Affiliate Marketing takes centre stage

Affiliate Marketing takes centre stage

Ahead of our first ever Performance Affiliate Conference, Kevin Edwards, Global Client Strategy Director at Affiliate Window shares how he is thrilled that affiliate can finally be shared with a wider audience.

When you’ve been firmly entrenched in an industry for well over a decade, certain announcements can reorientate your perception of it, jolting you from the daily, well-worn path you tread.

Fast-food giant McDonalds announcing it was appointing an agency based on a ‘pay-on-performance’ model last month was an announcement that made many sit up and take notice.

While the statement of intent attracted acres of column inches conjecturing how the restaurant chain (and its agency), could make such an arrangement work, it is music to the ears of the affiliate industry, an area of digital that placed performance at its core two decades before it became a necessity of digital marketing.

It seems prescient then that the IAB has announced it will be running its first affiliate performance conference on January 25 2017.

Considered one of digital marketing’s secret weapons in driving both consumer interest and intent with the hard metric of sales as its ultimate vindication, the one day event will unlock some of the key tactics and approaches taken by blue chip brands in helping them target consumers with the right messaging at the right time. This is one of the reasons Affiliate Window was keen to support the event.

A number of leading brands have already committed to sharing their insights at the event. Senior representatives from BT, Marks and Spencer and Direct Line are set to take to the stage alongside some of the entrepreneurs who have forged powerful, consumer empowering businesses that are now part of the daily routine for shoppers.

The affiliate industry doesn’t stop still, it both bends and adapts to technological change with some of the brightest minds choosing to monetise the latest app or innovation through affiliate relationships. It should come as no surprise that in an age when traditional publishers are struggling to drive revenue from their online operations they are increasingly turning to affiliate marketing to plug the gaps. Pinterest too recently announced its intention to allow affiliate links in its content with Tumblr following suit.

With interest in the industry at an all-time high (and responsible for more than £17bn of online sales in the UK), the conference will take the ability of our multifarious channel to tap into consumers at every stage of the consumer path to purchase, from initial interest to the eventual conversion as its cue. 

A PwC survey carried out in conjunction with the IAB for 2014’s Performance Marketing Study found more than half of British consumers had encountered and interacted with some form of activity tied to an affiliate marketing relationship, be it redeeming a voucher code, accessing niche blogger content or a price comparison site at some point in any given month. The industry is stealthily mainstream; often the activity it supports isn’t considered affiliate marketing at all.

This is both a strength and weakness in that some say it struggles for its position at the top table but this is also due to a misinterpretation of the ecosystem; the majority of budgets sit outside of agency control and as such it often isn’t afforded the respect it reserves. Others bemoan the channel as low margin but this has ultimately resulted in a lean, results focused approach from practitioners beloved of the advertisers who fully embrace it. 

So the Affiliate Performance Conference represents the industry’s shining opportunity to showcase its wares and celebrate the stories, sophistication and successes that those of us ‘on the inside’ are thrilled to be able to finally share with a wider audience.

9 Ways to Generate Sales from Your Last Blog Post (Without Being Salesy)

9 Ways to Generate Sales from Your Last Blog Post (Without Being Salesy)

These days, “sales” is perceived as a negative five-letter word.

Sales has gotten a bad rep. When you hear the word “sales,” you probably think of pushy salespeople or telemarketing calls.

The stigma of sales affects bloggers too. Lots of bloggers are afraid to sell to their readers. They don’t want to lose the audience they worked so hard to build.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you can successfully use your blog posts to sell without being salesy.

And no, I’m not going to recommend ads. (Surprise!)

You might be wondering how blog posts can increase your revenue.

The answer is simple: reciprocity.

Most of you have probably heard about reciprocity from Dr. Robert Cialdini’s renowned book Influence. It talks about psychological triggers that make people respond in certain ways.

Reciprocity happens when you give immense value to your audience. In return, they feel compelled to help you out. In our case, that happens when they buy from you.

It’s a simple formula. If your blog posts are top-notch, your readers will be open to buying from you. But they’re not just “buying.” They’re supporting a resource they love.

