Advanced Affiliate Marketing – 7 Ways To Increase Affiliate Marketing Commissions

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

One thing every affiliate marketing business owner wants to do is find ways to make more money online, yet the truth is that most have overlooked one or more of the most common ways, or have simply stopped using some of the basic promotional techniques that made them successful in affiliate marketing to begin with. So even though you’ve reached a successful advanced affiliate marketing plateau, make sure you’ve neither missed nor forgotten these 7 affiliate marketing tips.

1) Always be building your opt-in lists. Building an opt-in list is usually the most profitable affiliate marketing strategy in terms of both making money online and the highest earnings for time invested. Affiliate marketing newbies often wait too long before building an opt-in list, and affiliate marketing pros often let it slide to lesser prominence in their marketing mix. Either is a major mistake – start building an opt-in list from day one, and never let it slip to secondary priority.

2) Use affiliate marketing blogs as your home base online, and drive as much targeted traffic as you can to your blogs and squeeze pages. Use your opt-in list to drive your affiliate marketing leads to affiliate offers, but use all of your other traffic-generation strategies to get people to your blogs and get them onto your list – turning that targeted traffic into affiliate marketing leads on your opt-in list is the way to build your business most securely.

3) Stay tightly focused on your niche. Yes, you will see great offers on products and services in other niches, but don’t confuse your readership by jumping all over the place. They count on you to be the expert in one tightly focused area, not to inform them of every good product available online. If you want to start promoting products in a different niche as well, create separate affiliate marketing blogs and opt-in lists for each different niche. You know what your affiliate marketing leads are targeted towards, so stick to just that niche every time you contact them.

4) Before promoting any service or product, consider whether it would truly be helpful to the majority of people on your opt-in list. Too often affiliates start basing what they promote on what they can potentially make from that offer instead of what’s best for the prospect. Long term success comes from helping your affiliate marketing leads find the solutions to their problems, not from trying to get them to spend as much as possible.

5) Try to achieve a good price-point balance in your affiliate marketing promotions. Remember that many of the people on your list may not be able to afford products or services costing hundreds of dollars, but also realize that you aren’t going to achieve your dream lifestyle on $2.98 commissions, either. Keep a balanced mix of free, low-end, mid-range and high-ticket products in your affiliate marketing stream to help everyone reach their goals, yourself included.

6) Network heavily, both in person and on the social networking sites. In every industry there’s some truth to the saying that ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’, and affiliate marketing is most definitely an industry where this holds true. From learning new strategies to being amongst the first to hear about new affiliate marketing opportunities and big joint venture launches, having friends in the business is a necessity to be successful in your advanced affiliate marketing activities.

7) Re-invest in your affiliate marketing business. If you’re serious about becoming a super-affiliate you need to operate your affiliate marketing as it’s own business, not just as a hobby or another job. To keep moving forward you’ll need to re-invest a percentage of everything you’re making online. You’ll need various new software programs and memberships, new tools and resources for building your lists, additional hosting for your growing empire, and you’ll need to upgrade your computers every couple of years. Plus, to get known a lot better and meet the people who can help you take your business over the top, you need to attend the live industry events as often as possible and network with the big dogs, plus get into coaching programs or hire a mentor to help you move up faster.

And here’s a bonus tip for you… Do a time audit on yourself every so often to see how much time online you’re actually spending building your affiliate marketing business and how much is just time frittered away on other pursuits and interests. If you’re planning on replacing an 8-hour a day job with your own online home business and to make double, triple or ten times what that job paid, you’d better be willing and able to spend a focused 8 hours a day or more on building your affiliate marketing business. After all, if it could be done in just an hour or two a day, why would anyone do anything else for a living?

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Super-affiliate marketing mentor Doug Champigny has plenty of free advanced affiliate marketing information for you on his Affiliate Marketing Training blog, or you can learn the processes directly under his tutelage through his PowerStart Affiliate Marketing Coaching Program. And be sure to introduce yourself to Doug Champigny when he makes one of his many live appearances onstage at a marketing seminar, conference, convention or workshop near you!

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Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing business, advanced affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing leads, marketing online

List Building For Making Money Affiliate Marketing

©2010 Doug Champigny. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Whether you’re looking to start a home business, earn a little extra income using affiliate marketing or considering affiliate marketing work for an outside company, building a list is of prime importance to your success.

But to make affiliate marketing pay, it can’t just be a generic list of people in general – you have to make sure it’s a list of targeted prospects, people you already know are interested in your niche and hopefully in buying products and information you’ll be recommending.

Currently there are two main ways marketers are using to build opt-in lists – by getting involved in joint venture giveaways and by offering a free incentive to those who sign up. The incentive is usually a free download of a report, audio or video that contains worthwhile information relevant to your target niche. The tighter your gifts’ focus the more targeted an affiliate marketing lead it will produce, since only those interested in that information will bother to sign up and download your gift.

Don’t make the mistake of using single opt-in, where the person fills in the form and gets instant access – you have no way of knowing if they entered a valid e-mail address or not. And if they entered someone else’s e-mail, you’ll be guilty of spamming if you start sending your affiliate promotion e-mails to that address.

Most autoresponder companies these days are set up for double opt-in, a system that protects you from that scenario. Once your prospect has filled in the form, an e-mail is generated to the address they gave asking that they click to confirm their intentions. Only once the person clicks that link are they then forwarded to the download page, thus verifying they really are a legitimate affiliate marketing lead who has given you permission to e-mail them.

Once you have that gift signup system, known as ’squeeze pages’, in place, use the Web 2.0 sites and the business networking sites to let people know the gift is available. Web 2.0 sites like FaceBook, MySpace and Twitter have millions of users and usually include target market prospects for any given niche. You’ll find it’s much easier to draw traffic from these sites and the business networking sites with links to free downloads or videos than it is to get people to click on your affiliate links there.

Once that much of your affiliate marketing work is complete, considering adding an affiliate marketing video or podcast to your blogs and the video and podcast directories. At the end of the video or audio, invite your audience to download your free report on the subject – this can add some powerful juice to your affiliate marketing list building efforts, and will stay in place long-term to attract an ever-growing number of potential leads for you.

Once you’ve started building your list, send them regular e-mails to warm up your prospects. Focus on strong, related information that’s of help to your readers, and place your links where they fit the natural flow of your letter. As your list grows and your readers get used to you and your style, you should start to see your affiliate marketing pay rising as your readership does – just keep repeating the process above to get there faster!

