Advanced Affiliate Marketing Strategies For Bloggers
Affiliate marketing is, and will likely always remain, my favorite method for making money online. At the risk of repeating myself, here’s why every blogger should get into the affiliate marketing game -
- You make a margin per product sale that is often as good or better than the person or company that produces the product
- You don’t have to do any product fulfillment, handle cancellations or any customer service whatsoever
- You have a huge range of products to choose from in most mainstream product categories
- You can enter new niches any time you like with zero switching cost, simply by finding a new product to promote as an affiliate (this is for those of you who like variety)
- If you have a product of your own, one of the best ways to get affiliates to promote your product is to make sales of their product as an affiliate first (this is a big one!)
I could go on, but let’s state the obvious and most important aspect: Affiliate marketing is great because you can make very good money for very little effort.
Don’t get me wrong, it requires effort to get to a situation where you can make money as an affiliate, but once you are there the actual process for making money is very, very simple. It’s as easy as writing a blog post or sending an email.
It’s Like Printing Money
I remember about four years ago reading all those hyped-up sales pages from Internet marketers, and I come across the phrase “it’s like printing money”.
I’ve never been a hater of sales copy, although obvious hype agitates me just like anyone else. I certainly believed that some people were enjoying a situation where they could just send emails and make big money, but I was personally very far away from that. Jealousy mixed with depression about my own results, were the dominant emotions I felt at the time when I read what other people were achieving apparently so easily.
My first attempt at “printing money” as an affiliate was with my blog when it was about six months old. I put in a couple of hours to write a blog post about Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide To Google AdWords and managed to print about $20 in commissions - one sale.
I was disappointed given it had taken me six months of consistent work on my blog to make that $20, however I was also encouraged. I could see given enough time and energy, that $20 could be $200 and then $2,000 and even $20,000. Today I have the audacity to believe it could be $200,000 one day too.
Fast forward to the year 2009 and the first six month’s of affiliate promotions have gone like this…
What Motivates A Purchase?
Over the last week I attended three very different live events, although they all focused on the same thing - making money.
The first one was Roger Hamilton’s introduction night, a free event he puts on as a feeder to his 3-day workshop and breakfast pitch.
I’ve heard of Roger before, but I had some misconceptions. I thought he was one of the older crowd of “legacy” business folk still doing the speaking circuit. I was surprised when he turned out to be a younger fellow, with a unique accent (he is a strange combination of Hong Kong plus Scotland).
On Friday I attended the Andrew and Daryl Grant Sydney workshop and did my usual two presentations, one on website flipping and the other on blogging. The Grants put on a four day show that is unlike any other event I’ve been to, and is definitely more suited to my style (I’ll explain why in a moment).
On Saturday I popped into a Christopher Howard managed event, that brought together some well known Internet marketers, both locals and overseas speakers, including John Carlton, Brad Fallon, James Schramko and Ari Galper. This event is your typical pitch fest, with two hour sessions for each speaker ending with a sale for a $2,000+ product.
The Psychology Behind The Sale
I’ve been to many business events, some that were free, some I paid money for as part of coaching programs. It’s very interesting to observe the different psychology behind each event, especially when it comes to how they go about making sales.
All three events I attended during the last week were technically free to attend. Although there are pricing structures, in most cases you can score yourself a free ticket in some way. The organizers of these events do not profit from the seminar entry fees, rather it comes from money made when a person orders a product sold at the event.
I noticed three key elements were used as selling tools at each event, however they were applied in different ways. Here is how I observed each of the selling psychologies at the events…
The Core Reason Why Your Business Lacks Momentum
A couple of years ago I was exposed to Rich Schefren during the very first Internet marketing launch he did. I had never heard of the guy before, but suddenly a lot of people I had heard of and respected were recommending him, so I paid some attention.
Rich went mainstream in the Internet marketing world thanks to the success of the Internet Business Manifesto report. To be completely honest, and this really is testament to the power of a strong lead free resource, if it wasn’t for the Manifesto, I would have stopped paying attention. Instead, I went on to join Rich’s Business Growth System, paying him almost $5,000 over the next 12 months.
