Sample Content Preview

Introduction

Good old affiliate promotion, the lifeblood of many businesses: underestimated or ignored by many more. In this manual, I want to take you on a journey through the inner workings of a well-oiled affiliate program. We’ll talk about everything from the importance of running such a system, through to getting affiliates promoting when you want them to, and some stats for you to have a look at that will squash any doubt that this is one of the most profitable aspects of online business, and I’ll make sure to get at least one interactive quiz in there to make things a more interesting read, and to test your knowledge. Even if you don’t have an affiliate program set up for your own business yet, give it a shot. Skim over it at least. It’s not hard to understand or set up once you have the facts, not to mention the mighty profit potential it puts at your disposal. So, grab a cup of your favorite drink, sink into your most comfortable chair, and let’s get started.

Overview of Affiliate Management

? To give you up front knowledge about how to effectively and profitably maintain your business’ affiliate system before the first affiliate even lands on your doorstep.
? To demonstrate how powerful affiliate marketing is, and why no marketer should be without it.
? To look at some figures of product sales and profit both with and without affiliate programs functioning. How effective is this? You decide.
? To open your mind when it comes to setting your commissions and understand the concept of reaping resources being far more powerful than any small percentage you can keep from your affiliates.
? To discuss the inner workings of affiliate sales through commission level setting for your business, taking into account the money making power you're going to build for yourself.
? To show you how to overcome the problem of affiliates not promoting your products for you.

Effective Affiliate Program Management

Welcome to Effective Affiliate Program Management. I wrote this for one reason, and one reason only, and that's to show you how to maintain both your affiliate system, the affiliates contained within it, the offers you send them, and how to get the most out of all of the above. Also, I’ll be talking to you about what not do to with them, why they're so important and some of the reasons that affiliates and affiliate systems are often underestimated or seen in a negative light from the perspective of program owners looking solely at their short to medium term profit. One thing I will say is that It’s important to acquire and consume this knowledge at the earliest stage possible for reasons we’ll discuss shortly. Even it isn’t your top priority at this particular moment, you’ll be able to see just how powerful affiliate marketing is and why you should start planning before even launching your products.

What You Won’t Find Here What you won't find here is any technical talk on how to install scripts, which scripts to use, coding, how to make them look pretty or anything like that, because if you haven't already guessed, we're a purely practical marketing theory based guide (proven and tested theory that is), and not a techy guide, or a dressed up marketing guide that overlaps into these categories to make the manual look bigger.

Setting the Scene - Displaying the Power Lets take it from the top. First up, how do you define an affiliate program, or affiliate system? A system in which an owner or licensee of a product allows people outside of his or her own company to promote for them for a percentage of the commissions. Pretty much everyone online uses this resource to their advantage, because lets face it, it's far easier for 100 people to sell 1000 units of a product than it is to have one person sell a thousand units of a product. I'm sure it's possible, but we don't have all the time in the world, so affiliates are generally the answer, and should make up a large amount of your business' revenue if you're promoting your own products.

In case you're kind of underestimating the situation, don't have any affiliate system in place, or haven't decided to fully utilize this type of system within your business, let me put a scene to you to make this all crystal clear. Here’s the situation; You're a business owner, you've just launched your shiny new site, which just happens to sell the same product as Mr. X here. Both yours and Mr. X’s product is priced at $500. The difference is you've built yourself up a relatively modest 150 affiliates, and Mr. X is doing all the promotion alone.

Now imagine you each make ten sales in the first month through personal promotion. You both make $5000. Great, but when your affiliates come in, it's easy to see how this figure can double. Now of course not all of your affiliates are going to be heavy hitters, great promoters or even make any sales at all, ever. But lets say just 10% of your affiliates, just 15 of them, make a measly three sales each in that same month at 60% commissions, which I'll set higher than average right now for a reason I'll reveal in a moment.

