Entrepreneurs-Journey.com Down-To-Earth Advice For Bloggers and Internet Marketers

The last week if you’ve been reading this blog you know I’ve recommended two courses, both of which I am an affiliate for. In this situation both products I’ve promoted before, so they’ve proven successful, however they are very different in many respects, for example…

• One product offers a $1 trial and then is $67 a month with 50% commission
• The other product has several pricing points, however starting at $897 and hence the affiliate commission is at least in the several hundred dollars range per order (as much as $1250 commission per sale)
• One product is limited based on time (one week)
• The other product is limited based on space (200 people maximum)
• Both products offer affiliate prizes if you make a certain number of sales

Looking at this data you might wonder which product is the best to promote? Which will make more money?

Those questions are difficult to know if you’ve never promoted these kinds of offers before, but since I have I know that I will sell a handful of the high end course and several hundred of the $1 trials. It’s a moot point for me as to which one I will promote as I agreed to support both people months ago because they supported me and we have a relationship I want to maintain. That is always the most important concern for me, not the potential for profit, although that’s a motivating factor too.

In your case you need to build up your understanding of what offers work best to your market, so you need to test. The first time I ever promoted a product that cost over $1,000 I made two sales. I netted about $1400 in commission, which was by far the largest affiliate income return I had ever made with my blog at the time. This was about when my blog was 9 months old.

Before that I had tested smaller affiliate products and made a few hundred dollars worth of sales, so I was liking the large commissions from the higher priced items, however you can just as easily make zero sales too. That’s the thing I’ve found with high priced products. You don’t need to sell many to make good money, but it’s tougher to convert people, for obvious reasons. That’s why I like to promote products across the board, from free trials to several thousand dollars, so you have a good feel for what your audience responds to.

Of course price is not the only concern, the offer is actually more important. I’ve promoted many lower priced products that don’t convert as well as much more expensive items because of how well the offers match what my audience want. Understanding your people is the most important thing, so run some tests and see what the biggest sticking points for your audience are and then give them good products to solve those problems.

Why Promote This And Not That?

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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 -

1. You make a margin per product sale that is often as good or better than the person or company that produces the product
2. You don’t have to do any product fulfillment, handle cancellations or any customer service whatsoever
3. You have a huge range of products to choose from in most mainstream product categories
4. 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)
5. 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…

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I ran two affiliate promotions recently for very similar products at very similar pricing points. The promotion techniques were also very similar, and although there are many variables involved, there’s a powerful conclusion you can make as a result of this test.

One promotion, as I type this, is nearing $5,000 in commissions.

The other is nearing $500.

So what gives? Why did one do ten times better than the other?

The answer is TIMING.

One product was brand new to the market and I was one of the very first people to promote it.

The other I was very late to the show and as a result most people who were likely to purchase already had.

This is a lesson that always holds true, and there are some powerful reasons why.

Why You Need To Act Fast As An Affiliate

If you ever want to make good money as an affiliate, here’s some very sound advice about why you need to promote early and promote often when a product is first released -

1. When a product is new, it’s NEW. New sells a lot more than old because people are interested in new things.
2. When a product is new, no one has bought it yet. The entire market is still up for grabs. Those who act quickly stand to gain the most.
3. New products are often launched with a lot of buzz. You can ride along with that buzz and benefit from the excitement. That’s why the launch formula works, and it can help affiliates too, as long as you have the right timing.

I Have Something New – Now Is Your Chance To Have Good Timing

I’ve just finished switching over my affiliate program to Clickbank. All my current affiliates have to set up new accounts with the system and replace their old affiliate links with the new ones. All existing affiliates should have received an email about this already.

Blog Mastermind is now available to promote under the new system. As a result of this change, I am once again able to offer the $97/month option for those who can’t afford the $497 upfront payment (this is also an opportunity for smart affiliates – I’ll email details about this shortly).

However, and this is really exciting, I have something new that is about to launch, which many of you know is coming already.

I’m finally going to do an official public opening of my Membership Site Mastermind training program and the launch is just about ready to start rolling.

