How to earn money online (part-6)
List Building
It's a myth that marketers must have tons of subscribers in order for a mailing list to be worthwhile. Lists with thousands and thousands of addresses on them might sound impressive, but they're often less effective than smaller lists. That's because such large lists are rarely well targeted.
When building a list, it's important to keep your target market in mind. It's easy to fall into the trap of trying to appeal to a broad audience in order to get more subscribers, but that won't help you make sales. If the products you're promoting only appeal to a small market segment, having a lot of subscribers who don't fit into that segment does you no good whatsoever.
Obviously, you need to get targeted traffic to your opt-in page if you want to build a targeted mailing list. That can be accomplished with good SEO, pay per click ads and other promotional efforts. But it's also important to create a squeeze page that will persuade only the people who fit into your target market to sign up.
One way to accomplish this is to give away a digital product that will appeal to your niche to new subscribers. Free gifts will not only help you get subscribers, they will help ensure that those subscribers are interested in what you're offering. If you were giving away a physical product you might get some takers that only wanted the freebie to give to someone else, but not many Internet users will sign up for a mailing list to get an eBook or audio that is of no interest to them. And if they're not interested in the freebie, they're probably not interested in your niche.
When it comes to mailing list subscribers, quality is far more important than quantity. So don't spread yourself too thin and try to attract too broad of an audience. Stick close to your niche, and you'll get the right kinds of subscribers.
Do you have an e-mail list
Once you've started your mailing list, it's time to think about what you're going to do with it. Sure, you're going to attempt to make sales, but how will you go about it? Will you discuss the products that you're promoting in your emails? Will you alert readers to site updates in an effort to get more repeat visits to your website? Or will you send informative articles and advice as a way to build trust with subscribers?
Affiliates frequently include references to products in their emails, along with an affiliate link. This gives the reader the opportunity to buy without having to go through your website. This could work for readers that are already considering the product, but for everyone else it's important to make it easy to visit your website for more information. Link to a full product review if you've done one, or include a link to your site in your signature.
Some marketers update their sites frequently instead of sending a lot of content out to their mailing lists. They might add a new article or review every other week, and then send out an email announcing it to subscribers. This avoids wasting their time if they are not interested in the content, and gets them to pay a visit to your website if they are.
Even if you're not trying to sell directly with your emails, you could include a link to a popular product in your signature line, along with a few words about it. Write the blurb with the same care you'd use when writing a pay per click ad, and try to pique the reader's curiosity. This is a good way to make sales without being too pushy.
Social Marketing A Brief Overview
Over the past several years, the Internet has become more and more social. This has made it more appealing for your average Web surfer. And for affiliate marketers, it has opened up many more avenues to reach potential customers.
Here are some of the social applications that affiliates can use to build back links, get site visitors and build relationships:
Forums – The forum is one of the oldest types of interactive application online. Forums make it possible for groups to have discussions on any topic. Part of their appeal is the ability for users to check the boards at their leisure without having to be in front of the computer at the same time as everyone else.
Micro-blogging services – Twitter is the most popular micro-blogging application. It's a simple concept: users post short messages (140 characters or less) for other users to read. Users can follow the “tweets” of people they know or find interesting.
Social networks – Google Plus and Facebook are two of the most popular social networking websites. They allow users to create profile pages, interact with other users and add them as friends. Features vary from network to network, but you may be able to post photos, video and audio, send messages to other users, join groups, create circles and more.
Social news, media and bookmarking sites – These sites attempt to highlight the most popular news stories, web pages and multimedia on the Web. They are great sources of traffic if used correctly.
Joining forums and social networking groups that are relevant to your niche is an effective way to connect with your target market. But it's important not to just jump in and start overtly promoting your affiliate links. Not only will this annoy the group's members, it could get you labeled as a spammer and kicked out. Instead, join in the conversations and be friendly and helpful. Include a site or affiliate link in your signature or on your profile page, and let members make the decision to click on it without undue influence.
Twitter doesn't allow much space to get your point across, so you'll have to be a little more creative. If you put an affiliate link in every tweet, you'll end up with no followers. If you never promote anything, you'll end up with no sales. The same advice about being friendly and helpful in social networks applies here, but posting an affiliate link here and there won't get you in trouble.
Submitting links to social news and media sites is a favorite traffic generating method of many affiliate marketers. But in order for it to work, you must submit links that follow the rules of the site and will appeal to users. The users are the ones who will vote it up or down, and if you submit links that they find useless, boring or spam, you're just wasting your time.
If you use any of these applications for non-business purposes, it's usually best to start a new account for your affiliate endeavors, as long as the site or network allows it. That way you won't have to worry about coming across as unprofessional. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be yourself when you're representing your affiliate business in social applications. It just means that you should always be the most professional version of yourself.
As an affiliate marketer, you can't afford to overlook the social Web as a means of generating sales. Blogging is a good start, but if you're not exploring other applications, you're missing out on some very effective relationship builders.
Using Affiliate Feeds
Many career affiliates use data feeds to add product pages or links to their sites. Data feeds are database files that contain information about all of a merchant's products, usually including the product name, description, image, price and your affiliate link. Some data feeds also contain other information.