Pulling out my handy calculator, I can tell you that through those three sales from a small percentage of your affiliates, you've just made an extra $9000, bringing your total to $14000 for that month. You're laughing, and poor Mr. X. He was one of the many marketers out there that didn't take this type of affiliate marketing seriously, or didn't see any real profit in it. Meanwhile, you've just pocketed in a month what it takes most of my friends in regular jobs to earn in four or five months, often longer. Cool huh?

Why Don’t You Set It Up? - I Asked Them. So now you can see how important this is, never ever let anyone tell you it's not worth spending the extra money on the set up of an affiliate program, made even easier nowadays by the plethora of software and solutions available to you as an online business owner. ”So why not set one up? They’re more than doubling my income”, I used to say to my less experienced contacts in the online business world. Ask yours the same question if you like and see what they say. The reasons they'll give you when you ask why they hold their negative opinion on this subject, more often than not will be that in their experience hardly any of their affiliates promote. Well, they’re not wrong, it varies from business to business, but many affiliates don't bother to promote, or sign up meaning to and forget, or just don't have their resources built to a point where they have the promotion power to make the sales. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't still grab them at every opportunity, as you can see here from just that small example above, just 10% of affiliates promoting, making a small (very small) amount of sales each can easily double, triple., quadruple your income and sometimes even more. Looking at these figures always gets me excited. Have you ever seen someone making 40-50, 60 or 100 thousand dollars a month and wondered to yourself how the heck they pull that kind of cash out of their products when you're struggling to hit five or ten thousand a month? Well let me tell you, this is a very big part of it. Don't miss out, or you might find yourself just getting by instead of extremely comfortable where income is concerned.

The second reason you might be told that having affiliates promote for you is a waste of time and effort on your part, is that they're hard to find. It's another one of those little niggly things, like the list craze going on all around us. In general the more responsive your list, the more cash you're going to make out of them now and in the future. This is exactly the same. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're making a mistake putting a successful affiliate program high on your list of priorities, even over making direct sales.

Sample Content Preview

Why Build Free Membership Sites?

What’s not to like about a free membership site?

Internet marketers, email marketers, and Internet entrepreneurs of all stripes are quickly finding the many, many advantages to opening a free membership site for their customers and potential customers. Even savvy and well-established Internet marketers who have paid membership sites are jumping on the free membership site bandwagon because they can see the obvious advantages.

Paid membership sites are most usually limited to a specific number of members. This means that marketing is limited to that specific number. Limiting marketing possibilities is never a positive thing no mater what products or services are being promoted. Of course, there are obvious reasons for limiting paid membership site memberships but the fact remains that a free membership site can be operated right along side a paid membership site and there is never any reason at all to limit the memberships available to a free site.

Three to six months is about the duration of a paid membership to most membership sites according to many paid membership site owners. Three to six months isn’t very long in terms of Internet marketing. Once a paid member drops his membership, the site owner must then replace him and that can get expensive.

On the other hand, membership cancellations at free membership sites are easily and cheaply replaced. Marketing to the members of a free membership website is absolutely unlimited. You can continue to market to free membership site members for as long as you want to. Free membership sites are easy to run and they cost almost nothing and yet the owner is supplied with an almost unlimited number of customers and potential customers to market all kinds of products and services to.

Let’s face it: Every Internet marketer must now have an opt-in mailing list in order to send bulk marketing emails. That’s the law that went into effect with the passage and implementation of the CAN SPAM act. There is nothing anybody can do about it. If you send bulk marketing emails without the express consent of the recipients, you are subject to very heavy fines and the very real possibility of having your Internet business closed down altogether.

So... why limit your mailing list to just a paid membership site? Why not build a free membership site and gain an unlimited number of names and email addresses to which you have the legal right to send marketing emails? There simply is not satisfactory reason for NOT having a free membership site...at least not one that I can see. Free membership sites are easy to set up and easy to operate. Of course, there must be fresh and timely content but that’s a lot easier (not to mention cheaper) than constantly having to run PPC campaigns or paying for advertising in related E-zines to attract members to your opt-in list and thus gain their permission to market products and services to them.

