This is the most important thing you will ever read about affiliate marketing –

Before you choose the product that you want to sell make sure that there are people out there who want to buy it.

There is no point in spending time and money trying to sell something that seems like a good idea to you but that no-one else can see the need for. This seems extremely obvious but many internet marketing newbies and even those that are moderately successful will tell you at one time or another that they too have fallen into the trap of trying to sell or promote something that nobody wants. It’s even worse when you spend a lot of time creating and developing a product without first checking that there is a market out there.

Niche Marketing

The next thing that you want to consider when choosing the product that you want to promote is how much competition there is. Some of the most profitable markets on the internet are related to health, wealth and happiness but these are the most competitive as well. If you choose a market with a large amount of competition it will take much longer for you to get a result. Whilst you are learning I suggest that you pick a less competitive market so that you have small successes before you get discouraged. The major reason that people don’t succeed in internet marketing is that they give up way too early.If you pick a smaller goal to begin with you will have small successes and this will encourage you to keep going. If your target is too large to begin with then you may not have enough determination and persistence to keep going. Set yourself up for success rather than failure by using effective strategies. Read more »

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when you drive traffic to someone else’s website and help them sell their product.Affiliate programs work in different ways. Some will pay you commission on the sales that you are directly responsible for. So if you send a prospective customer to the merchant’s website and the prospect makes a purchase (becoming a customer) you are paid a commission on the product sale.

Commissions are usually a certain percentage of the purchase price. The percentage is extremely variable and depends on the product and the merchant and probably the profit margin. I have noticed that the percentage commissions are usually more generous with digital products than with physical products and that is probably because once a digital product is created there are no further costs involved. Whether you sell 20 copies of a digital product or 20,000 the cost involved in producing the product is only the initial creation and time costs of the product owner. Digital download can be completely automated and doesn’t incur any extra costs. Physical products, however always have a cost per unit. Merchants can get discounts for purchasing from wholesalers in bulk but in general there is a fixed cost per unit and therefore a fixed profit margin.

Lead Generation

Another type of affiliate program is essentially a lead generation or lead capture business model. In some industries or niches where the product or service is expensive even a prospective customer is valuable. Rather than paying you, as the affiliate marketer, a commission on any product that is sold to that prospect, the merchant can set up their affiliate program so that they pay you a smaller sum of money just for the lead. I think that this is definitely a win-win situation. You, as the affiliate, win because the prospect just has to be interested in the product or service and you get paid. In this situation the affiliate gets paid whether or not a product sale occurs. Read more »

I am no longer an internet virgin! I finally made my first sale of an affiliate product. So now I have achieved step 1 and step 2 of the Internet Marketing Plan and I’m really to take on step 3. It will be even better when the money hits my PayPal account – then I will really believe it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make the sale from the affiliate product that I have been concentrating on – it was one of my other sites and frankly I’m not too sure how my customer found it but that doesn’t really matter.

Emails and Auto Responders – Keep It Simple

I also found out that I have had 2 people subscribe to my “10 Newbie Mistakes to Avoid” free report. I would have found out sooner had I not made yet another newbie mistake!  This one is about  email accounts. When you set up your auto responder to notify you of any new subscribers to your list make sure the email notification is sent to an email account that you regularly check.  Although it is a nice surprise to find new people on my list (welcome if you are reading this post and thanks for joining me on my journey) I would have preferred to have been  notified by email at the time. Read more »