Using Your Affiliate Program To Drive Targeted Traffic and Build Opt-In Lists

©2010 Doug Champigny, http://captain-affiliate.com. All Rights Reserved.

When first starting an online work-at-home business, most Internet marketers make two common mistakes with regards to setting up and running their own affiliate program – first, they wait too long to set one up and second, they don’t maximize it’s capability to build targeted traffic and build opt-in lists simultaneously.

So just when should an Internet marketing newbie start their affiliate program? As soon as they put their first product online, whether it be a master resell rights product or one of their own creation. There won’t be a stampede of traffic from affiliates looking to promote your product, but at least you should be able to attract a few and get the affiliate program running.

Using your affiliate program to build opt-in lists is another matter – this takes a bit more work, but also should up your conversion rate noticeably and help those in your affiliate program to make more money from your products.

Normally an affiliate program offers the affiliates banners, buttons, sample e-mail copy, tweets, etc. to promote the products. The latest development in affiliate marketing is to now include funnels that begin with a free gift of considerable value. Upload a free report, e-book, audio, video, etc, and put it behind a squeeze page so people have to opt-in to see it or download it.

That signup puts them into an autoresponder-based e-course that provides more useful information over 10-15 e-mails, along with pitches for the product. Do not use affiliate links in this e-course but just direct links to the salespage, since you don’t want to overwrite the affiliate cookie of the referring affiliate.

This arrangement gives more value to the prospect while giving the merchant more chances to sell the product, and can increase the affiliates’ chances of making the sale and earning more affiliate commissions. And have no doubt – the more money affiliates make from your program, the more ways they’ll find to send more targeted traffic to your sites.

These new affiliate funnels are not hard to set up for each of your products, but it’s easy to see how they’d really turbo-charge your efforts to build targeted traffic and build opt-in lists quickly, since each person who downloads your gift or watches your video is added to your opt-in list right from the start. And getting other to help you build opt-in lists is always a good thing!

About The Author…

Doug Champigny, a.k.a. Captain Affiliate, is a world-famous Internet marketing coach, mentor, speaker and the creator of the PowerStart Marketing 4-week Internet Marketing Crash Course. To learn more about Doug or to book him to speak at your next event, contact him through his blog at http://DougChampigny.com.

Technorati Tags: affiliate programs, targeted traffic, build targeted traffic, affiliate marketing strategies, opt-in lists

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Affiliate marketing is just starting to come into it’s own as a true, professional industry but back in the early days of the web it was different story – hundreds or thousands of affiliates were groping around looking to find what would work – and one of the true victors that emerged from that fray was Rosalind Gardner. Her Super Affiliate Handbook is probably still the best-selling guide to affiliate marketing on the market, and Ros continues to offer help and advice to all affiliates as her own business grows.

In fact, Rosalind Gardner’s Net Profits Today blog is SO helpful that it made my list of Top 20 Internet Marketing Blogs to Follow in 2010! And just today Rosalind posted her Affiliate Marketing Predictions for 2010 – here’s the video:

Be sure you watch the video right through – it runs about 7 minutes. It’s easy to see not only her enthusiasm for the industry, but that Rosalind Gardner is one lady who truly cares about her readers and video audience and is all too happy to pass along the helpful information she’s learned in her years as the Super-Affiliate Queen. And some of the facts she shares here from Forrester Research are astounding – astoundingly great for affiliate marketers, that is!

Do yourself a favor to help your affiliate marketing business grow in 2010 – follow these simple steps right now:

1. Watch the Rosalind Gardner video above;
2. Follow Rosalind Gardner on Twitter;
3. Bookmark the Net Profits Today Blog; and
4. Subscribe to Ros’ e-zine to get regular helpful affiliate marketing tips!

Disclaimer: Sorry, but there are NO affiliate links or sales links in this post. I haven’t lost my edge, so don’t worry – I’m just that big a fan of Ros’ and think her information can really be helpful to EVERYONE that’s in any way involved in affiliate marketing. I PROMISE I’ll have my usual glut of money-making affiliate and sales links in future posts, so don’t abandon the ol’ Captain now, ok?

Technorati Tags: Rosalind Gardner, Rosalind Gardner video, Rosalind Gardner affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing predictions, affiliate marketing advice, online success

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Starting An Affiliate Marketing Business From Home

©2009 Doug Champigny, Captain-Affiliate.com. All Rights Reserved.

Affiliate marketing is the easiest and fastest way for most people to start making money online. And as more and more people wake up to the new economic reality, a work-at-home (WAH) business is very attractive to supplement their full-time income and build eventually into a true full-time work-from-home business of their own!

No one disputes the benefits of working from home, or that an online business is probably the best choice for most WAH startups – and affiliate marketing is the easiest quickest and often least expensive way to start. But just how do you go about starting an affiliate marketing business from home?

The first step is to be brutally honest with yourself – after all, not everyone is cut out to be self-employed, not matter what type of business startup is involved. Are you always ready to learn? Do you have the discipline to set aside time for your business on a regular schedule and not deviate from it? Can you persevere through the tough times when sales and profits are low or non-existent but you still need to invest more time and money? Can you resist pressure & interruptions from our family & loved ones to stay on track during your online time? Are you the type to focus on your own business while online, not getting sidetracked watching videos or playing online games?

If not, you’re wasting your time reading this or any affiliate marketing, Internet marketing or work-at-home blogs – without the discipline, focus and perseverance your attempts will amount to a very expensive and probably not profitable hobby. Sorry, but I’ve seen it time and time again – new affiliates who don’t take direction, don’t put in the effort then wonder why they’ve never made money online – and I DON’T want YOU to be one of them!

Since you’re still reading, I assume you’ve thought it over and decided to put in the effort and time it takes to succeed with your own work-at-home business, right? Then you’re next decision is whether affiliate marketing is the right choice for you…

If your CV, education and/or interests lean toward a career in writing, you may want to start into niche marketing instead – creating our own e-books on various niche topics and marketing those directly. Similarly, if your full-time job is in computer programming, it may be more logical for you to create and market your own line of software instead. While in either case you’ll probably use affiliate marketing as part of your ongoing income strategies, it wouldn’t be the focus of your new work-at-home business.

But if you’re background is in marketing, or you’re just not that familiar with any of this, then you’re probably best off starting with affiliate marketing to get your online business up and rolling… Product creation, salespage creative and design, payment processor, download delivery – all of the technical process is already in place on the merchants site, leaving the affiliate free to focus strictly on the marketing of the product – the fun side of the biz!

Think about it for a minute – every aspect of earning money online, be it Internet marketing, niche marketing, affiliate marketing, blogging, building AdSense sites, offering services, running membership sites or anything else, requires targeted prospects to succeed. So you can think of affiliate marketing as the training ground for success in any online endeavor you eventually want to focus on in your new work-at-home business.

That’s what makes this your best starting point – the greatly reduced technical knowledge required and the superb training it provides for your future evolution online. If you’re looking to start an online work-at-home business, seriously consider starting with affiliate marketing – and then give it your best shot!

About The Author…

Doug Champigny is a world-famous Internet Marketing mentor & speaker and a recognized super-affiliate who has been online full-time since 1996. Be sure to visit his DougChampigny.com Internet Marketing Blog, his Captain-Affiliate.com Affiliate Training Blog and to follow Doug on Twitter!

Technorati Tags: starting a home business, work-at-home, work from home, WAH, working online, starting an online business, affiliate marketing

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