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If you’re ready to start making money affiliate marketing or are already an affiliate but not making what you should, be sure to check out the professional Affiliate Marketing PowerStart coaching program created by world-famous super-affiliate mentor, coach and speaker Doug Champigny. Take a moment now and visit http://www.Affiliate-Marketing-PowerStart.info for information on the coaching program!

Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing pay, making money affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing list, web 2.0 sites

Using A Blog As Your Affiliate Marketing Web Site

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

One of the most powerful tools for affiliate promotion is your affiliate marketing web site, and with today’s online technology a blog is usually your easiest and best choice.

Self-hosted WordPress blogs are easy to set up, easily updated and can be indexed in many directories beyond the traditional search engines automatically. This makes doing SEO for your affiliate marketing web site much easier and lets you focus that much more of your time on other affiliate promotion strategies.

Building a money-making blog using affiliate marketing involves everything from the ads in your sidebar to the topics you write about. By keeping all your posts targeted to the particular audience you’re targeting you can build a following and start to warm them up regarding the products and services you’ll be offering them in your affiliate promotion.

Further, you can use ads and posts to drive targeted traffic to your squeeze pages and opt-in forms, thus building your affiliate marketing list at the same time. This dual purpose – building your list and demonstrating your expertise within your target niche, will constitute the bulk of your affiliate marketing work online, and can go a long way towards making affiliate marketing pay for you.

Your affiliate blogging also gives you a home base online, a great place to drive targeted prospects to from your article marketing, podcasting and affiliate marketing video efforts. While your site is designed to be a traffic magnet on it’s own, sending additional web site traffic to it using these techniques and the various Web 2.0 sites that allow business networking will help a lot for making money affiliate marketing.

Using affiliate marketing to make money online, especially with your own affiliate marketing web site, is one of the most common ways to start a home business – and setting your site up right, hooking it into the various Web 2.0 sites and using strategies like Twitter affiliate marketing to drive targeted prospects to your web site should make your affiliate marketing pay that much sooner.

Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing web site, affiliate promotion, using affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing video, Web 2.0 sites

Affiliate marketing has always been the easiest way to get started making money online, but it’s getting even simpler to start your own affiliate marketing business online…

Now don’t misunderstand – it still takes time, effort and money to get going, but at least the current trend is evolving toward ‘push-button simple’ resources that could really ramp up your affiliate commissions while shortening the learning curve dramatically. When I first started online full-time over a dozen years ago, you had to learn it all – and all on your own. No experts existed yet, and we ‘online affiliate pioneers’ had to pretty much make it up as we went along.

And while there are obvious advantages to being a ’senior statesman’ in affiliate marketing, the fact remains I REALLY wish that today’s tools had been around back then, that someone else had blazed the trails and already created these powerful resources so I could have just focused on making money online!

So what would I have done so differently? First, I wouldn’t have built over 150 websites – in fact I probably wouldn’t have built ANY static sites. I’d have focused instead on driving traffic to squeeze pages, both to build my lists and to build my affiliate commissions.

Now we know the best way is to offer a free report to attract targeted visitors who opt-in to our lists to download the free report. That gives you the virtual real estate on the confirmation page and download page to pitch your affiliate links, plus puts the targeted prospects into your pre-written e-course designed to sell them into that and other products, all on auto-pilot. You have to get the traffic to that squeeze page – the rest runs automatically.

But writing that report, setting up that squeeze page system and then writing the followup e-course still sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? And dealing with the autoresponders, squeeze page hosting, etc, just adds to it, right? Well Cindy Battye and Soren Jordansen thought so too, so last year they came out with ClickBank Pirate, a service that looks after all of that for you, leaving you free to just focus on driving the quality traffic to the video squeeze pages they set up for you. A MAJOR step forward towards making affiliate marketing push-button simple!

A huge leap, especially for those just starting an affiliate business – no need to learn HTML, PHP, FTP or any other refugees from their alphabet soup – they could simply sign up, get their links and go to town with it – and many new and experienced affiliate marketers have done just that and done very well by it – myself included!

But for experienced marketers who aren’t lazy (we’re a small but important group ), it wasn’t yet perfect… You see, while Soren & Cindy do a GREAT job at the automated followup – and the Captain doffs his cap to them for it – the fact remains the list is on THEIR server, under THEIR control. Yes, they keep putting new offers out to the people, ALWAYS using YOUR affiliate link, but then it’s not you who decides which offers to promote, and you have no way to promote your own products to that list. Hmmm…

So this year they developed an additional resource, much like ClickBank Pirate, that both goes great as an additional resource to CBP and addresses that issue too. Affiliate Silver Bullet gives you that many more squeeze pages to send people to, but also gives you the choice of having them host & run it all or downloading the components and running it on your own webspace, building your own list through your own autoresponders. And with services like Hosting4Marketers offering both hosting & autoresponders for just $20 a month, it’s really no big leap to choose that option once you have a bit of experience – experience easily gained pushing the ClickBank Pirate and Affiliate Silver Bullet pages they’re already hosting for you!

That makes that whole end of the biz push-button simple – but now what about the traffic-generation aspect – what’s new to help you build traffic, especially targeted traffic so vital to your affiliate marketing success?

First, you need a home base – your place on the web, your affiliate marketing base camp as it were. Once again, it’s become push-button simple to set up your own affiliate blog, thanks to the WordPress software and Alex Sysoef’s free secure blog installer – in fact, take the $17 upgrade there and installing blogs becomes a one-button simplicity – and that’s as push-button simple as you can get!

Turning that new blog into a powerful and profitable affiliate marketing blog IS NOT push-button simple, however – but don’t despair because at least it’s a lot easier than it was until recently. Mike Paetzold is an expert at all things WordPress and has been affiliate marketing for years now, and he’s recorded a 10-video set of step-by-step how-to videos on affiliate blogging called Profitable Blog Steps. While it doesn’t do the work for you, at least it shows you what to do, from researching your topic to picking your affiliate programs and CPA programs to creating your posts!

Even then, things like automating your sidebar advertising have become simple, using the new services like Jeff Dedrick’s Automated Traffic, which lets you choose various ads for affiliate products from ClickBank and then rotates them for you each time a new visitor hits your blog – sweet, eh?

Beyond that, article marketing, podcasting and video marketing all attract more traffic, more recognition and more signups, which is why we teach all 3 in the PowerStart Internet Marketing coaching program. And social media sites have become another major source of targeted traffic, and therefore affiliate commissions. Use guides like my Advanced Marketing on Twitter to learn the best and fastest ways to draw traffic from those sites. Use Squidoo, HubPages, and write Google knols – use my affiliate marketing knol and Internet marketing knol for examples.