Some merchants make their data feeds available to every affiliate. Others charge a fee for providing them. And some only provide data feeds to their top performing affiliates. Affiliate networks sometimes make all of their feeds available to approved affiliates for a one-time fee.
In order to use a data feed, you'll need a program that can export databases into HTML. Alternatively, you could get a programmer to translate the files into web pages. Either way, data feeds enable you to add any number of products to your website quickly and easily. And by using the latest data feed from a merchant, you can ensure that you list all products that are currently available and none that are not.
There are a couple of different ways in which you can use data feeds. One is to create an online store-type site. You can separate products into categories, and display links to descriptions of individual products on the category pages. You can also add specific types of products to pages with content related to those products. For example, if you have an article about running shoes on your site and you are an affiliate for a shoe company, you could display links to various styles of running shoes on that page.
Data feeds make it easy to set up an affiliate store, or to add links to an existing affiliate site. You can even set it up so that your site is updated automatically if the merchant makes its feeds available on a server. Just remember that the best performing sites include more than just a bunch of affiliate links. Adding some original content will make your site more attractive to the search engines and to visitors.
Call to Action
We've covered some of the most popular and effective ways to promote your affiliate links. But whether you use one, a few, or all of these, there is a simple thing that can have a major impact on your success. And that's the call to action.
Just like it sounds, a call to action is a statement that encourages the reader, listener or viewer to take action. This action could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or visiting your website. But no matter what action is desired, it is imperative that you make it clear to the reader what you want him to do.
All too often, affiliates avoid making calls to action. This may be true for several reasons:
1. They worry about being too pushy. They fear that customers won't like being told what to do, and if they try they will head for the hills.
2. They feel that making a direct call to action will insult the prospect's intelligence. After all, when people read a sales page or pitch, they know that you want them to buy something, right?
3. They think calls to action are unnecessary. They reason that if the prospect wants to buy, he will do what it takes to make the purchase without any encouragement.
4. They're not sure how to make a call to action. Should they say “Buy this now!” or be more subtle about it?
But if you fail to make that call to action, there's a good chance that you'll also fail to make a sale. In this day and age, people are bombarded with so much information that they don't have the capacity to process it all. So if you don't make it crystal clear that you're asking them to make a purchase, it's quite possible that they won't. Even if they are interested in the product you're promoting, they might just think, “Well that's interesting,” and get on with their lives.
How you make your call to action will depend somewhat on where you're using it. Here are a few guidelines for some of the promotional tools you've learned about.
Blogs – Blogs are more about building relationships than selling. Calls to action are still important here, but they should be a bit more subtle than they would in a sales letter. Instead of asking readers to buy something now, mention products and include a link. Advise them to “Click here for more
information” or something to that effect.
Content sites – Since content sites are less personal than blogs, there's no harm in cutting straight to the chase when asking for the sale. If you've provided solid, relevant information to the reader, a powerful call to action will entice him to check out what you're offering, not turn him off.
Videos and podcasts – If you're doing a video blog or podcast, it's usually best to stick with the same type of approach you would use with a text blog and not be too pushy. But if you're creating videos that are clearly promotional, there's nothing wrong with squarely asking for the sale or opt-in.
Email – In email newsletters or announcements, it pays to be rather obvious about your intentions. It's just too easy for the reader to close the email and forget about it, or worse yet delete it. Making it a point to directly tell the reader to buy the product or visit your website to learn more will pay off.
Social networks – With few exceptions, blatant promotion is not allowed in social networks. But you can include a call to action in forum signatures and on profile pages. One technique that's generally well received is using a teaser to entice readers to click the link and learn more.
Twitter – Calls to action on Twitter may be subtle or overt. But unless your Twitter account is geared toward motivated buyers or deal seekers, it's not usually a good idea to include a directive to buy something very often.
Don't be intimidated by calls to action. They've been used in sales letters and other promotional materials since their inception, so there aren't many people who will find them offensive. And if someone already has some degree of interest in what you're offering, a little nudge certainly won't change their mind. It will just push them in the right direction.
You Get What You Deserve
Since the Internet became available to the average person, there have been lots of people looking for ways to make easy money online. And there probably always will be. But in life, there is no free lunch. This is just as true on the Internet as it is in the “real” world.
Affiliate marketing does present the opportunity to make lots of money. And once you get started with it, you can maintain that income without a huge amount of effort. But finding a niche, selecting affiliate programs and doing what it takes to effectively promote the products takes some time and effort. When those who are looking for a free ride discover this, they are ready to throw in the towel.
But if you're serious about making money as an affiliate, you can generate great wealth. Those gurus that are making so much really aren't much different from the average Internet user. They just had the determination they needed to seek out great affiliate opportunities and work on their promotional efforts until they got it right. We can learn a lot from their experience, but we still have to do our part to find what it takes to make it in a given niche.
You don't necessarily have to make affiliate marketing a full-time pursuit in order to make big money. But you must have patience, and you must be willing to work at it. If you can use a computer, you can make a good living with affiliate marketing. Do not let getting off to a slow start deter you. Let it be your motivation for finding the best programs and promotional methods!
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