interested, prospective internet marketer, to make money online is to sell other people's products and services.

When I say "the easiest", I do not mean that you will not have to do any work. You still must plan your business, create a budget and do all the other sensible things that apply to any business. The easy part is that you will not have to deal with product delivery and after sales support.

This is a big thing given that most product owners spend a lot of time setting these aspects of their business up and dealing with them on a day to day basis.

The concept of selling others' products for profit is known online as affiliate marketing. Many internet marketers earn a full-time income from home, marketing affiliate programs.

Most product or service owners create an affiliate program when they are launching their sales engine. They know how lucrative it can be to have others sell products for them. They can recruit a virtual army of workers online all pointing links back to their sales page.

Affiliates can earn commissions of as much as 75% of the product price. Owners are able to offer such a high per centage because unlike an offline business there are little overheads once the business has been setup.

When searching online for an affiliate program make sure that the commission is a hefty slice of the pie. I would not settle for less than 40-50%. If you are not satisfied with the commission you are being offered then move on. There will always be other affiliate programs to be found in your target market.

Although all affiliate program owners will offer you a website to promote their wares, it is highly advisable that you set up your own website. Anyone serious about creating a lasting online business should have their own website even if they only sell affiliate products from this site.

Many affiliate programs will not be around in a few years time, which is beyond your control. If you have your own website then you have ultimate control over whether your business will still be operating or not. If you spend all your time promoting the affiliate site then if it does go bust in a few years time you will have nothing to show for it.

Affiliate programs can provide more freedom that you can dream of but initially you do need to put in some work to set up your automated process. Do not overlook this reality when getting started.
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Internet Business, Online Marketing - What Business Are You Really In?

By: Alan Quan
It took me a few days to think about until my rich successful internet marketing friend gave me his answer. It’s a good answer and after reading this and you’ll understand what business you are really in.

The first thing that probably comes to your mind is that you are in the internet business or the online business. And that is how the average person answers, nothing wrong with that. But how do you produce income from working in your industry?

You probably need customers coming in to your store, responding to your letter, or visiting your website and purchase something. And how do customers hear about your business and keep sending you their money? You’ve probably already figured it out the answer, it’s something called marketing.

Of course salesmanship iss important to the process, but it is mainly marketing that is going to be the key to your riches. It helps that your customers like you, but what happens when your pool of customers dry up? Your salesmanship won’t do SQUAT if you don’t have a customer base to sell to!

I have a friend who works in a very reputable and established insurance company for about 5 years and he is a GREAT salesman. He’s good looking and he knows all the sales strategies like establishing rapport and having people like him, closing the sale, etc.

So one day I saw him with a client and I commented, “Wow, you sold that guy just like that, it must be natural and easy for you to make a fortune in selling!”

However, he responded, “No, not really, let me tell you something. In selling, it depends on how ‘good’ the month is. If you’re ‘lucky’, some months you can have steak with lobster but some months you starve!”

After a brief conversation, he looked at his computer screen and told me that he’ll talk to me later because he needs to grab a walk-in customer before the other customer-starved sales agents steal the customer from him.

I walked out the door and saw him drooling all over the walk-in customer. Obviously, that confirmed his belief that everything depended on getting lucky. That experience revealed three valuable observations:

1. It doesn’t matter how good a salesman (or woman) you are because...
2. Selling is almost useless without a flow of customers, so you need to...
3. Set up a marketing system so that you have a flow of customers so that you can eat steak
with lobster every month!

If the main reason you are in business is to make money and the way to make real money for your business is to market your service, product, or business, wouldn’t it make sense for you to concentrate on marketing and promoting your business?

Think about it. To get any prospects at all you have to find them by going through a phone list, depend for walk in business (like my friend), or network your way to find a prospect. Even if you are just a salesperson, these are the results of marketing!

This is the same for any industry. Bakeries need people to know they exist so that customers can buy their cakes. Insurance agencies need people to know where they are located so that they can sell insurance. And you and I as internet marketers need more people to buy our products!

So what business are you really in? Your answer should be, “I’m in the business of marketing my business, product, or service.” Now that you know what business you are really in, concentrate most of your efforts in marketing your business!

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com

Make More Money In Internet Marketing By BURNING Your PhD In English!

By: Alan Quan
You may be thinking that you will be a failure in internet marketing just because your English teacher from high school gave you an ‘F’ for your bad grammar and simple vocabulary.

And to top it off, your dear teacher probably even said that you will never make it as a writer! I’m here to give you hope because you don’t need to be all that great in writing to make money online.

Don’t let your misconception scare you. To write successfully online, you don’t need a PhD in English. A lot of successful internet marketers don’t use ‘professional’ and ‘impressive’ English in their writing. And they AIN’T gonna start!

You may be protesting: “Yes however, by procuring a transcendent lexicon and capitalizing gargantuan resplendent words will galvanize people”

Did you understand that last sentence without spending 10 minutes with a dictionary? Did my big words impress you? Probably not, if I said that to you face to face, you probably thought I was an English obsessed weirdo!

You probably wouldn’t bother reading an article that uses those crazy words, unless you are a true masochist. And I can guess only a very small percentage of people enjoy reading something like that (if any).