So while affiliate marketing success as a whole isn’t push-button simple just yet, many parts of it now are and great guides exist for the remainder – check out the resources listed here and use them to help you build or start an online business of your own today!

About Captain Affiliate:
Captain Affiliate is the affiliate marketing alter-ego of world-famous Internet marketing mentor, coach and speaker Doug Champigny. Keep up online with Doug through his:
• Internet Marketing Blog;
• Internet Marketing Coaching Program;
• Affiliate Marketing Coaching Program;
• On Social Media Sites: Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, EzineArticles, LinkedIn, iTunes;
• Or catch Doug speaking at a Live Internet Marketing Event near you soon!

Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing, push-button affiliate marketing, simple affiliate marketing, starting an online business, starting an Internet business, Internet marketing, Internet marketing speaker Doug Champigny, marketing mentor Doug Champigny, marketing author Doug Champigny

http://www.automating-traffic.com is in pre-launch right now, and to entice people to join their early notification list they’re GIVING AWAY great software for affiliates looking to build a money-making blog.

Since you’re reading this column, chances are you already know that making money with blogs is best done with affiliate marketing, and that’s exactly where this free software comes it – it lets you choose from a number of top ClickBank products in your niche and set up banner rotation – with tracking. This means that the banner changes with each visitor, rotating between those you chose to display. Your tracking will show you which attract the most clicks, allowing to drop under-performing ads and pump up the ones that are making you the most money.

And unlike the banner rotators of yesteryear that only handled 468×60 banners, these include those, 125×125 buttons most favored by bloggers, 250×250 buttons and various other sizes. These are all professionally designed graphics designed to generate the highest volume of clickthroughs, and will be updated as time goes on to ensure rates remain as high as possible.

But what hasn’t been announced is when the service will stop accepting free members, so I apologize if you’re reading this post at a future date and they’ve moved to a paid model – all I know for sure at this point is that as I write this, you can still get into the program and use the resources for free by going to the Automated Ads information page.

Whether you’re a serious online marketer, a marketing hobbyist or just someone who loves to blog, not taking the 5 minutes to sign up and then 2 minutes to set up your ad campaigns could mean you’re leaving a lot of money on the table – both when blogging and when building static sites. Watch the Automated Ads video that explains the service and then decide whether this great new free service is right for YOU and YOUR online activities, ok?

Technorati Tags: Automated Ads, affiliate marketing, ClickBank affiliate marketing, free affiliate marketing software, free software, free resources, blogging for money, money-making blogs, make money blogging

Today’s Affiliate Silver Bullet launch sets a new benchmark for affiliate marketing resource sites – that is, sites that provide ongoing services to affiliate marketers for a monthly fee.

Until today, the best was ClickBank Pirate – they provide you with a new video squeeze page to promote each month, supply the free report your prospect downloads and deliver the autoresponder series to sell the prospect into the affiliate product you’re promoting. Everything is done for you – all you do is send traffic.

So it’s no wonder that the new benchmark is being established by Cindy & Soren, owners of CB Pirate – they’re the same service providers behind Affiliate Silver Bullet. At first blush, ASB seems to be the same, and in fact DOES provide everything that CB Pirate does. But there is ONE major difference that experienced affiliate marketing pros will notice right off…

With your Affiliate Silver Bullet membership, you can choose each month whether to let them host it for you and run the e-mail series or to download it all and put it online on your own site. This is a huge improvement, as running it on your own site means YOU own the list it generates, people are opting into YOUR autoresponders, and as a result you can follow up with them about other related products down the road.

And THAT, my friend, makes all the difference in the world to anyone trying to establish or grow their own work-at-home affiliate marketing business online – now you’re able to build opt-in lists while building your commissions, giving you potential earnings immediately and much great potential earnings as each month passes…

Get hooked up with Affiliate Silver Bullet today at http://www.affiliate-silver-bullets.com – head over there now and take a look at everything included in your new affiliate marketing package!

And if you’re not already an expert in affiliate marketing making 4-5 figures a month from it, be sure to sign up for our next round of Affiliate Marketing PowerStart coaching classes – enroll now to start the 8-week program on June 3rd!

Technorati Tags: Affiliate Silver Bullet, Affiliate Silver Bullets, Affiliate Silver Bullet explained, affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing powerstart, affiliate marketing coaching, build opt-in lists, work at home, business online

Super-Affiliate Success Strategies is the name of the free affiliate marketing training webinar I’m hosting this Thursday night at 8pm EDT. You have to register for the free affiliate marketing training in advance, so hit the link and reserve your spot now!

You see, this webinar is going to be packed with great content, very valuable content for anyone from the complete affiliate marketing newbie to seasoned affiliates already making 4 or 5 figures a year online. In fact, there’s so many top super-affiliate strategies to cover that the replay and transcript of the webinar will only be available as a paid product – meaning being at the event on Thursday is the ONLY way to access this information for free!

Even better, unlike a teleseminar, a webinar lets you attend by phone OR online, so as long as you have your internet connection and are registered for the event, you don’t even need to dial in – just go to the link the system sends you once you register and attend the event online!

If you’re looking to make money online with your own affiliate marketing business, this webinar is a must-attend – and if you’re already affiliate marketing but not able to live on your affiliate marketing commissions, this event will open your eyes to the steps you’re missing. Take a look at the Super-Affiliate Success Strategies page to see everything I’ll be covering on the webinar…

If you’ve missed the event and are reading this later, you’ll still want to hit that page and get your copy of the recording – there hasn’t been another affiliate marketing training call like it, so you’ll want it both for your own education and for the master resell rights that purchasers get with the recording and transcript.

Either way, be sure to visit the site right now and get in on this powerful affiliate marketing training – I mean, you DO want to learn how to make more money online, right? And just when was the last time a recognized super-affiliate offered to show you strategies for free?

See you there!

Technorati Tags: Super-Affiliate Success Strategies, affiliate marketing events, affiliate marketing, webinars, affiliate marketing training, super-affiliate Doug Champigny, Captain Affiliate

Have you taken your affiliate marketing out of the dark ages yet? You know, back in the day when successful affiliate marketing simply meant putting a banner ad on your site and sending out an e-mail? Wow, are those days long gone!

Let’s jump to the bleeding edge of today’s affiliate marketing – are you using VIDEO yet? Every super-affiliate is – but are you? Video is the most powerful tool in your marketing mix right now, so you’d better be…

Unless, of course, you’re willing to settle for scraps over and over again…

Now if you’ve been a long-time fan you know the Captain is a firm believer in online video – from the videos tools package I launched in 2006 to the present, video has been a part of both my Internet marketing and affiliate marketing mix.