And when you pair reciprocity with blogging, the results are powerful. You’ll sell, but your readers will never think you’re selling to them. It’s a friendly offer.

I know, it sounds too good to be true. Let me prove it to you with these 9 ways of using your latest blog post to generate sales.

1. Provide a ton of value

Value should be your number one priority as a blogger. I’ll even go a step further and say that it’s impossible to run a truly great blog without providing a crap ton of real value.

But can you sell based on value alone?

It’s a good question. So let’s look at what happens when you take price out of the equation.

Tom Morkes had a blog that people really liked, but he realized it wasn’t profitable. So he wrote an e-book and released it to a whopping 166 subscribers. Don’t laugh yet—the results will astound you.

Tom chose a pay-what-you-want method so his readers would have a choice. And lots of his readers chose a price of $0.

But Tom’s readers contributed an average of $15 per e-book. And he made an impressive $493.50 in the first month by offering something free.

See the numbers for yourself:

This is a fantastic case study to show just how well value can sell. If you have immensely valuable content, you can sell like crazy even if you offer it free.

2. Link to a relevant product

Linking to one of your products is a simple but effective strategy for getting eyeballs to your storefront.

But here’s the catch: you have to share a relevant product.

If your blog post is about making the best pumpkin pie and you include a link to your guide to wine tasting, the conversion rate won’t be very high. That’s because your readers are there for the pumpkin pie.

But if you share a link to your guide to pumpkin-pie-making with those same readers, you’ll see much better results.

Here’s Carol Tice from Make A Living Writing using this strategy:

To give you some context, Carol’s post is about a freelancing scam. By sharing this product at the end of the blog post, she’s letting readers in on a surefire method of revenue.

Solve your readers’ problems by sharing relevant products with them, and you’ll make their day.

3. Describe an insanely valuable use of your product

It makes sense why no one would want to buy your product unless they saw its benefits.

So don’t beat around the bush—show off your products’ benefits.

But it’s important that you’re not just praising your product as the best thing since sliced bread. You have to give readers specific, detailed reasons why your product is great.

MailChimp does this excellently. Their post “Why Clients Render Email Differently” mentions their Inbox Preview feature, but it doesn’t read like an advertisement for that feature.

Instead, it talks about the similarities and differences in email clients that readers should be aware of.

This part is crucial: You can get value from this article even if you don’t buy their product.

Your blog post should still be value-packed. You’re simply letting your readers know that your product provides a shortcut to the results they want.

In other words, don’t dangle your product in front of your readers’ faces and say, “You have to buy this to get anything good.” Give them the good stuff in the post itself.

4. Blog about your customers

Sharing your customers’ experiences with your product can work wonders. Your readers get to see how your product is benefiting real people, and they’ll become more interested without feeling pressured.

TOMS does this with its “Locals Who Give Back” blog post series. Each post profiles a TOMS customer who is making a difference in their local community.

Don’t worry—you don’t have to be TOMS to do this effectively.

All you have to do is make heroes out of your customers. Listen to ordinary people’s stories, and broadcast them to your audience. Your readers will instantly connect with these stories, and that means they’ll connect more with your brand.

5. Do affiliate marketing (the right way)

There’s a reason why tried-and-true methods are tried-and-true. Affiliate marketing is no exception.

But you know what I can’t stand? When bloggers try to hide the fact that they’re using affiliate links.

If your readers really love your blog, they’ll be more than happy to help you out by buying something they were already interested in anyway.

Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income has two great rules for affiliate marketing:

Don’t be an intrusive salesperson who hawks products to their readers. Be your readers’ friend, and recommend products that will improve their lives.

6. Fix a problem

People will always have problems, and they will always want to fix those problems. That’s where you come in.

By fixing your readers’ problems with your blog posts, you’re earning their trust. Eventually, they’ll want to check out what you have to offer.

SumoMe does this by regularly posting monster guides that cover a subject exhaustively. And if you look at their articles (like this guide on content upgrades), you’ll see they go over everything. They leave no stone unturned.