Every New Business Lacks Momentum
One of the key lessons I learned, and this particularly came from listening in to the questions asked from other student’s of Rich during the live coaching calls with him, was that all businesses suffer from a lack of momentum when they start up. The psychology needed to deal with a lack of momentum in your business is different to what you need to do when your business has momentum, and it’s critical you understand the difference.
If right now you are having difficulty attracting new customers, or even just building a list or getting people to visit your website or blog, then you lack momentum. Momentum is the foundation that allows you to grow your business to the point where you can set up systems to separate yourself from the business.
Without momentum you don’t have cash flow and without cash flow you can’t afford to hire people, or outsource or purchase software that will help your business become more automated. In this situation, if you have no start-up capital to spend, you find yourself doing all the work.
Not only are you required to deliver the product or service you offer, you need to get out there and attract new customers by testing different marketing campaigns. Of course once you attract a customer, then your energy becomes divided, as you need to market less and start delivering. Unfortunately once you make this change, you get cash flow, but since you are no longer focused on marketing, your stream of new customers dries up. Once the current jobs are done, you have to get out and market again.
If you’re constantly in the stop and start loop between finding new customers and delivering to current customers, then you know what it’s like to feel too busy one day, and then struggling the next. You either have too much work and you’re flat out servicing, or your desperate for new leads. There is no happy medium where you have just enough work to be busy, just enough cash flow to keep growing and just enough new customers knocking on your door.
Do You Know Your Strengths?
Is Branding Important To Small Business?
I’ve been working my way through Eben Pagan’s DVD recordings of his “Get Altitude” program, which was a $10,000 per head live in-person seminar presented as advanced entrepreneur training. It’s focused on people who already have businesses who want to grow their operation towards seven and then eight figure turnover.
One of the concepts I’ve heard Eben teach over and over again is the idea of dominating your market. This is more than just being successful, this is creating the perception that what you do is in a category all of its own. You don’t have competitors if you’re the only supplier in the mind of the customer, even if what you actually supply is provided by other companies.
The great thing about this concept is that you can dominate a market without changing anything about your product. Through a strategic marketing process, you can establish a frame of perception associated with your brand that is entirely unique. This isn’t actually something tangible, since most tangible elements can be replicated. This is a feeling that your marketing will emote from your prospects and customers when they think about what you offer.
When you establish a brand perception that is emotionally stimulating in a positive way, you have a very powerful advantage. You don’t have to compete on price, and assuming your product is at least adequate in quality, you will make more sales, even more sales than better products because you have a stronger brand.
What Is A Brand?
In my previous article from way back in December 2005 - Small Business Branding - It’s Not “We”, It’s “Me” - I defined branding, in this particular case a “personal brand” as -
You Are As Good As The People Around You
During the opening campaign for Membership Site Mastermind I actively observed the conversation occurring at other blogs about what I was doing.
One of the less-talked about benefits of conducting a major launch is the education you receive about your market. As Jeff Walker points out in his Product Launch Formula (PLF) program, each launch is an entirely different beast and once you begin the campaign you never truly know what will happen.
Eben Pagan, while presenting at one of Jeff’s PLF live workshops, stated something similar, explaining how each launch he has done has been different, teaching him new things as the campaign goes to unexpected places.
One of the great skills a marketer can develop is his or her ability to think on their feet and dynamically respond to what they see going on during their marketing campaign.
The very best marketers have an innate understanding of how they need to respond to what the market is telling them. For example, producing new content that is designed specifically to tackle an objection that they have observed coming from feedback during their campaign. As Jeff notes, he can “feel” how a launch is going, even before a product goes on sale.
Rich Schefren wrote an entire follow-up report to his first report (I believe it was the Missing Chapter follow-up to the Internet Business Manifesto) to specifically address a major sticking point he saw in his market. What was particularly amazing about this situation, was Rich was able to write the entire report DURING the launch campaign.
In my case, much of the content I published following up after the Masterplan report I released at the start of my campaign, contained elements designed to respond to specific rejections and talking points I saw in my market.
There were however, some things I couldn’t address during the campaign simply due to lack of resources (mostly time). There’s one thing that stuck in my mind since then that I wanted to write about here on my blog. This is a particularly important issue because I think it’s a mental hang-up you are likely feeling right now, which is significantly holding you back from success.