Sure, everyone’s pushing video at you lately – but how many are walking the walk? Talk’s cheap online… So let’s start by establishing my street cred in video.
We’ll ignore my making TV commercials when Teri & I owned our ad agency because there’s no online samples, and we’ll leave out my glamour videography because it’s not pertinent to affiliate marketing – even if it IS pretty… LOL

So let’s see…

I already mentioned the Internet Audio Video Pro bundle – but it’s worth checking out if you want to see video of me when I still had short ‘corporate’ hair.

Then there’s my book on podcasting and video blogging – It’s You, Live! Oh yes, and the one called Creating Your Own Videos – pretty obvious what that one’s about…

And not to leave my PLR following out, there’s Converting PLR Videos – a video training series ABOUT editing PLR videos…

OK – so far, that’s all about TEACHING video marketing – but what about USING videos myself?

Well, products like that PLR videos course, my PLR Tutorial videos and the training in my PowerStart Marketing Coaching Program are all video I created, engineered and produced myself…

I know, I know – that’s teaching others how to make and edit videos, and using video for product creation – but you want to talk affiliate marketing, right?

First, think back – I used videos on my blogs to promote ClickBank Pirate here, here, here and here.

Next, look over in the sidebar to the right of this post – see the 5 videos in the Viddler widget? All videos I used to promote the Affiliate Jump launch.

Oh yeah – and I’m not above using other people’ videos in my affiliate marketing strategy either – like the one from Super-Affiliate Rosalind Gardner or the one from iFlash Video that I posted to my Internet marketing blog today…

You get the point, right? Yes, I’m a video expert, and yes, I walk the walk every day – using video to create products, to create training resources, to brand myself world-wide and to stay a super-affiliate no matter what the competition is up to. I can count on one hand the marketers who’ve done more with video than I have, out of the hundreds suddenly extolling it’s values.

Next week I’ll be teaching my PowerStart Marketing students how to create and use videos in their online marketing – the same classes you could be taking in March. Or, you could rush over and get on the pre-launch list for the new iFlash Videos deal – next week they’re going to open their site for JUST FOUR DAYS to let some smart marketers get a custom-made video commercial every month for $50 – and YOU get to tell THEM what the commercial is for!

Why just $50 I don’t know – I wouldn’t create videos for others for $500. Why should I when they make me more than that in affiliate commissions? But I do know Jason Anderson, and I can vouch for his abilities with video – they already make similar videos for ad agencies for a lot more money.

Be smart – book your custom videos each month as soon as the site opens by getting onto the advanced notice list now…

And start using videos in your affiliate marketing mix while it can still help you get to the top – instead of later when you need it to keep from being crushed!

Technorati Tags: affiliate marketing videos, videos for affiliate marketing, affiliate videos, iFlash Video, Jason Anderson, PowerStart Marketing

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

How To Create A Sustainable Work-At-Home Affiliate Marketing Business Through Recurring Commissions!

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

When first starting out in affiliate marketing online, most new marketers make the same mistakes – they throw up a few banners and expect to earn great income, they tweet about a new e-book that’s just come out, they post in forums with that affiliate link in their signature and hope for the best.

While each of those and similar methods may or may not create sales and result in some commissions coming in, none of them are leading toward a sustainable online business model. In order to build a strong, well-oiled affiliate marketing endeavor, it’s necessary to focus on residual income, not simple one-off sales promoted once or twice.

Most successful individuals in the field look for services to promote, services with on-going billing that then pay recurring commissions. Some of the most common of these include web hosting, membership sites, services like autoresponders, etc. These are opportunities that tend to be used by the widest section of your target market, and as such have the highest potential income for you.

It’s simple to see the power of this – if you promote an e-book and it sells, you make your set rate – say 50%. But if you’d sold a site hosting package to someone and they kept their site there for two years, you might have made that same commission 24 times! Retention rates vary by the type of site, with hosting and autoresponders usually keeping their clients longer than the average paid membership site does.

If you promote a site with a retention of 1+ years, for example, and can generate an average of 5 sales per month, you’re being paid for 5 sales the first month, 10 sales the second, 15 sales the third, etc. – you’re still just selling 5 sales per month, but the renewals keep building if the people stay with the service. Likewise, if you stop promoting that service today, you’ll receive a declining amount from your renewals each month, but could potentially go on to receive income from it for a year after you moved on to other projects.

Now don’t pass up on hot opportunities that spring up along the way, but be sure to focus most of your efforts on recurring income possibilities to try and bullet-proof your online business… It’s the best way to make sure your time, money and efforts invested are best reflected in your affiliate marketing success!

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 marketing, affiliate marketing business, affiliate marketing success, recurring commissions, residual commissions

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

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

In Internet marketing and affiliate marketing there are a lot of ‘personalities’ – but very few true giants. One obvious exception, a true ‘giant’ in online marketing, is Stephen Pierce. If you’ve never experienced one of his live events, his live training, sign up right now and watch this Stephen Pierce video for free!

To see the video for free, you’ll be signing up for the notification list for Mike Filsaime’s launch next week – not for the product, just for the notification list. And that’s big too, in it’s own right!

You see, next week Mike is doing the biggest of the “Free + Shipping” releases that’s been done this year. He’s going to give out copies of the 7 Figure Code DVDs for Free, and Stephen’s video is from that set.

In June or July 2008 I personally paid $497 for these videos – and it was well worth it! It’s 16 sessions with some of the biggest names in the biz. But don’t take my word for it – watch the free Stephen Pierce video and you’ll see how great these videos are for yourself.

Most important to keep in mind is that this will only be available til he launches next week – so go watch your free video now!

Technorati Tags: free video, free Stephen Pierce video, Stephen Pierce training, free 7 Figure Code, Mike Filsaime videos, 7 Figure code videos, 7 Figure code specials

I ran a series on The Power Of Free In Affiliate Marketing here on the blog back in September – if you read it, you’ll remember I said the game had changed suddenly, and that Free was going to be the new buzzword for successful affiliate marketing. And boy, has it ever!

Take, for instance, UK marketing golden boy Lee McIntyre – the teacher who retired young and built an online business into the 6-figures a MONTH range. He’s currently letting his VIP affiliates give away the videos of his ‘Inside Out / Upside Down’ Internet marketing training bootcamp just to make more people aware of his various coaching programs and products.

Now this may not seem like a big deal, til you realize the marketing bootcamp was just held in August, so the info is extremely current – and that those attending live paid $997 a seat to hear this same training! Just pay for the DVD to be shipped to you and you get the full bootcamp on video, without flying to the UK, paying for the hotel & meals or paying the $997 to get in! Think I’m kidding? Get your marketing bootcamp DVD right now from Lee and see for yourself!