We all know that visibility on the Internet is one of the basic keys to successful marketing. Getting visibility is one of the hardest tasks that most Internet marketers face from the inception of a marketing idea. All Internet marketers well understand the value of writing and marketing articles and eBooks, posting to blogs and forums that belong to others and doing PPC campaigns, as well as, exchanging links and paying for advertising in E-zines and newsletters.

With a free membership website, you can almost guarantee yourself, not only a long list of customers and potential customers but that others will be willing to pay YOU for advertisements on your free membership sites and advertisements in the newsletters that you send to your very impressively long list.

The shoe will be on the other foot, so to speak. Other marketers will be begging you to download and post articles and eBooks which they have written trying to gain that coveted Internet visibility.

Influence is another sought after and enviable facet of Internet marketing. When an Internet marketer gains influence over even a small group of consumers, they have a great deal influence among other Internet marketers, as well. When that pool of consumers is really large, a marketers influence with other marketers increases in direct proportion to the number of consumers that he has influence over.

With a free membership site, an Internet marketer gains access to an unlimited number of potential customers in his niche marketing area. By keeping his content fresh and timely he will gain influence over the purchases that the members of his free membership make and even when they make purchases and from whom. This is commonly known as ‘clout’.

Paid membership sites usually have limited memberships. If the membership isn’t limited by the marketer, it is limited by the number of people who are willing to pay an annual membership fee... and that number for any niche market IS a limited number.

On the other hand, a free membership site that allows interaction between the owner, as well as, with other members is affordable by everybody who might even be remotely interested in the products and services that the enterprising Internet marketer will be offering to his list.

The cost to members is a big fat zero and it just can’t get any cheaper than then. Those who might well want to join a paid membership site but either don’t think they can afford it or simply don’t want to spring for the membership fees will certainly be able to join a free membership site.

Many Internet marketers who have paid membership sites also have free membership sites. Often those free sites are made up on customers or potential customers who will eventually become members of the paid membership site so it becomes a win/win situation for all concerned.

The bottom line here is that there is simply no reason NOT to build a free membership website no matter what niche market you are in.

You will have the potential of building an extensive opt-in list and there simply is no other way that is as easy or as cost effective out there!

What You Need Before Getting Started

Building a free membership website is just about as easy as falling off a log...well, maybe not quite that easy...but it IS easy. There are so many associated advantages to having a free membership site that the little bit of trouble and expense will be well worth the time and effort that are required.

To get started on building your free membership website you are going to need some tools. The first thing that you will need to secure is a web hosting service. There are actually two web hosting services that are excellent, reasonably priced and effective. You will have choices to make when you visit either of these two websites.

Sample Content Preview

Introduction

List maintenance is one of the most important subjects in online marketing. Your list is your number one and most basic bottom level output for your promotions. It’s expensive and time consuming to gather, but forms one of the most powerful resources and profit potential you have. For this reason, we need to understand exactly how it works. Throughout my time in online marketing, I’ve tried many different formats. There are clear differences that allow some methods to come out on top, while some fail miserably. Depending on your business, there are several solutions that might be right for you. For this reason, we need to look at the big five to allow you to decide which one is going to make you the most cash. Let’s do it.

Overview of List Management – Part 1

? To show you why you need to decide which method you're going to use to maintain your list before you even start building it for maximum positive effect.
? To explain why it's so hard to change mid flow, once you've already started.
? To show that to get people to listen and take notice of you and avoid complaints, there's a few things that you'll need to tell the customer beforehand.
? To set solid goals for your list, and map out where you want it to go in the future.
? To show you how powerful your list actually is to you, and to display how much more earning potential some methods have over others, and how you're going to capitalize on that.
? To introduce the rating system which will be assisting your decision on how you're going to maintain your list when from the moment the first subscriber arrives.
? To talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the first list maintenance type, a standard e-zine or newsletter to your target market.
? To reveal the first of the most powerful list type that you could possibly have in your hands, and how to deal with the subscribers and make the most cash out of it.
Understanding List Management 1

