17 replies to this topic

[market seeker]

What do you think about affiliate programs

What do you look for in an affiliate program

I think they should be free to join and allow at least 2 tiers and pay by the month.
They should have a phone number that has a live person at least during business hours.

Here are a couple that meet my expectations.


click here
and
click here

[Jill]

Affiliate programs are only as good as the person promoting them. No affiliate program is any good if you simply slap up a page full of affiliate links.

What makes a good affiliate program is one that offers something that fits in with the existing theme of your site.

Personally, I make a decent amount of money each month from selling products/ebooks of others. It makes no difference what affiliate program they use. It only matters that their product is EXCELLENT and that it fits in with the interest of my site visitors and newsletter readers.

IMO, the only way to make money selling affiliate products is to add value to the product. Sell them along with your own products or services, write reviews, and that sort of thing. Remember, you are endorsing the products you are selling. You need to let people know exactly why these products are great.

Most affiliates make zero dollars. They think they can simply slap up affiliate links and the money will roll in. Nope, doesn't work that way.

Being a Super-affiliate, is actually very easy, but it takes a commitment and it takes credibility. Don't even try to sell affiliate products if you don't have both of those things.

(Sorry Market Seeker, I edited your affiliate links to those programs, it was not appropriate, imo, to have you adverstise your own affiliate links there.)

BTW, how do you expect to sell those satellite dishes, etc? You don't really think that you would make any money by posting those links to this site, do you? What are you doing on your own sites to sell satellite dishes? Do you have a site all about stuff that's relevant to satellite dishes? Do you simply use their recycled copy, or do you have your own unique content? Do you add value? Tell us what you're doing to sell them, and whether it's actually working!

Jill

[market seeker]

I thought it was a good deal for anyone looking to get a satellite system. I've been with dirct tv for about 5 years and I have a friend who installs them.

Was I trying to make money off of poeple on this forum? I was more interested in giving the chance for others to make money. And if someone else made some cash then why shouldnt I get a piece.

Do I have a site about satellite dishes? no

In my detail business I only communicate with customers through email. Thats how I schedule for the week. Once in a while I come across a good deal which I include in my emails. I also do some work for other companies where I have access to their email list and do the same thing. With the owners approval I might add. I do SEO for a tanning salon with a customer base of 12,000 and just picked up an RV Park with a large customer base. I have 3 other companies that I'm working on at this time. Most companies don't even realise the potential of email marketing until I tell them about it.

Yeah at $50 a pop I make some good money. But I think this is a great deal for satellite. When I bought mine the system cost me $300 and I had to install it myself or pay some big bucks.

[Jill]

Okay, so let's talk a little more about how one can use email marketing to sell products through affiliate programs.

Can you explain a bit more how you do this?

I certainly use my email newsletter for the same purpose, which is email marketing. But what other ways are there?

Jill

[Peter]

Affiliate programs work, but not by selling the product.

The best example I can think of is this site:

Useless Knowledge Magazine

It is a content site. Does not talk about the products it sells at all. People can send in articles, have their opinions published. The web master simply puts those articles in pages and then sets up a few banners at the side of the articles.

He doesn't try to sell the stuff, he just set up a site that is pretty popular now (in less than a year more than 1200 articles) and the first 8 months he didn't make any money.

Affiliating works, but just like with any other work, it takes time and a lot of work to get the money coming in. There are no quick schemes to get rich.

Best regards,

Peter

[Haystack]

Running a successful affiliate program involves successfully matching the ads you serve to your audience. Not easy.

If you have traffic you want to monetize, it's much easier to make a few bucks by sticking Adsense ads onto the page.

If you have a site related to web marketing, you can make a few bucks by sticking Overture affiliate ads into the content where relevant. They use cj.com to manage their program.

[market seeker]

Mine might be a unique circumstance but here's what I do.

In my detail business I started asking for email addresses about 4 years ago. I found myself spending all of one day calling customers to either schedule or confirm.

I got tired of that real fast so I decided to try email since most of my customers are upscale and own a computor I figured I wouldnt' loose any going to email

I was right, all but two of my customers used email and were very excited about the prospect.

I now have an edge over most email marketers because my customers are expecting an email each and every Monday morning. I also know they would open it each and every Monday morning.

I simply ask a question, Something like Do you need your car cleaned and waxed this week.