Or take another example – Mark Hendricks’ Internet Super Stars Conference being held in Orlando Florida in January 2010. This is one powerhouse event – so much so that even your ol’ Captain hisself is going to be speaking on Power Start 2010, then running a hands-on workshop to get Internet marketers and affiliate marketers up to speed FAST in January. (Hope I’ll get to meet you there and help YOU more directly!)

Anyway, as part of the lead-up to the event, Mark is holding a series of webinars with the speakers to show how much value there is to the event and demonstrate that each is a true expert in our respective fields. Each of these webinars could be a standalone $97 product, yet Mark has created a Free Membership level and is allowing full access to the recordings plus live access to the remaining webinars as they happen. And there’s absolutely no obligation to attend the event – the free members get access to these pre-event recordings whether they’re attending the event or not.

Naturally I hope you’ll come to the event and meet me, tell me about your online activities to date and let me offer you some free advice on how to quickly kick it up a notch – but even if you can’t make the event, at least get the free recordings to listen to!

Technorati Tags: Power of Free, free videos, free recordings, affiliate marketing, Internet marketing, gifts

There are a number of ways to make money with affiliate marketing. Some use articles, some do videos or podcasts, blogs are always a great idea, and your opt-in mailing list should always be your biggest source of affiliate marketing commissions.

But just WHAT you’re promoting makes a big difference too – for example, a one-off sale is usually much easier to make than selling someone into a membership, while a membership sale can mean good repeat (residual) commissions. In most cases the higher the price tag the higher the commission payable, but most affiliates find the difficulty goes up in proportion to the item’s price.

Once in a long while though, a different type of affiliate offer surfaces, as evidenced by Russell Brunson’s 12 Month Internet Millionaire 2.0 This is one you want to jump on right now, because the opportunity only lasts ONE WEEK.

From now until November 11, 2009, Russell is sharing his seminar from StomperNet that details how he went from 6-figures a year to 8 figures a year – heady stuff, and definitely a great watch for every Internet and affiliate marketer! And he’s letting you watch the video for free!

More importantly to affiliates, though, is the affiliate offer that goes with it. As soon as you sign up to watch the video you’ll be given an affiliate link of your own, and Russell is paying out $1.00 for each person you refer that watches the free video.

Did you catch that?

The $1 per person is paid to you for those you refer to the free video – not for anyone buying anything! So you’re making money without any sales taking place! Why would he do something like this – pay YOU for sending viewers who may not buy anything?

Next Wednesday, Nov 11th, Russell is launching version 2.0 of Russell Brunson’s 12 Month Internet Millionaire, and he’s counting on converting enough of the free leads to make back his money – and pay our commissions on those sales as well!

So not only do you make money if they eventually buy, but you’re ALSO making money online just by sending people to that free video – a free video that will teach viewers a LOT about how to structure their business to make a lot more money over the next year or two.

And that, fellow affiliates, is the easiest way to make money as an affiliate – by sending people to a free resource that will truly help them. And in this case it’s even easier, since you’re making money just for them watching the video – whether they buy later or not!

But again, this whole Pre-Launch only lasts 7 days, so get your affiliate link NOW and get it out there today! No matter how easy a promotion might be, you’ll never make any money online if you don’t take action! After all, my affiliate link to this promo is throughout this blog post, so I’m just suggesting you do as I do if you want to make more as an affiliate marketer!

[tags]affiliate marketing, making money online, Russell Brunson, 12 Month Internet Millionaire, work-at-home

Jeff Dedrick’s Send Button Profits launches today, and this launch really shows off The POWER OF FREE in a launch – in fact, Send Button Profits takes The POWER OF FREE to a whole new level!

In yesterday’s post, I documented all the Free Pre-Launch Gifts Jeff Dedrick was giving out as part of this launch – training videos, an e-book, video squeeze pages, etc – just to announce his upcoming site and to get people onto his advance notification opt-in list…

OK – so that much isn’t all that new, it’s been that way on the big launches all summer – Resell Rights Fortunes, Affiliate Jump, ClickBank Pirate, etc. And each of those launches has been successful in spite of the recession, in large part thanks to The POWER OF FREE in their pre-launch affiliate promotions. So what makes Jeff Dedrick’s Send Button Profits so different?

AT SEND BUTTON PROFITS, THE PRODUCT IS FREE TOO!

That’s right – the site is launching with the main offer being about $5,000 worth of products, training and services for free – buyers just pay the shipping charges of $10 or $15 to have it shipped to them!
Of course, there are upgraded levels you can order, from monthly memberships all the way up to coaching with Jeff Dedrick & Liz Tomey, plus incredible OTOs for 100 or 200 e-books, but the greatest value to most Internet marketers is the information in the package they get free – including 9 webinars that pack one heck of a lot of information you can put to use right now!

There really isn’t anything more to say, other than affiliates will also love the brandable e-books, pre-written ClickBank product e-mails and opt-in pages there – but you’ll have to explore the various options and services yourself to see what, if anything, you want to order other than the free bundle – THAT’S a must-have for Internet marketers & affiliate marketers alike!

Captain Affiliate (left) with Jeff Dedrick of Send Button Profits

And in case you’re wondering, I’m not just hyping this based on what I’ve been told… Since Jeff & I are friends and The Captain’s a well-known super-affiliate, I’ve had free access to the site for the last couple of weeks to poke around inside and check everything out. Jeff figured if I saw what’s in there and what it can do, watched the videos you’re getting and played with the software you’ll have access to, I’d be excited enough to promote his launch heavily – and he was right!

Go ahead, right now, and order your free package – there’s only 3,000 in the first production run, and almost 20,000 on the announce list, so those who hesitate will have to wait til more are printed. You already know the advantages to being in their first, so secure your free copy right now!

But here’s the real power of this – get in right away, grab your affiliate link and get it out to your own opt-in list, blog about it, tweet it and start making money from the site right now – do it right and you just may cover your costs to take the full OTO, the monthly membership, etc.

Son’t wait til the site’s been running for 6 months or a year – get in now and get the word out so you can benefit from it directly as well!

Technorati Tags: power of free, Jeff Dedrick, Captain Affiliate, Send Button Profits launch, Send Button Profits pre-launch, Send Button Profits downloads, free downloads, free resources

See The POWER OF FREE In A Live Pre-Launch Right Now!

©2009 Doug Champigny – All Rights Reserved.