But you don’t have to write thousands of words to fix problems—shorter can work too. No matter the approach you choose, make sure you’re thorough when fixing your readers’ problems. Don’t give them a temporary duct tape fix—give them a long-term remedy.

7. Give away a preview

You know what the trouble with a lot of products is? They’re all talk. Any product can sound great with a well-written description.

But if you know you’ve got something good, give your readers a free preview. Let them in on the action so they can see for themselves just how great your product is.

If you have a subscription service, give your readers a free trial. If you have an e-book, give away the first chapter.

Here’s my challenge to you: Give away more than you think you should.

When Seth Godin released his book Permission Marketing, instead of just giving away one chapter, he offered the first four chapters free. (And the offer still stands!) That free preview didn’t stop the book from creating a legacy with marketers all over the world.

And make sure your free preview is packed with good stuff. Don’t give away a limited free trial or an introduction. Give your readers the good stuff, and when there’s no more free content, they’ll likely pay for more.

8. Hold a contest

No one can resist the offer of something free. You can leverage this by holding a contest on your blog.

You’re probably thinking, “How can I generate sales if I’m giving something free?”

This is how. Contests help you grow your audience and build interest in your brand. After a successful contest, you’ll have a lot more people to share your products with.

To get the best results with your contest, go social. For example, use Rafflecopter to give extra entries to people who perform certain social actions, such as liking and sharing your page:

(Bonus tip: You can also use contests to get tons of user-generated content.)

9. Give your readers an exclusive deal

Every time your readers make the choice to check out your latest post, they’re investing their time in your work. By giving your audience an exclusive deal, you’re thanking them and giving back.

Don’t make the offer public anywhere else. Make it a readers-only deal, and say so. You want your readers to feel special.

Conclusion

Selling doesn’t have to leave you feeling slimy.

When you do it right, selling equals helping your readers. Only promote products you know will improve your readers’ lives.

After you’ve been blogging and interacting with readers for a while, you’ll realize it’s a small community. These people aren’t facts and figures. They’re humans with problems that need to be solved, and you can help.

It’s all about helping. If you’re focused on providing value, the selling part becomes a lot easier.

Your readers want to support you. All you have to do is ask.

How do you use your blog to generate sales?

What To Know As An Affiliate

Something that those who are new to affiliate programs do not know how to do efficiently is find high paying affiliate programs that well best complement their web site. There are a number of ways to go about this. First of all, you can go to the web site of every company that sells products related to the topic of your web site and check if they have an affiliate program and see how they pay. However, a much better and quicker method to finding quality affiliate programs is to visit affiliate program directories such as this web site. We have links to hundreds of the highest rated affiliate programs in dozens of different categories. We cannot make any guarantees, but chances are, you will find the best affiliate programs in your category, no matter how specific it is, here in our site. 

What affiliate programs are and how to make money with Affiliate Programs

What affiliate programs are and how to make money with Affiliate Programs

Recently I published a post on Basics of Affiliate Marketing You might want to check them out HERE
 
Affiliate programs, also known as associate programs or publisher programs, are actually quite simple. You get paid for selling someone else's product or service. It is like being a salesman. All you have to do is sign up with the affiliate program of some company, such as Best Buy or Circuit City. You will then be given an account and a link, banner, or other advertisement. You place that advertisement on your web sites and when someone clicks on that link, their visit is tracked. If they decide to make a purchase, you will earn a percentage of the amount that the web site selling the product earns on that sale. For example some companies will pay 10% commission so if a visitor to your web site clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase of $100, you will get $10 (these type of programs that pay you per sale are normally called pay per sale affiliate programs).

There are many different types of affiliate programs so not all of them will pay you per sale or a percentage of a sale. Some of these different types of affiliate programs include pay per lead, residual income (also known as recurring commission, recurring income, lifetime commission and lifetime income), affiliate networks, cpa networks, two tier programs, popups, popunders, ad networks, and contextual ads. No matter what type of commission these affiliate programs pay, you still will earn from them. The amount you earn depends on how much effort you put into working with them.