Let’s discuss the various methods of list maintenance that have proven successful for many marketers, and the up sides and the downsides that come with them, because to be totally honest with you, there's no way me, or any other person or guide can ever tell you what’s best in this situation without knowing you, your business, and your future plans, and what you're going to use your list for. Please understand that this is no technical report. I won't be showing you around autoresponders or telling you the best ones to use, or how to use them. No, this is far more important, and will generally form the shape of your future promotions and of course how successful they will become, and in what way. So without further ado, lets get talking about the fundamentals and the type of things you should be looking at for a start. During this guide we'll be looking at how each management technique affects your response rate, your customer loyalty, the amount you earn from your list, and what type of promotion it's suited to, such as your own products, joint ventures or purely affiliate marketing. We'll also take into account the money you can earn

from selling ads to that list, which isn't quite as important as you may think right now. Always Be Truthful

So, lets get started. The number one thing that I need to tell you right now, before we even look at these methods is to make 100% sure that the people signing up know what they're getting themselves into. For example, how many e-zines or newsletters have you ever subscribed to only to find out that they're not actually e-zines and newsletters, just ad lists (which to be honest aren't all that bad in particular situations, but we'll be getting to that in a moment). The choice you make now will shape your business far in to the future, but more importantly whatever you tell your customers and subscribers they'll be getting will shape your response rate considerably, and that's obviously something we'll want to take into account from the very start. So there we have it. Rule number one, never tell your customers they're getting something then deny them that, or send them things that they haven't requested or didn't know about, because not only will that get you into trouble, but it will also affect the loyalty and trust these customers and subscribers have with you, which is so important.

What we’re aiming to build here is a targeted and effective list that has response rates through the roof depending on what you're promoting. Don't forget this also includes affiliates, and may form a large part of your affiliate base. Which brings me onto one more point, before we look through the four majorly used techniques for different types of lists through different marketers. The Role of Your List Should Always be at the Front of Your Mind What's your list there for? Promotion and to allow you to make money from the subscribers selling products that either you've created, or affiliate products in your target market, to build joint ventures, and of course increase your affiliate numbers and quality. But there's one more thing I want you to be aware of. Where do I get all this information? Through ad tracking, true, but my list is also a very important part of this. Listen to Your List & Reap the Rewards I know what to sell to them because they tell me what they want. I know when my websites suck or look plain ugly because I ask them. I know what they're interested in buying, the most effective headlines and language to use when typing out ads in relation to my list, who are in effect my target market. So you see, again we're promoting not just for profit, but to learn

valuable lessons at the same time. Your list provides as much useful data as your advert tracking, no matter how small. This Is your key to developing a successful business that is aimed at your target market, and creating a sales system that works, not just in your eyes, but in the eyes of the people that are most important to you. And that's your customer, the person who at the end of the day is going to make you a whole lot of money if treated right. So here's the deal. Ask. Don't feel stupid about sending out mails to your list that aren't adverts, or that might seem like random babble to you. To them, not only will they feel closer to you personally, no matter what technique you use below, (which in turn will have them reading more often) but it'll give you really important results about you newest product, your website or even an idea that you have for a product that you'd like feedback on before you even start. Use your list in this way.

Promote to learn, not to make a profit, and you'll end up with far more cash at the end of the year than if you just assume, guess or don't bother (Which seems to be many marketers out there). Don't be one of them. Get the knowledge you need to succeed from your customers before they even hand you their money. It works wonders for you, your reputation, your knowledge and your pockets. Ask your list if you're not sure. It's so powerful that it'd be a complete waste if not utilized properly. If you're right, great, go for it. If you're wrong, your list will tell you so, great again. You can fix it and pocket the cash at the same time. I can't think of a fairer deal than that. Keep it in mind. Your list is more than a bunch of names. It's a bunch of opinions, and real important ones at that.