Earlier Posts In This Series:
- The POWER OF FREE In Affiliate Marketing – Part One
- The POWER OF FREE In Affiliate Marketing – Part Two
- The POWER OF FREE In Affiliate Marketing – Part Three

The timing on this one couldn’t be better – a mega-launch by Jeff Dedrick, one of the best-known Internet marketing superstars, that uses The POWER OF FREE heavily for his pre-launch promotion!

Tuesday was the start of the 1-week pre-launch, and by Thursday over 7,000 people had opted in already – and that should at least double by the time of launch this coming Tuesday! Take a look at Jeff Dedrick’s Send Button Profits pre-launch page, then continue on here…

It started on Tuesday with a free Internet marketing report and a dozen free video squeeze pages. Not content to let it rest at that, on Thursday Jeff changed the free offer to the current video which shows 9 Ways To Make Money while Building Your List. Powerful info indeed, and available for free when you opt in to the site.

He didn’t get rid of the free report & squeeze pages though – after the video viewers are invited to download them directly from Jeff Blog, so they get the video and the other two gifts – talk about overdelivering value and paying it forward with Free resources!

And even then, while the pre-launch is just one week long, Jeff still isn’t finished with The POWER OF FREE – he changed it up with YET ANOTHER FREE GIFT Today (Sunday)! The new announcement in this video is so powerful and amazing you should watch the video right now!

So Jeff has truly hammered The POWER OF FREE with this pre-launch, tying it in with over-delivering every step of the way. First he offered the report but gave both it and the squeeze pages; next he’s currently offering the free video training but also giving the first three gifts, and again there’s still another surprise coming…

He’s firmly entrenched in people’s minds that he over-delivers, and has given them value worth hundreds or more for free. And as each new gift is added he invites those who’ve already signed up to come get the new gift too, getting marketers into the habit of returning to the site every few days. And in return he’ll have built a new list of over 20,000 action-taking marketers in one week – how many marketers can lay claim to that?

But to truly maximize the benefits from The Power Of Free, Jeff recruited a number of the biggest names in Internet marketing to help him promote the pre-launch and the launch itself. How did he get us to send him all these leads? By offering up well over $10,000 worth of prizes for sending specific numbers of opt-ins during the pre-launch period.

And THAT’s another important power-tip: Notice that Jeff’s JV bonuses aren’t a contest, and they are for opt-ins. The former is important because your partners are just trying to reach their own goals, not competing against others – which means even newer marketers have a shot at winning prizes. Too often they’d look at a contest and think ‘I’ll never beat those big guys to be in the top 5′ and you lose the potential traffic from that partner.

The latter is important too – by rewarding them for opt-ins you’re being fair – if it’s based on the number of buyers then your own conversion rate plays too big a factor in whether people get to their desired prize level or not. If a big dog sends you 3,000 leads but you only convert 10 people, you’ll leave a bad taste in your partner’s mouths… They won’t be happy with just 10 sales anyway, but a $500 or $1,000 gift for getting you those 3,000 opt-ins sure helps to ease their pain…

Now chances are you can’t afford to put up $20,000 or $30,000 worth of prizes like Jeff did, but you can still find prizes more suitable to your current level. Think in terms of the same ratio Jeff is using – $20-30k to get a list of 20,000 – that’s $1.00 to $1.50 per subscriber. Assuming in the launch itself he’ll make say 50¢ per subscriber, that means he only needs to make 50¢ to $1.00 per subscriber to make his investment back – which can easily be done in 2-4 months. Then he’s still got the bulk of the list and everything from there on is profit!

And one final tip for you before I close this post off – think like the big dogs in everything you do! If Jeff just considered what he’d make during this launch, he wouldn’t have had as big-ticket prizes, wouldn’t have had as many partners, and wouldn’t have gotten as many subscribers or sales. Instead he looked at the lifetime value of each subscriber and upped the ante while still making sure he’d profit from all this as time goes on. Don’t ask yourself ‘Will this make me some money today?’ – ask instead ‘Will this make me a LOT of money over time?’

Head over now and get into Jeff’s stream and watch the rest of the launch – you’ll love what this site has to offer you, too!

Technorati Tags: power of free, successful launches, pre-launches, affiliate marketing, Internet marketing, Jeff Dedrick, send button profits

The POWER OF FREE In Affiliate Marketing – Part Three

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

Earlier Posts In This Series:
– The POWER OF FREE In Affiliate Marketing – Part One
– The POWER OF FREE In Affiliate Marketing – Part Two

OK – so far we’ve looked at The POWER OF FREE as used as an incentive for the big Resell Rights Fortunes launch, and as used for ongoing prospecting with the free WordPress SEO Blog installer and Mike Paetzold’s free WordPress Q&A. Today let’s look at another way sites are using The POWER OF FREE to help their members on an ongoing basis – this time by creating new free reports each month.

Chances are you already know a lot about using products with Private Label Rights, but in case PLR is new to you, having Private Label Rights means you get the original source code for a product (e-books, videos, audios, etc.) and can alter them as you wish, add your name as the creator of your altered product and so on. As a result, these are usually the most expensive form of rights you can buy for any given product – in fact, most don’t even offer them.

So it comes as no surprise to me that people are flocking to join Mike Steup’s Niche Audio Club. Mike runs a great membership there where paying members get a new audio e-book every month, along with the transcript in e-book form, the site to sell it from and more. But Mike also has a free level of membership where members get just the e-book in text version with PLR each month.

This benefits the free members by giving them a new niche e-book to customize and sell each month, and it benefits Mike by giving him a large free membership base, the more successful of whom will eventually upgrade to his paying service to increase their offerings and profits each month. Mike pays it forward by giving away new free PLR e-books each month, then is rewarded with new paying members as they see how high-quality his materials are and how much they can make with them.

This next example is a completely different animal… Regular readers of this blog know that ClickBank Pirate is one of my favorite new sites, both to promote as an affiliate and as a user of their services. CBP differs from Mike’s site above in that their services are only available to paying members – so how are they using The POWER OF FREE? That’s the key to what they do for their members each month…

As a paying member, each month you get one or more new ClickBank products to promote as an affiliate. CBP provides a free report for you to give away for free that’s related to the product or it’s niche, and designs the professional squeeze page and follow-up system to help you sell the ClickBank product to your prospects – all you do is drive targeted traffic to that squeeze page.

Here’s a few samples of the type of free reports they provide, and the squeeze pages they design for them. Take a look at at least a couple of them so you get the idea (don’t worry, they open in a new window so you don’t lose your spot here):

• Commissions Blueprint

• Free Website Builder

• Micro Niche Finder and

• ClickBank Pirate itself.

