![]() "For the Real Truth About Business on the Web" |
| May 21, 2002 | ISSN 1530-8863 | |
| Volume 17 | Editor: Jeanne M. Pritt | editor@profitzone.com | Issue 173 |
Looking for a past article? Browse our Features Archive! --- FEATURE ARTICLE --- "How To Maximize Your Affiliate Sales!"by Wes Blaylock |
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Here are my favorite tricks to promote affiliate programs and make some quick and easy cash! 1. Promote your list, not the program directly. I always get asked "I have X amount of money, what is the best way for me to promote this affiliate program". My answer is always the same. If you only have a certain amount of money to work with, then don't promote any program directly, build an opt-in email list. What if you have $300, promoted one program and didn't make 1 sale? You would be flat broke with nothing to show for it. But what if you took that $300 and promoted some sort of opt-in email list where you got 1,000 email address. Now you have the ability to promote multiple programs to those people, and surely bring back some sort of income. It doesn't have to be a newsletter where you write an article every week. An opt-in email list can just be an "updates" letter where you simply promote certain things. I have a friend who has a list of 80k subscribers and does nothing but send solo ads about new affiliate programs he has joined. He makes $10k+ per month doing this. Sure, it took him time and money to build that list, but he is surely benefiting now, and like I said, he just sends solo ads to the list. That's it! He probably could make more by actually providing valuable content to those 80k subs, but he doesn't want to. So start a list, any kind of list. Get their email address and promote your affiliate programs that way. Your advertising dollars will go a lot farther. 2. Use a mini site. With mini sites you can do many things. Mini sites are more or less lead in sites to affiliate programs. A simple example is that you can have your endorsement on your mini site for the affiliate program, and then a link that goes to it. That endorsement from you will in most cases increase sales for the affiliate program that you are promoting. Simple! But, there are many other uses for mini sites. You can capture the visitor's email address and then send them to the affiliate program site. You can use exit or on entry pop ups to promote other affiliate programs, etc.. I am not knocking promoting affiliate programs directly, meaning to buy an advertisement to promote your affiliate URL. Many people do this very effectively. But, if you are low on cash, or need to get more out of your advertising dollars, then these tips are the best way to go. As for one last tip; If you already have your own products, and/or newsletter, look for places to plug in affiliate products for a simple way to increase cashflow. Maybe at the end of an autoresponder course, or an exit pop up on your site, or create a spot in your newsletter to plug a new affiliate program, whatever. There are usually many places where you can plug an affiliate program right into your existing marketing and instantly increase cashflow with minimum work. See you at the bank, Wes Blaylock Copyright 2002 by Wes Blaylock. All rights reserved
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