Affiliate Marketing - How To Get On Track In 6 Stress-Free Steps

If you are just starting out or have had trouble making money with affiliate programs, you may not have realized how straight-forward it is, once you know the steps to follow.  This article shows you the six steps you require.

Affiliate marketing is probably the simplest business model you can take to build a business. Of course the devil is in the details, as they say, but the overall model can really be broken down into six steps.

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Before we get to the steps, I want you to ask yourself a question. What do you look forward to accomplishing with affiliate marketing? This is an easier question to meet than it might seem. There are really only two major choices here.

The first is what I call the “fast buck” choice. In other words, you want to make a few dollars instantly, and you are not interested in building a business. If this is you, all you need to do is learn how to put in writing exceptionally superior ads, and then use them to promote your affiliate product. Scores of people will say I am improper, but there is nothing wrong with doing this, as long as you are honestly not demanding to build a long term business this way.

In other words, if you are looking to shape a business with income potential for the long term, then you will have a longer road ahead of you. It will take you longer before you see any profit from your efforts, but it will be worth it when you are able to take a day off, or even a week off, and still earn profits in your absence.

These steps should be followed in order. If you try to go out of sequence, you will not get the results you are hoping to achieve.

1. Select a Marketplace

Why pick a market and not pick a product? Because you will sooner or later want to add other products into your pipeline. You should pick a market that interests you, and maybe something you already know something about. Don't forget that you are building for the long term.

2. Choose a Product

Once you have your marketplace selected, you should settle on just one product to kick off with. It will be very tempting to try to add all kinds of related products at first, but don't. Having just one product will help you focus on the important tasks. You will want to choose a product that converts well. What this means is that the product sells to a high percentage of visitors. This will help keep your cost per visitor down and increase your earnings.  Although there are quite a few affiliate programs online, the one that I advocate is Clickbank, because of their handsome commission pay-outs, many as high as 75%!

3. Build An Auto-Responder Cycle

Also called a follow-up series, you should build one based on the subject and the contents of the product you are suggesting. If it is a physical product you are suggesting, you will have to establish or locate substance that is directly related to the product. For example, if you are promoting golf clubs, you could make a sequence about how to pay money for golf clubs that fit, or the benefits of custom clubs, or even something about the club preferences of famous professional golfers. Be as creative as you can, and do not stray off issue. It has been said that most sales are not made in the preliminary link, they are made on the seventh. If you are not following up with your prospects, the bottom line is you are down in commissions.

4. Build up an email capture page

This is where you will opt-in information about your prospects so you can send your auto-responder run. If you are putting together a business, having your own web site is a necessity, if only because you will control the subject matter, and be able to capture email addresses for yourself. You might be able to get by for a short time without this, but it just isn't worth it in the long run, especially if you're trying to construct a long-term business.

5. Force traffic to your squeeze page

Until you have completed step four, you shouldn't even think about traffic techniques. If you don't have anywhere to propel the traffic, why concern about how to spawn it in the first place. Depending on the traffic generation techniques you go for, it may take some time for you to start seeing sales in your program. You should spend this time creating one or two streams of traffic, and refining these techniques to help you propel more traffic with less effort.

6. Attain Added related products

Once your business is making some commission, it is time to start off tallying to your list of products. I don't mean you should go out and sign up for every affiliate program that is even remotely related. What I do mean is that you should carefully go for an additional product or two, and add them into your pipeline. Because you have been forming a list of competent prospects, you will be able to market these new products to them. This is the really long term commissions for your business. As long as you go on to market good products to your customer list, you can remain to make money off of them, even the ones who have already purchased your last product suggestion.

So these six steps are all you necessitate to go from nothing to having a profitable business promoting other peoples products. It can be easy to loose focus if you are not seeing fast results, so keep your sights on the end goal of having a profitable business. You may also find it difficult selecting your initial market and product. Take your time and pick the best product you can. If the product you want to promote is less than desirable, your prospects will not persist to take note of your recommendations.