Next up, I'm going to talk to you about the four main methods successful marketers use to maintain their lists. Each one with a different use and purpose, and each one has its ups and downs. Granted I'm biased towards two of them, and I'll tell you why when we get there. But like I said, there's no way for me to tell you how to run your business. All I can do is tell you the most effective ways of going about it, and let you decide what's most convenient for you and where you want your business to go.

The Rating System Let's also have a little bit of fun here, too, and introduce a rating system to make things interesting. As we discuss each of these techniques, I'll talk to you about their pros and cons, and where they would most likely be used, and you can decide if it'll be relevant to you. I'm also going to give these a starred rating system that will show you the most significant stats related to running such a list. Understand that each list will vary, and these star ratings are only to give you an idea after talking to over a hundred successes with their lists in the following categories. The star rating will be one to five: Unsubscription Rate: One star means a high unsubscription rate per mailing, and five stars means the best, a low unsubscription rate per mailing. Subscription Rate: How easy it is to get people to subscribe to the list using a variety of different methods. The subscription rate at one star is the hardest, and at five stars is the easiest.

Sample Content Preview

Introduction

Overview of Pricing Pricing Strategies: Getting Started The Bigger Picture Pricing with Regard to Competition Rule 1: Premium Products Sell at Premium Prices Rule 2: Wowing through Price Is a Bad Move Don’t Be Afraid Times Are Changing Increase Sales by Presenting Choices Rewards for Customers Equals More Cash for You Trials and Lead Generation Banning the Word Cheap Value Added Summary

Overview of Added Value Adding Value Explained Cut-Off Dates Limited Numbers Done Right Standard Testimonials Testimonials - But Better The Ultimate Testimonial The Standard Bonus Bonuses - But Smarter Bonuses Done Right

A Little Something Extra Summary

Introduction Let me ask you a question. The last time you launched your own product to sell online, or even offline, how did you come to a conclusion about what price you were going to be selling at? At a guess, I’d probably say you looked at the competition to see what they were charging. While this is a good start, it’s far from the whole picture, and you’re fumbling in the dark if you looking at competition is the only factor you’re taking into account. Did you know you can double your sales volume by doubling your price? I’ve done it myself, and I’ll show you how. Did you also know that 99% of the products I see being sold are too cheap. So much so, that they’re putting customers off instead of attracting them (which is no doubt what they think they’re doing). Let’s dispel some pricing myths and dig right down to the real facts to ensure you get the most cash in your pocket the next time you launch one of your products.

Overview on Pricing

? To introduce the concepts of fluid pricing strategies, and to show that you have many more avenues to explore than it seems like at first glance.
? To answer some of your questions about how you should price your product for maximum profit taking the number of sales to price ratio's into account.
? To display the effect of pricing too low, where many people price their products without first looking at the all important bigger picture.
? To show you why many people are under pricing their products in a big way, and how you can avoid this pitfall.
? To show you that the price you choose for your product isn't simply about charging less than the competition, in fact by charging more, you can be making even more sales.
? To give you additional pricing options for your main product, and show you how you can significantly increase your profits simply through giving your customers options.
? To demonstrate the correct and most effective way of going about introducing trial periods for your products, and why many get this wrong.
? To show you effective methods of experimenting with your price over time without annoying the people who bought from you previously at a higher price.

Pricing Strategies - Getting Started There are some things that I want to talk to you about related to pricing before you head off, create a sales system, put up a website and stuff a price on your product. The aim of this report is to give some insight into the versatility you have as an online marketer with your own products. The problem is, most people just seem to whack a price on their products with little time spent thinking about it, why they've priced it like that, and what factors are going to contribute to whether it's a successful decision. Sound complicated and a lot of work? Well, let me tell you it's not. But I think it's really important that I show you just how much freedom to experiment you have with regards to pricing, and what effect getting it wrong can have in a number of ways, so before you put a price on your product and release it to the world, take some time out, have a read, pick up the points and take them into account using them as kind of a checklist.