Go ahead and take a look at those if you haven’t yet – you’ll see how professional the squeeze pages are and how the reports are in line with the product being promoted. If you go ahead and grab the free resources there you’ll also find that they are professionally written and first-quality all-round.

So in this case, instead of the members getting free resources, members make their commissions by referring people to free reports THEY can download. A neat twist on The POWER OF FREE, don’t you think?

So in these first three posts on The POWER OF FREE you’ve seen how various sites are using free gifts and free services as incentives to build sales, and how this can benefit you as an affiliate. In the next post I’ll give you concrete steps that you can take right away to put The POWER OF FREE to work for you in your own online marketing starting right away! Be sure to bookmark this blog or subscribe to our RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss it!

Technorati Tags: power of free, free incentives, free gifts, affiliate marketing, membership marketing, attracting members, online marketing, work-at-home marketing, ClickBank Pirate, Niche Audio Club, Doug Champigny, Captain Affiliate

The POWER OF FREE In Affiliate Marketing – Part Two

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

In Part One of The POWER OF FREE, we looked at how the recession spawned a sudden change in affiliate marketing and how the Resell Rights Fortunes launch was the first to capitalize on the changes. Today let’s look at how smart online businesses are using The POWER OF FREE to their benefit on an on-going basis…

While I’m a pro-blogger with a number of blogs I author, no one can keep right up to speed on every aspect of every area of online marketing, so for advice and a heads-up on WordPress issues I rely on two close friends who specialize in the technology, Alex Sysoef & Mike Paetzold. Both are close friends I first met at JVAlert Live events and have developed a deep respect for over the years.

Neither being shy about freely sharing their expertise, Mike runs an excellent free WordPress Q&A on BlogTalkRadio each month, while Alex is letting you download his free Expert WordPress blog installer, which he provides along with the training videos on how to use them.

This fits right in with one of the important points we made in Part One – the ‘free line’ has been moved, and today your free gift HAS to be something that’s of obvious value, something that proves you’re an expert in your field, and something you could easily be selling for a good buck if you had chosen to.

Do these two qualify? Of course they do! In Mike’s case, he’s giving you direct one-on-one access to his encyclopedic knowledge of WordPress – and his experience in using blogs to further develop his own Internet marketing and niche marketing efforts. Access to that level of expertise is often restricted to high-end coaching programs, yet Mike fields your questions for free through his show.

Alex’s Expert WordPress fills the bill too – plus has the added bonus of being unique! I’m not aware of another blog installer available, free or paid, that also installs the plugins you need for the full search engine optimization (SEO) effects for each of your blogs. Alex could easily charge $97 to $197 for the installer, with a $100 upsell for the SEO package – yet he lets you download the software for free!

Like the free incentives we discussed yesterday, both Alex and Mike have helped move the free line by giving away resources you’d have had to buy before the recession. But what’s more important is the differences between today’s examples and yesterday’s. While the Resell Rights Fortunes gifts were set up specifically for a big launch, Mike & Alex have created free resources that draw in targeted prospects day after day and will continue to do so for months, or even years, to come.

The upside to them is obvious – building their opt-in lists, branding themselves worldwide as WordPress experts and having the opportunity to pitch their wares to a growing circle of influence. And unlike launch bonuses, these gifts work their magic long-term.

But that comes at a price… When it’s just for a launch you create your gift and it’s done. Ongoing traffic-generating gifts aren’t usually that simple, as these cases in point demonstrate. Mike has to stay on top of every WordPress update and give of himself and his time every month to prepare for the call and actually host it, and Alex has to monitor changes to WordPress and the plugins and be sure he updates both the software and the instructional videos as often as necessary to keep it effective and cutting edge.

If you’ve used WordPress for more than the last 15 minutes you’ve probably already had at least one update to attend to – so you can imagine how much time goes into maintaining those two free resources. Not a problem when you’re being paid to keep up, but to do all that to maintain something your give away for free takes a special dedication and a true desire to help as many people as they possibly can. Kudos to them both – from me, and on your behalf as well!

The benefits to those availing themselves of these free resources is immediately obvious to all, and now you see how it helps Mike & Alex and what’s involved in maintaining their free resources. But what’s in it for you, the affiliate?

Most importantly, by promoting products from marketers like Mike and Alex you know you’re promoting true experts in the field. And not just experts – but DEMONSTRATED experts your readers will have no trouble identifying as experts. And you benefit too, by association with the best in their field.

Secondly, you know that customer service before and after the sale will never be an issue – no one puts that much effort into attracting quality targeted traffic just to blow them off with bad service. Not having to wonder about how many refunds will come after the sale is a big plus for ANY affiliate promotion… In affiliate marketing we work too hard for our commissions to sit back and watch them evaporate after the fact!

And third benefit is more intrinsic, but no less important… Big Dog Marketers like Alex & Mike who put that much into products & services they simply give away aren’t fools – they test & track everything they do to be sure they make the most of their time online – and FROM their time online. Think they put any less effort into testing, tracking and tweaking their products and salespages?

Obviously not… So while that doesn’t guarantee you’ll make a fortune in commissions every time they launch a product, or even that every product will be a hit, it DOES mean chances are you’ll make as many sales as possible for their products, given your prowess at driving targeted traffic and how tightly focused your prospects are to the products you promote.

And finally, have you considered creating a high-valued resource like these in support of one of your best ongoing affiliate marketing opportunities? Pick ones with recurring income potential that won’t go out of style or become outdated – say hosting or a membership site – and create a service or product like these to keep a steady stream of targeted prospects seeking YOU out for a change!

So to sum it up, in Part One you learned how The POWER OF FREE makes you more in JVs and affiliate promotions during site launches, and today you’ve seen two simple ways to use The POWER OF FREE as ongoing tools for your own sites or as affiliates.

Next Up: In The POWER OF FREE In Affiliate Marketing – Part Three we’ll look at a couple of sites that have added a viral component to their POWER OF FREE resources to make them even more valuable – see you then!

To your Profitable Affiliate Marketing…

Doug Champigny
http://Captain-Affiliate.com

PS – Before leaving today (but after hitting the Retweet button above )be sure to download Alex’s free Expert WordPress installer and bookmark Mike’s BlogTalkRadio show. After all, might as well get as much benefit as you can from being here today, right?

And speaking of which, be sure to leave your comments as well – both to help me be sure you’re getting all the info you need for your successful affiliate marketing, and to get yourself the one-way backlinks to your site. Naturally, this IS a ‘DoFollow’ blog!

Enjoy! DC.

Technorati Tags: power of free, affiliate marketing, new affiliate marketing strategies, affiliate marketing mentoring, making money online, work-at-home profits, doing business online, Doug Champigny, Captain Affiliate

The Power Of FREE In Affiliate Marketing!