I started adding the weather forcast for that week using the little sun graffics from one of the weather sites. I recieved a read good response so I started to add a joke along with the weather and my question. Since most are buisnes people I use alot of Dilbert

Then I started adding a third section which was an add just above my signature. My first ad was for my wife. Since she was in school for massage and needed some training we offered a free massage for all my customers at ther home or office. First come first served. I'll tell you the end result, she never once gave a free massage. Her lowest tip was $30 and now she has a client list of weekly clients.

The same goes with the satellite and some car care related items. I don't try to sell anything. I think of it only as telling a friend about a good product and if they like it I get a little for being observant.

This is the program I use to send emails, I think it's the best deal on the net from what I've seen. http://softheap.com/bomber.html

[Haystack]

Mine might be a unique circumstance but here's what I do.

That sounds like a great list to market to. Based on what you've described, it sounds like your previous success in marketing to that group was the local nature of the advertising. It makes me think you might have some other opportunities worth exploring there. I'm not sure a nationally targeted ad would have a response anywhere near what your wife's business did.

Do you have any nice wine stores in your area? They might be interested in advertising tasting events to your audience.

[market seeker]

I live in Las Vegas, a person can go to any casino to taste wine.

[Haystack]

I live in Las Vegas, a person can go to any casino to taste wine.

That was just a brainstorm of something that might work. You clearly know LV better than I do after a week at the Bellagio.

[Jill]

Brilliant, Market Seeker!

Very smart and innovative.

I wish more people in the "real world" would do the same thing as you have done. I want all my doctors and dentists, and hair salons and whatever to email me. I want to schedule my appts. online. I would be happy to get emails from them when it's time to schedule something, etc., and if they wanted to advertise to me to, that would be fine.

I wonder when the real world is gonna wake up and get with the program. I hate the phone, and I often don't go to the doctors, etc., cuz I don't get around to making appts.

J

[Peter]

So we all want the real world to addapt,.... hmmm that makes me wonder in what world we (here) are living.

Cyber world? Too easy.....

Peter

[market seeker]

Thanks Jill

Well Las Vegas will wake up soon! I'm trying to put together free seminars for business owners. As you know though it's easier said than done while running two businesses and trying to learn SEO. beside that I'm a ninth grade drop out having to play catch up with what I should have learned in school. If I had only known then what I know now.

If anyone has any tips for preparing a seminar and speaking in front of a group I would appreciate any assistance. If anyone in Las Vegas would like to participate in putting together a free seminar for email marketing and SEO I could use some help. No pay involved yet. But there will be plenty of free advertising.

Since I'm doing SEO I would prefere other areas ie. web design, copywriting, etc.
I have a million ideas

here's another I currently use

I hand out approx. 1000 cards a week offering a free car wash wax while advertising my business. I mainly do this for email addresses because I actually have more business than I can handle now.

I have a list of businesses that will give a customer a free car wash when they do business with them.

For instance the tanning salon Im doing SEO for offers unlimited tanning for $199 a year. When a person purchases a year they get a voucher for a free car wash and wax from me $45-$65 value). I then turn the voucher in for cash to the owner of the company and get a new customer and email address. Not only do I see them then every week or two I can send them an ad every week. I've also set the tanning salon up with email marketing. They have a clip board at the front counter to collect email by giving away a free detail in a raffle. The possibilities are endless. Email is like money in the bank, that's for sure.

Edited by market seeker, 10 August 2003 - 04:09 PM.

[Jill]

Your best bet for starting out with speaking opportunities, would be to join your local chamber of commerce, and other local groups like that. They are often looking for people who can speak on Internet topics. This would give you a good place to start and to practice.

Planning your own seminar can be expensive and hard work. You need to find a place to hold it, pay up front to rent it, rent out a projector for your power point slides, etc., etc., plus market it so that enough people show up to make it worth your while.

Definitely best if you can team up with some organizations who might be interested in having you speak to them. Offer to do it free for small businesses...speak to their employees, or whatever. Once you have done it a bunch, you'll see what works and what doesn't, and also get comfortable in front of an audience.

It's very scary the first few times, but if you remember that you know your stuff and they don't, it makes it a lot easier. And every time you do it, it gets easier and easier. I barely get nervous at all any more, and I used to be a HUGE wreck!

Good luck with it!

Jill

[market seeker]

Thanks Jill

I do have a 4000 sp ft warehouse and a big screen I can hook a computor to. The marketing will be the hard and expensive part.

I think I will take your advise though and start small with some organizations and businesses.