The Bigger Picture Now understand, there's a much bigger picture to this than most people realize. A lot of the time prices are put there, just because they can be and possibly fitted loosely around competition and other products and services offering similar things, however, it's not just about planting a number and a dollar sign behind it. All through this process you should be asking yourself lots of why questions. Some of the time, people ask me why the heck I go so in depth into subjects and talk about why they happen. They just want to know how to make a whole load of cash real quick.

Well, I say to them I can tell you how to do stuff, but if the situation changes, and you didn't know why it worked in the first place, then you're going to have to come right back to me again, hand me another five hundred dollars just to find out how to do the same thing in a different way. However, if I tell you how things work, you can take some serious knowledge and know-how away with you, and you have the power to adapt to the fast paced changing world of business online or offline. If you can't adapt, you're dead. Or your business is anyway.

Like I say, there's quite a lot to this, and a lot of things that we're going to talk about, and there's going to be a load of questions that are going to pop into your head. Does competition matter in such a big marketplace with regards to pricing? Should I be cheaper? Should I be more expensive? How do I know when to be which and why? Should I give special offers to particular groups of people? Who? Why? Should I offer different versions of my product at different prices? How do I do that, and how do I know if I'm doing right? There's a shed load of answers about the above and much more that I'm going to give you in a moment. But all the way through this I want you to keep in mind the flexibility you have as an online marketer with your pricing. Get this right, and it could easily mean double the profits for you. Get it wrong, and it's likely you'll have trouble selling anything at all.

Pricing with Regard to Competition So, with the formalities and generalizations out of the way, lets look at how you should price your products with regard to competition. The reason I want to talk about this first, is simple. When you're looking at pricing, the very first thing you're likely to do is say, hey, so what is everyone else charging for similar products? And you may go from there.

Now there's nothing wrong with doing this at all, but there's more to think about, and a lot more questions to ask than a simple can I beat what this guy is charging for his service? Your price doesn't have to beat everyone else’s out there for you to get sales. This is something that I learned a long time ago, and you may remember me talking about actually increasing my sales by putting the price of the monthly membership up, and offering an option that was actually ten times more money up front, which increased profits even further. You really need to be aware of what other people are charging for their products, but that doesn't by any means signal that you have to go out there and beat them. Imagine you've just started up an ad tracking and autoresponder script site that's so detailed, and so professional that it smacks the pants off the competition. But see the other sites offering the same service are hanging around at the ten dollar per month mark. Does this mean that you have to go and beat them and have a lower price for anyone to look at you? Nope, not at all. What you have on your hands is a premium product, and you shouldn't be worried to sell it at a premium price.

Rule 1: Premium Products Sell at Premium Prices So, here’s rule number one. If you have a great premium product, don't be afraid to bump the price up. You do not by any means have to beat a competitor’s price to be competitive, in fact, by putting your price up, it's quite possible that you'll outsell your cheaper competition. Why? Because a higher price screams quality. Don't, for one moment, believe you have to have the best price to make any sales. That's just not true, you just have to have the best sales system, and of course a premium product if you really ever want anyone to buy from you again.

Rule 2: Wowing Through Price Is a Bad Move

The fact is, if your price is too low, people look at you and wonder why the heck you're charging that tiny amount. If your brand spanking new piece of advanced technology software is really as good as you say it is, why does it only cost ten dollars? So there we have rule number two. Never price yourself so low that you think people will look and think wow that’s a quality sounding product, look how little it costs! That's not what they're saying at all. They're saying, “Wow, look at how little that costs. There can't be that much to it.” So in effect, all you're doing here is adding even more value to your product through a higher price. It might be the same product, but I tell you now, it's much more likely to sell more copies at a price that someone might look at and think that it's reasonable, or average than something someone might look at and fall off their chair at how cheap you are.