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

Affiliate marketing has changed since the onset on the global recession. Not just evolved, but changed suddenly, leaving many affiliates behind and confusing a lot of newbies who are seeing their confidence eroded as the techniques they’ve been taught fail time and again.

Understand this right now: If your affiliate marketing strategies are based on information more than a year old, on tactics people still teach from a few years ago, or on methods you’ve been using for years, your commissions have dropped significantly or been completely wiped out, and your efforts going forward will be increasingly less effective.

If you’ve been in the biz for more than a couple of years, you don’t need me to tell you your affiliate commissions have dropped – either you’re working 3 times as hard now and accepting a lowered lifestyle or you’re looking for a full or part-time job to supplement or replace what was a full-time income until recently.

If you’re new to affiliate marketing and following advice from one of the gurus or super-affiliates who are still milking their success from a few years back, as most are, then you know you’re not experiencing nearly the results they told you you would, even though you’re following their instructions to the letter, right?

Well, fear not. For all the changes, there are still more affiliates making more money online today than ever before. But the business has both evolved continually over the years and changed suddenly a few times…

When Teri & I started affiliate marketing 12 or so years ago there was very little competition. A simple banner at the top of a page on your website pretty much guaranteed traffic to your affiliate link, and thereby some commissions each month. When we started blogging 5 years ago, a graphic in the sidebar drew traffic and a blog post could simply be the first half of the text from a salespage, followed by your affiliate link to that page – and it got results.

Search engine optimization was easy because the directories told you the truth about how they rank websites, whereas today you only need compare any search results to what they state are their ranking criteria to know you haven’t been told the truth, either intentionally or by lies of omission.

By now, I’m sure you’re wondering about all this… How can what I’m saying be true when it flies in the face of what most of your tutors, guides and mentors are telling you?

There’s a simple test – compare what they’re telling you to what you see actually going on online. Have they released a new product in the last 6 months? Not a Master Resell Rights product, but one they actually wrote? Do their blog posts teach you instead of just selling you? And most importantly for affiliate marketing – are you still seeing their names on the leaderboards of various JVs and affiliate launches?

On the other hand, some have been giving you valuable advice all along, but for the most part it’s been too vague and general for most people to integrate the ideas into their strategies. The most valuable information you’ve been given vis-a-vis the current state of online marketing is:

1) Pay It Forward.

2) First Give, Then Collect.

3) Teach your audience so they know WHY they need the product you’re recommending and HOW to use it once they have it.

But the question was always ‘Just how do I implement that in my daily activities?’

Let’s start by taking a look at some of the biggest launches this summer…

In June, Resell Rights Fortunes launched – and as an affiliate marketing opportunity, I think this was the best launch so far this year. Not only did we make more on this launch than any other, but so far the residual commissions have added another 40% to what we made on the launch!

So how was the launch made so successful? First, Socrates created two powerful videos showing relatively unknown ways to build your opt-in list faster. He put them online 2 weeks apart, allowing his launch partners 2 weeks to send traffic to each video, and cookied each visitor for the affiliate. Then he added in a short e-mail course that gave them more powerful information without pitching anything.

When the time came for the launch, he already had a new 5-figure opt-in list of marketers from those promotions, and he did his best to convert as many of those leads to sales as he could to help out both the affiliates and himself.

To keep the JV partners and affiliates motivated, he ran TWO contests during the pre-launch – one for the most referrals during the whole pre-launch and another for the last few days of the pre-launch. We took home a notebook and a flip cam from those two contests, so obviously we were happy with it – especially since those were on top of 4-figure commissions the first week the site was open.

So let’s take a look at how the POWER OF FREE made this a successful launch:

From the Site Owner’s perspective:

Socrates put more into making this launch successful than any of the other events we’ve promoted. First, he gave away thousands of dollars worth of prizes to his affiliates and JV partners – prizes based on pre-launch opt-ins, not on sales. If the launch had flopped, he’d still be on the hook for all of the prizes.

Secondly, for the new prospects he gave away the content of those two videos – powerful list-building strategies he could easily have turned into a product and sold. Yet by giving them away free, he both built his opt-in list and demonstrated his expert status to the visitors his partners sent to the site.

From the Affiliates’ perspective:

We were able to warm up our lists, blog readers, Twitter followers, etc. to the site by offering them not a product for sale or a membership to join, but instead by sending them to free information on how to build their lists faster. Since everyone in online marketer always needs to be building their opt-in lists as quickly as possible, this was a very powerful free gift we could give them.

Then, two weeks later there was another video showing them yet another way to build their lists. Not only did those who visited the first video return, but an almost-equal number of additional people went to watch the second video, and were able to watch the first video as well – Socrates invited them to view the first video as part of his followup sequence.

Then Resell Rights Fortunes launched – a new PLR and MRR membership site, launched at the height of the recession when most membership sites where losing members in wholesale fashion… The result?

Resell Rights Fortunes launched with over $100,000 in memberships sold the first week! Granted, if it hadn’t been (and still is) the best site for marketers to get their PLR and MRR products, with innovative search technology that makes the site much quicker and more profitable for members to use, the launch wouldn’t have been as hot – and we certainly wouldn’t be making as much in residual commissions because the members wouldn’t be staying as long as they are.

But even with the best membership site and the highest member value online, the site still would have flopped – or been very small – if it hadn’t been for the free resources that Socrates used to attract targeted prospects, and the free gifts he made available to his affiliates and JV partners during the month-long pre-launch. And the affiliates who promoted the launch wouldn’t have had nearly the success we did if we hadn’t had those free videos to send people to in the first place.

THAT is the POWER OF FREE in affiliate marketing. No longer is it enough to just send people to a salespage to make your living, and no longer can site owners expect to have big sales without paying it forward by offering both solid, valuable information for free upfront and using that free information to demonstrate their expertise in the niche and assure people they’re not buying into one more source of overused and rehashed material.

That’s it for today – next post I’ll show you how the POWER OF FREE is being used by Expert WordPress, ClickBank Pirate and the Niche Audio Club to benefit their members and their affiliates on an ongoing basis – tune in then!

To your Profitable Affiliate Marketing…

Doug Champigny,
http://Captain-Affiliate.com

PS – If you’re not already a member of Resell Rights Fortunes, be sure to check it out today – I’ll be showing you how to use it effectively to boost your affiliate commissions in the new affiliate marketing paradigm and how it lets you master the POWER OF FREE strategies with ANY affiliate marketing promotions you get involved in. Watch for those posts coming soon – same profit time, same profit channel!

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