Affiliate Marketing Programs

One of the best ways to get started with an online business is to try affiliate marketing. The primary reason being that everything is all put together for you and you can just sit down and get started right off the bat with learning how to market a business on the Internet. While some people may balk at the membership fees, they should actually be grateful that this is a small price to pay for all that they will be provided just by virtue of their membership. They will save untold hours and much more money in that, everything is put together already. There is no learning how to build a sales page because the affiliate program will provide one, encoded with the affiliate ID that is associated with the membership. When any sales are made from that page, they will be credited to the member. Additionally the affiliate program will handle the customer service for the member's customers, and process the transactions. So here we see our affiliate is saving time and money again as they do not have to provide either support or a payment gateway which can be very costly. Additionally the affiliate program may provide other resources for their members such as training in Internet marketing, banners and other graphics for advertising purposes, messages, an actual autorepsonder system, and list building mechanisms. It is actually a very fair exchange that a member pays membership fees to compensate the program for the expenses they had in creating and maintaining not only the membership system but the product or service provided by the company as well. This again, greatly reduces the time for a learning curve and development for the member in that they can just walk in and use what is already there, rather than to need to create their own system and product. Affiliate program membership makes it legal for members to profit from the company's intellectual property. It is a very fair exchange that the company may benefit from the advertising and marketing the affiliates do to promote their own businesses to earn commissions. This is why they pay the commissions on top of all they do. The relationship is definitely a win/win all around for everyone. The key however is for the affiliate to realize there is nothing magical about having an affiliate link. They have to really work to make anything happen. They have to learn how to, and then they have to actually promote the link diligently in order to make any money. Nobody will ever see their link unless the affiliate does substantial marketing and advertising over time. They need to be very aggressive about it rather than lackadaisical ("lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly lazy"). So if you are really serious about wanting to have an Internet business, try at least one affiliate program to see what it is all about; then give it a fair chance of at least 90-days where you consistently focus on developing your business. Even if you fail the first time, try another one. The more experience you have the more likely it is that you will succeed. Write ON!

Internet Marketing - Safety in Numbers

Maybe because the competition is great on the Internet, or maybe just because that is the way it has always been, marketing is something that needs to be done aggressively and consistently over time to build and sustain momentum. Marketers can never rest on their laurels because they will quickly fall behind and go to the bottom of the pile. That is one reason that there are many failures in Internet marketing, because people believe they can do something once or twice and that they are going to get results. When they don't they quit trying because they think it is pointless. There is actually a laundry list of reasons why people don't try hard enough and most are avoidable. The reason that you need to keep your volume turned way up when it comes to marketing is the fact it is a bit like 'finding a needle in a haystack'. The majority of people in the world may not be interested in whatever you are selling; but likely there are those who are, and you just need to reach them with the deal they can't refuse! Years ago the number that was bandied about was 1% response rate being acceptable with regard to for example email marketing. There are a number of things that have happened since then that make it more like .01% would be a welcome result. Note that response can mean just a further inquiry and not necessarily a sales transaction or done deal - so the percentage would be even smaller for actual sales. Spammers are still running rampant and as such email services are forced to use spam filters. Unfortunately the spam filters are not as smart as they think and often can't differentiate illegal spam from legal bulk mail sent by legitimate businesses. Hence your message may go to spam and never be seen. Most ethical business would only use permission-based email which means you have to request them to send their publication by 'opting in'. Even that is often blocked by spam filters. So right off the top you are starting at a kind of deficit where you realize some if not most of your mail is going to end up in a spam folder - if you are lucky and it is not just outright blocked from being delivered. On top of that, people being inundated with spam after a while will realize it is futile to try to keep up with it and will stop even opening most of their mail. Hopefully they will recognize your return address and since they signed up to receive mail from you, will fish it out and read it. This is not to say 'throw out the baby with the bathwater' - email marketing is still a major strategy in Internet marketing. What it does mean is again, you need to keep your volume way up to make up for the problems with this avenue. So 'the list' is all the more important than it ever was, because on this list are precious email addresses and names of prospective customers or leads. If you can get them to opt-in to your publication, they are 'warm' leads - not just names on a list (because they did initially respond to your ad) and have thus at least expressed an interest. So the idea is, whatever you do in this regard, whether it is using list builder systems, sending solo ads, or buying leads, you need to realize that you will need many on an ongoing basis. Besides that you will need to remember not to get discouraged or blame the program or product you are advertising if you don't get a response right away. There is no better example for saying you need to keep the volume up and don't stop every day that you are still in business. Write ON!