So you've discovered affiliate marketing, have you? Congratulations! It's a wonderful feeling, isn't it? You are going to be able to make some easy money on the internet. Or so you thought.
If you are into your second or third week of your affiliate marketing career, you're probably wondering why the money isn't rolling in. All of those websites you visited made it sound it so easy. Start a free blog and put some banners ads on it and you'll make a killing. Isn't that what they told you?
I'm sorry if I sound negative. It's just that I've been where you are. I bought into the lies. Hook, line, and sinker. I put banners on my blog. I added text links to my articles. I put my affiliate links in my forum signatures. I commented on dozens of blogs. And nothing happened.
Right now you're probably wondering where I'm going with all of this. You might even be thinking about not finishing this article. I think that would be a big mistake.
You are about to learn what it took me more than a year to discover. You are about to learn what you have to do to make real money as an affiliate marketer. It's not some secret formula, and I'm not going to try to sell you anything at the end of this article.
Some people will still choose to ignore what they are about to read. That's alright, because if everyone paid attention there would be a lot more competition. Experienced marketers and "gurus" would charge you big money for the tips I'm about to give. After you read them, you really won't believe how simple it is. If you TAKE ACTION, that is.
It's not difficult to make a lot of money as an affiliate marketer. As a matter of fact, it's very easy. You just need to have an email marketing list. That's it. That's the secret.
You're probably thinking that you just want to be an affiliate marketer. You don't want to create your own products. You just want to promote the products of others. That's all well and good, but you still need to build a list.
You're probably already writing articles and sending traffic to your blog or some other landing page, right? Great! You're halfway there. Here's what you need to do if you ever want to make a living as an affiliate marketer:
1. Get A ClickBank Account
This is the only affiliate network you need to belong to. They are the best, and they have a great reputation. You are going to pick one product related to a niche that you are interested in and know something about. It will be easier to write articles this way.
2. Purchase A Domain
The first thing you need to do is purchase your own domain. If you don't want to spend a lot of money, you can buy a domain with a.info extension. They are usually less than $2 for a one year registration.
3. Get Some Web Hosting
Nest, you'll need web hosting. All you are going to do is set up a simple opt-in page, so you don't need anything fancy. You need the bare minimum. You need a package that will allow you to register multiple domains and give you about 100-150 MB of disk space. You'll never even use that much. You don't need a database, either. I have a package like this and it costs me less than $2 per month.
4. Set Up A Squeeze Page
A squeeze page is a page that you send your traffic to so you can capture their email address and build your list. From now on, this is where you will send ALL of your traffic. Whenever you write and submit an article, you will send them to your squeeze page. You'll need a freebie to give them. There are several great sites that sell Master Resell Rights products very cheap.
If you don't know how to make a squeeze page, you can buy them already done. There are tons of ready-made squeeze page packs available. I bought a pack of 12 for less than $1 when I first started. You'll need to know basic HTML to edit them properly. If I can do it, anybody can.
5. Set Up An Autoresponder Account
The next step is to get an autoresponder account. There are several high quality autoresponder companies online and the average cost is about $20 per month. Autoresponders automate the email process and ensure that you only send emails to those who want them.
6. Write An Autoresponder Series
You'll need to write a series of at least 10 autoresponder messages to send out to your list. You can schedule when these are sent out. I send mine out 3 days apart. The first 5 messages should contain nothing but useful information. First you give, then you ask for the sale.
You shouldn't even hint at selling anything until at least the 5th or 6th message. If you aren't a writer, outsource it. The series should be aimed at selling a particular ClickBank product. Use common sense here. If your opt-in page is giving away a dog training ebook, don't try to sell these people a fly fishing product. All of your messages should work up to the sale until the final email. The last email is when you will make your pitch, or "hard sell".
7. Drive Traffic To Your Squeeze Page
Once you write and set up your messages, your only focus should be driving traffic to your squeeze page. The autoresponder will do the rest. Occasionally you can send out a special email blast to your entire list, telling them about a new product, giving them an ebook, or holiday wishes.
Article marketing is the most effective, and cheapest way to send quality traffic to your squeeze page. I'm not going to go into article marketing in detail in this article, but I will give you an important tip: Only submit your very best articles to the directories. Your content should be helpful and deliver on what the article title promises. That's the very best way to get the reader to click through to your squeeze page.
In Closing:
It shouldn't be hard for you to understand how powerful this strategy is. It runs completely on "autopilot". This is something that took me almost a year to figure out. Do you want to know just how powerful this is? I can give you an idea by telling you that I went from making 3 or 4 commissions per month to 3 or 4 sales per day!
It's not a fortune, but I make a comfortable living as an affiliate marketer. If you want to be successful, it's very important that you set up only 1 squeeze page and promote just 1 product in the beginning. Don't even think about setting up more squeeze pages and promoting more products until you have at least 500 subscribers to your first list.
Jumping around and getting sidetracked is the absolute worst thing you can do. Remember K.I.S.S.? It means Keep It Simple Stupid. That couldn't be more true in this case. Your hosting and autoresponder isn't going anywhere. There's plenty of time. You'll get to a point when you are getting opt-ins every day. Your business will start to run by itself. Then, and only then, should you branch out into another niche.
As I said earlier, most of the people that read this are going to choose to ignore it. Don't be one of them. TAKE ACTION today!
Do you want to learn how to promote ClickBank products effectively using free blogs? Get access to a free 7-part video series at ClickBank Cash Blog Formula.
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