Most major companies and retailers, such as Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Sears, Macy's, GameStop, Circuit City, and thousand of others have affiliate programs that pay at varying rates so you should do your research before placing an affiliate link on your web site.

To be successful with affiliate advertisements, you must select a company that offers a product that your customers will be interested in. For example, if you run a video game site, don't place associate links for 1 800 Flowers or Home Depot on your web site, they will seem out of place and do very poorly. You have a much better chance of making money by placing affiliate links to Game Stop, EBGames, GameFly, or other video game companies that have affiliate programs.

Also, make sure that you do not have too many affiliate advertisements on your web site because it will draw visitors away and you will not make any money and lose traffic.

One great way to make a lot of money using affiliate or publisher programs is to create a product review web site. You can review any product you like from cell phones to MP3 Players to furniture and everything in between. Place an affiliate link to a web site where the product being reviewed can be purchased. This is especially useful if you gave a certain product a very good review and tempted readers to purchase that specific item.



Affiliate programs are a great way to monetize your web site and you should definitely take the time to look into them.

Basics Of Affiliate Marketing And Ways to Succeed In It

 Welcome To Wealthy Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and the easiest way to make money online. 

 Truth And The Good Part Of Affiliate Marketing
Whether you want to make small bucks from it, it will give it to you. Whether you decided to make it a full time or a part time business, which ever way you want to go on this business, i assure you that you are going to make something out of it.

The good part about this business is that you are going to work at the comfort of your home. It takes you few hours of the day to invest in the business and profit will start flowing into your accounts and pockets. Just be sure to have an internet connection around you to do this business.

How You Earn
As an affiliate marketer, you earn in commission, Meaning whenever a person or your referrals buys anything from the company you are advertising promoting there products or services. You are earn a certain amount, which is called COMMISSION" interns of affiliate marketing.You earn huge commission selling other people's product or services. You don't have to create or own your products or services before you can earn from this lucrative business. You don't have to suffer from billing, customer services problems,or transportation etc.. The company will do the job for you and You sit, relax and earn commissions.

The Real Facts About Affiliate Marketing
Whether you like it or not. Affiliate marketing has come to stay and people all over the world has come to benefit from it. You are actually wasting your time if you have not considered being an Affiliate Marketer and Sorry To Say This But You Might Regret It Tomorrow.
Affiliate Marketing is the most enjoyable an easiest way to earn money and passive income online without struggles. Just add a little wisdom and knowledge and money will start flowing into your account daily and monthly and even yearly. The best time to start is now. 

My Aim And Vission
Yes!.. My vision is simple and Aim is you. I am aiming at You
 Did I hear you say WHY? Well Ofcourse, I want Your Success!
I want all of us to grow together and be happy together and that is why I have decided to launch this site mainly for YOU. Yes! YOU.
I want to help you grow in your affiliate business. Let us grow together and You will Thank Me tomorrow I promise You that.

What I Will Doing To Help You With This Blog
I will be coaching and Guiding you all the way to your success through affiliate marketing. 
I will be updating this site on a daily bases just because of you.
I will be Giving you full list of different affiliate categories and there programs and platforms.
When I said Categories I simply mean for Example: Health is a category and under health related issues there are programs, platforms, sites etc that offer Health Related affiliate program.

I will list all the categories you never imagined exist. Yes!, I will do that. And remember, it will be updated on a daily bases.
I will Teach everything you need to know about affiliate marketing.
I will be giving you 10 free steps to getting to your success through affiliate marketing.


What You Need To Do To Help This Platform
Just make sure you subscribe to my post, so that you will not be left out to be updated. 
Join us On social medias.
Share the News to your friends and relatives. They will thank you for it.

The Next Step!
That is it! the next step is, I will Soon Publish some list of the Legitimate affiliate platforms And programs on each Category. So make sure to join as many as possible when I publish it and ask me any questions in any area that you did not understand. I will be glad to be Of Help!


Please, If you Have any suggestion and any thing reasonable you want us to to this sites that will help other people, please feel free to let us know and you will be blessed!

 Please Drop Your Comments And Messages Below

Thank You And See You Soon!