You probably wouldn’t want to check up each individual word, so let me translate. It says: “Yes however, by having a great vocabulary and using big fancy words will impress people.”

Did you understand that? YES of course it’s so simple! And I’m guessing most people who can read English didn’t have to go the dictionary to understand that phrase. Let me explain a simple truth, we make most money by clear communication, not by complex confusion!

The clearer we can get our message through to our internet readers, the easier it is to sell to them and therefore make more money! That’s why you shouldn’t use professional and proper English in internet marketing all the time.

Additionally, using relax ‘everyday’ language with your customers gives off a feeling that they are talking to a real live human being, which works better when communicating through the internet. Don’t be some intimidating corporate robot that’s totally not relatable to them.

We want to make our writing so simple to understand that 99% of the population will know what we are offering. Forget impressing the 1% of the population that has a huge vocabulary, because they will certainly understand our writing also!

So for those of you that had a hard time getting an ‘A’ in English class, CONGRATULATIONS! You have an advantage over other internet marketers that are brainwashed into thinking that the best way of writing is to use ‘higher-level’ English (like me – darn it!).

You don’t have to break the bad habit of using overly ‘sophisticated’ English. So now you have no excuse for your sixth grade level English. For those of you who graduated with a PhD in English, CONGRATULATIONS! That shows dedication and commitment.

However, no one will understand you if you continue writing as you did for your more ‘sophisticated’ colleagues! Tone it down a little when you are working with your internet marketing business.

Why do you think major newspaper write in simple English? And why are the best selling magazines written in simple English?

Yup, you’ve guessed it. They write in simple English so that more people will understand their content and more people will buy! You can show off your ‘superior’ English to the few people who actually care.

So if you are guilty of having perfect ‘sophisticated’ English in your message, re-edit everything so that even the dumbest sixth grader will understand it. You’ll have messages that will be clear and more people will understand what the heck you are talking about!

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com

5 Profitable Reasons Why Forums Are Great For Your Internet Marketing Business!

By: Alan Quan
You probably already know the posting in forums is a great way of driving extra traffic to your site, but do you know the other not so obvious reasons why forum posting can help your business?

Here are some reasons why you should post your comments in discussion forums.

1. Trust and immediate hits to your page.
When you help out someone in the discussion and giving a good answer to his problem, you will seem knowledgeable about the discussed subject. As long as you are giving good content and not spamming the boards, people will perceive you as someone that knows his stuff.

You'll be able to communicate with the members and they’ll begin to develop trust with you because they get to know you on a more personal level. If you know anything about human nature, people will purchase products quicker from somebody they already know and trust.

Once the trust is there, they will see your signature file and click on your link and there’s your immediate traffic you get from the board!

2. Get indexed at major search engines.
Major search engines are great at indexing highly active discussion boards. This means that you have a better chance of having your posts in the major search engines, which means more traffic if you are involved in a hotly debated discussion!

3. Your post will likely be archived.
The owner of the board will usually archive a discussion for future reference. And
when people go into discussion boards they sometimes want to search for a topic quickly and get an answer.

That’s when that person hits on the topic you have posted and you’ll get more hits. Wouldn’t it be great for you to get more hits just for helping someone out in the forums last year?

4. New ideas for your new products.
You can post a question or concern to the board and get some very good responses about your market’s major problems. So instead of guessing what kind of problems people are struggling with, you are getting a better answer from real people with real concerns!

And once you’ve identified the problem, it is much easier for you to create the solution and sell to your market! So here are the advantages:

 Taking out the guesswork and finding out the real problem in your market
 Finding out the solution your market is looking for

Once you’ve got a clear answer, you can more effectively find the solution by doing research in the right places.

5. Gather information and write a book.
You can save every post you made and combine it into an e-book! Take out the posts that people thought were intelligent and truly groundbreaking and you instantly have an e-book of tips and advice.

Those are the five major reasons why posting on discussion boards are effective. You can learn important information about your market by reading the conversations they have with each other and armed with this information you can market your products more effectively.

And in conclusion, discussion boards are generally a highly targeted group of people that are more receptive to your products and services. So the kind of leads is of higher quality. So to get more hits to your site, start joining and contributing to the discussions!

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com

Use Internet Marketing To Inflict Pain On Your Customers And Gain More Profits!

By: Alan Quan
Although the internet is a ‘cold’ way of doing business compared to face to face business, you should remember that you are still dealing with people. The computer has changed the way we do business, but it did not change human behavior.

Since human behavior remains unchanged it is a good idea to use that to your advantage for your website. If you want to better your chances of your prospects buying your product, you need to show how your product can help you prospect to avoid pain and gain pleasure.

Now don’t torture your prospects by inflicting too much emotional pain on your site because they will associate your product to pain and click off your site. But use pain to emphasize a solution your product can give them.

Since our society is based on instant gratification, selling through the use of prevention is not as effective as an instant solution. Let’s say that you smoke regularly, you can buy a complex step-by-step system that instructs you on how to prevent cancer.