If you want to get in on the ground floor as an affiliate, now is the time to join. Here’s the link -

The Yaro Starak Affiliate Program

Once you sign up you will be on my affiliate email newsletter. I only send details about opportunities with my affiliate program to that newsletter, so as to not clutter this blog with too much promotional content, so if you want in, go register now.

Once you register you will have your personal affiliate links to promote Blog Mastermind immediately, and then Membership Site Mastermind once it is ready to roll. New and existing affiliates should go straight to this address now and sign-up –

www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/affiliates/

I look forward to working with you.

Yaro Starak
Making New Things

Next Monday, December 1st, Gideon Shalwick and I are releasing a brand new report called “The Roadmap To Become A Blogger” or simply, The Roadmap.

This is only the second free report I’ve published and Gideon in particular has been hard at work making sure the report is something special. The Roadmap is our lead-in resource to the Become A Blogger Premium video coaching program and gives you an introduction to what you will learn if you sign-up as a member with us.

Monday 1st is also officially the start of our opening campaign for the program and hence if you want to be our affiliate for this product launch and potentially earn some nice commissions recommending the report and the coaching program, you need to sign-up as an affiliate now.

You can create your affiliate account here -

Become A Blogger Affiliate Registration

Affiliate Prizes

Gideon has been providing information for affiliates at the Affiliate Blog, including a breakdown of the top 10 prizes we are offering our top partners.

You can find a list of the prizes and more details about the opening here -

Which One Of These Prizes Do You Want To Win?

I can’t wait to tell you more about the Roadmap report and this coming Monday you will be able to download your complimentary copy.

In the meantime, if you have an audience of people interested in learning how to blog, in particular beginners who want to follow step-by-step video training, please sign up for the affiliate program and get ready for Monday.

Yaro and Gideon

Gideon Shalwick, the creative talent behind the Becomeablogger.com free video training site, and I have been hard at work the past few months planning an upgrade to the video service.

We’re calling it Become A Blogger Premium.

I’ve been really pleased with the response to the 10 free videos Gideon and I released so far. We’ve received some wonderful feedback from people who managed to set up their first blog who otherwise, for all kinds of reasons (disability, scared of technology, etc), would never have done it. The videos have well over 50,000 views and there’s hundreds of new bloggers now because these videos enabled them to set up their first blog.

However there’s a lot more to successful blogging than the 10 videos we have provided so far teach and we want to offer more. What Gideon and I are doing are combining my strategies and techniques for successful blogging, with his ability to teach in a very clear and simple style using online video.

I can’t reveal much more about the service now, other than it will have a very low entry price so we can help as many people as possible and it will be focused on video training for beginners.

We’re Looking For JV Partners

The key dates for the opening of the premium service are during the first week of December (next month).

We’ve just opened up the affiliate program and Gideon and I would like to invite any marketers or bloggers who have an audience interested in blogging, making money online, speakers, writers or any audience who could benefit from the traffic, credibility and income that a successful blog can deliver, to join as a JV partner.

If that’s you and you want to get on board with my next launch, please sign-up here.

Become A Blogger Affiliate Program

We’re running a JV competition with top ten prizes, with a “home theater” theme. We’ve got a brand new free report for the opening called the Roadmap, which I know your audience will love (and yes, my blog readers, you will get the report too!), and there won’t be any hard sell at all for this opening.

There’s no upsells or downsells or one-time-offer shenanigans – just a great product at an affordable price.

You can get on board as a launch partner and begin preparation for the December release here -

http://www.becomeablogger.com/affiliates/

If You Like The Sound Of This – Stay Tuned

I’ll have more details about Become A Blogger Premium soon. If you want to make sure you are in the loop for all the release details, head to Becomeablogger.com and join the early notice email list for the Roadmap report. Check out the free videos too if you still need to set up your blog or if you want a taste of Gideon’s teaching style.

Thanks and welcome on board to our new JV partners!

Yaro Starak and on behalf of Gideon Shalwick.
Prepping for launch