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7 Ways To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions
by Chris Coffman
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Suppose you could launch an online business in the next ten
minutes? Suppose that this business did not require your own website,
dealing with customers, refunds, product development or maintenance?
This is the ideal world of affiliate marketing.
Made popular on
the internet by Amazon.com, marketers can now earn a referral fee for
directing visitors to countless merchants’ website. According to
Forrester Research, affiliate program earnings will represent $53
BILLION of all e-commerce sales by 2005. How could you earn a sizeable
piece of this pie? Here are some powerful tips that would get you
rolling in those big commission checks and laughing all the way to the
bank.
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1. Know what programs and products to promote.
Of
course you will want to promote those programs that will bring you the
greatest profits in the shortest time. There are several factors that
play into selecting such a program. Choose programs that have a
generous commission structure, products that fit in with your target
audience and a solid track record of paying their affiliates on time.
If you cannot recoup your investment, then prune such programs and keep
looking for better ones. There are tens of thousands of affiliate
programs online so you can afford to be picky. This is a case where you
will want to choose just the cream of the crop and so reduce the risk
of losing your advertising dollars.
2. Write free reports or short ebooks to distribute from your website.
Most
likely you will be competing with other affiliate marketers who are
promoting the same program. If you write a short report on a related
topic to the product that you are promoting, then you can distinguish
yourself from all other affiliates. In this report you can provide
valuable information for free with a “recommendation” of the product.
This is often referred to as a ‘soft sell’.
The report or ebook
allows you to develop credibility with your audience and your readers
are more likely to follow your recommendation. There is less resistance
to this type of selling because the prospect doesn’t feel ‘sold’, just
informed. The next step is to make this ebook ‘viral’ by allowing those
who bought the product through your link to ‘brand’ the ebook for their
own promotional use.
3. Collect the email addresses of those who download your free ebook.
Research
has shown that over 60% of the sales of any product are made after the
fifth exposure to the sales message. In other words, most people do not
make a purchase on the first solicitation. You may need to send your
marketing message over six times before a sale is made. This is the
reason why you should collect the contact information of those who
download your report. You can then follow up on these contacts to
gently remind them to make the purchase.
4. Never send prospect directly to a vendor’s website without collecting their contact info first.
Affiliate
marketing is ideal but not perfect. You must keep in mind that you are
providing free advertisement for the product owners. The merchants only
pay you when you make the sale. If you send prospect directly to their
website then these prospect are lost to you forever. If you collect
these names instead, then you can always send other marketing messages
to them and earn an ongoing commission instead of making a one-time
sale.
5. Publish an online newsletter or Ezine.
It is
always easier to recommend a product to a friend than to sell to a
stranger. This is the philosophy behind publishing your own newsletter.
A newsletter allows you to build a subscriber list and develop a
relationship of trust with this list. Your subscribers will then trust
you to recommend products that will benefit them.
This strategy
requires a delicate balance of providing useful information along with
a ‘sales pitch’. In other words, if you send out frequent advertisement
to your list and little valuable information you are likely to lose
credibility with your audience. But if you write informative editorials
you will build a sense of reciprocity in your readers that will lead
them to ‘support’ you by purchasing your affiliate products.
6. Ask merchants for a higher than normal commission.
If
you are very successful with a particular promotion you should approach
the merchant and negotiate a higher percentage commission for your
sales. If the merchant is smart he or she will likely grant your
request rather than lose you. Keep in mind again that you are a
zero-risk investment to the merchant, so don’t be shy in your requests.
Just be reasonable.
7. Learn to write strong Pay Per Click (PPC)
ads. One of the most effective means of advertising online is through
PPC search engines. As an affiliate, you can make a sizeable income by
just managing PPC campaigns on services such as Google Adwords and
Overture. Monitor your campaigns to see which ads are pulling their
weight and trim those that are not.
You can use the ClickBank™
Market Place, for example, and just choose a hot-selling product and
start promoting. Once you are earning a decent return on your
investment then you are in profit! Just this strategy alone can make
all the difference to your commission checks.
Affiliate
marketing is an entrepreneur’s dream come true. Minimum investment,
zero inventory, no employees, no product development—just BIG
checks!
About the Author
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Chris Coffman is the publisher of Net Marketing Daily. Visit
http://www.netmarketingdaily.com for internet marketing news, tips,
articles, and much more!
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Disclaimer
The articles on this Web site are provided for information purposes only.
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site or reliance by any person on the site's contents.
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