Since you don’t have already have cancer, it’s harder to sell to you (and the market) this prevention. However, if you have already have cancer, and I tell you that this pill I have in my hand will kill all the cancer in your body, it will be a much easier sell.

If you have cancer, wouldn’t you want to get rid of it the easiest way possible? It doesn’t matter if it costs $1000 per pill, you are going to buy it!

That’s a reason why the pharmaceutical companies sell so much; most people have a perception that they can buy health in a pill. Again, that’s instant gratification and you can see why prevention is a much harder sell than an instant solution.

Here is why prevention in this example is hard to sell:

1. The problem (cancer) isn’t immediately noticeable, therefore the pain isn’t immediate.
2. Most people are lazy and would procrastinate till the last minute.

As a general rule, pain is a better motivator than pleasure. Using this rule to your advantage, create pain in a good way in your prospects! You can intensify their pain by asking them how they felt in the past, present, and future. For example if you are promoting dating products:

“Remember back in high school, when that girl/guy laughed in your face…”

“How do you feel now that you’re lonely and not with your dream girl/guy…”

“Imagine five years from now, will you able to find the love that you want…”

You get the picture. And remember; don’t make pain the main theme of your website because nobody likes to feel bad. Give them some hope and assure them that it’s not their fault for their situation.

Now here is the next step. Present the solution that will solve that problem. That one solution you have that will give them the pleasure. Remember that your solution provides your prospects the pleasure for their pain.

You can again ask powerful questions:

“Imagine next time when you are at a bar and you knowing that you can pick up any guy or girl of your dreams.”

“Picture how happy you will feel once you have your dream lover…”

Since your prospects feel pain and dissatisfaction about their current situation, they need a solution. And in order for your prospects to feel good about themselves and their situation right now, they will have to associate your solution (your product) with the pleasure they will gain.

So remember when selling your products over the internet, you are still dealing with real people with real feelings. Start using the pain/pleasure principle in your website today (if you haven’t done so already) and watch your sales rise!

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com

What Howard Stern Can Teach You About Successful Internet Marketing!

By: Alan Quan
His characteristics are NOT usually associated with success in society. But why is he rich and why is he so popular? Read the rest of this article to see why you need to implement his characteristics for your internet marketing.

Now when I say this, I don’t mean going out on the internet and blatantly pissing everyone off about their religion, race, sexuality, physical deformity, etc. and attacking every other opinion that doesn’t complement your own.

What the title means is that you if you truly feel passionate about your product or service don’t be afraid to let your customers know! Some people may be offended by your message and what you stand for, but don’t let that slow you down.

Just remember that just being you right now, at this very moment, is offending some people. They may be offended by you being Chinese, your British accent, the pink shirts you like to wear, get over it!

You cannot accommodate the few ‘intolerant’ people in this world to determine your being. Have the same attitude for your internet marketing.

If you are overly passive and nice in your sales and marketing messages because you think it will please everyone, some people will think you have no confidence in your ability to deliver and your product’s quality is probably crappy.

It doesn’t create any controversy or attention and your image will be weak.

If you are strong and opinionated you get a stronger response in your customer’s mind. Take a look at Dennis Rodman, some people think he’s a total freak and some people think he’s awesome. Either way, he gets publicity.

If you listen to Howard Stern’s show, you’ve probably noticed that he is cocky, controversial, and opinionated about every subject imaginable. You either hate him or love him.

People have done studies showing that people who love him listen to him on an average of one hour just to see, “What he’s going to say next.”

Here’s the interesting part, the people who hate him listen to Howard on average of three hours just to see, “What he’s going to say next.”

And Howard’s show is very popular in the United States! Since he’s getting paid by how long and how many listeners are tuned into his show, in a way, his haters on average are giving him more money!

Let me repeat, be yourself and be bold about your opinions. Don’t be a ‘saint’ if you are in marketing. I’ve heard it said that being ‘nice’ is great if your goal is to become a successful monk, but it’ll ruin you if you want to be a successful internet marketer.

For example, if you think organic foods are good, think of how good old Howard would say it:

“Eat organic food if you don’t want to die! Conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are killing you with toxic pesticide poison!”

Don’t say:

“umm….yeah… I think organic foods are better. Conventionally grown food is not as good, it has chemicals and stuff”

Which one sounds more honest to you? If you have a targeted niche market for organic food, the first one will most likely fire up support from your customers. Sure you are going to offend the other side, but who cares?

They are going to be offended either way you say it. Having healthy respect for your opinion and the desire to share it with others isn’t wrong. Think about it this way, if you don’t respect your opinion, who will?

Read that paragraph again, because it is vitally important that you understand and apply this for your internet marketing business AND your own life!

If 10,000 people read your article and you offend half of them and the other half loved you, you still have 5,000 people on your side and think you are a genius.

It’s impossible to please everyone so make it easy on yourself and stand up for what you believe. From now on save yourself the headache and concentrate on the 5,000 people that like you!

Remember, it’s okay if you offend some people in the internet because that’s truly how you feel. I’m not saying that you should go out on the internet and attack every opposing view, but from now on just be strong in your opinions when doing your marketing.

It shows that you are genuinely passionate and true to your niche market, just like Howard!

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com