Consumable
products = residual commissions
If you are wondering HOW to know if an affiliate
program is any good, this candid article is
sure to help. It provides a sound overview
of what to look for, including the important
question about whether the products are consumable.
If they are consumables, they'll produce residual
income for you. That means: sell once,
get paid repeatedly. Yes!!
Recommended
2 tier affiliate programs
Directories
of affiliate programs
7
keys to a successful home business
Affiliate programs
By Robert Smith, http://smithfam.com
Affiliate programs are attractive alternative
you may use to profit from the sales of complementary
products other than your own.
The best affiliate products come from established
companies offering excellent commissions,
consumable products, or products producing
residual income.
Although some of the best affiliate programs
require that you purchase the product in order
to become an affiliate, most affiliate programs
require little or no out-of pocket startup
costs. But don't be fooled, 80% to 90% of
all affiliate commissions are produced by
10% to 20% of all affiliates. The key to success
in affiliate sales is in choosing the right
products for YOU to sell in the first place.
As a rule I never promote a product I haven't
purchased myself. If I own it, use it, and
like it, it's much easier to recommend it
to others. It's also easier to identify the
top selling points and to answer questions,
and overcome objections from prospective buyers.
Choosing Affiliate Products
The following are the basic considerations
when choosing affiliate products to sell.
Often I actually choose to buy the product,
join the affiliate program, and work it for
a month or more in order to answer the following
questions.
1) Is the product a good match?
2) How much will I earn per sale?
3) How many sales in a month?
4) What is the lead to sale conversion rate?
5) Is the product consumable or residual?
6) Does the product help develop trust?
7) Can I earn from the sales of others?
A product must not only be good, it must
be profitable to sell. I
devised a test I call "The $300 dollar
solution". It's simple, all things
considered; if a product does not produce
$300 dollars profit within a reasonable time
frame it's not worth my time to market. You
might use a different dollar amount or time
frame, but sales are required.
Many affiliate products are over-priced
in order to pay big commissions and attract
affiliates. A product must be priced right
in order to sell. The right price is one at
which the seller is content with the profit
and the buyer receives more than expected.
The salability test
is if you will buy it.
Is the Company Established?
Over the last seven
years there are only a half dozen products
that sell year after year. They are also my
best selling affiliate products. The
sales websites are mature and well written.
I use these products myself and the sales
material and websites are tested in time and
high quality.
>> http://www.smithfam.com/opps.html
Not all of my affiliate products are high
profit. I also offer a few additional affiliate
products because they help build trust and
add value to my website or because they offer
a good solution to a common problem. I also
recommend products I don't sell, this helps
develop lifetime customers.
Often I develop my own content rich sales
websites for products that sell well. I also
include links to these products elsewhere
in my website content. Developing your own
related content may boost affiliate sales
on average by 200% to 400%.
Does Demand Match Supply
A product without
a market is a product that will NOT sell.
Before I seriously consider marketing any
affiliate product I do research. I search
on several search engines using various keywords.
I determine if the number of sites found is
proportionate to the demand for the product.
If the market is flooded the product must
be even better in order to seriously consider
marketing.
When to Drop a Product
Any product worth promoting must sell. Sometimes
I purchase a great product, I use it and love
it but it doesn't sell. This can be for any
number of reasons, some that can be overcome
by creative marketing techniques and some
that can not. At some point I de-emphasize
such a product. In other words I don't spend
more time or money promoting it. I still may
recommend it to folks from time to time but
I don't give it my websites best real-estate.
Selling Techniques
The single most powerful sales technique
is your sincere endorsement. You can endorse
the products within your website content,
in your newsletters and emails to your list.
Use your endorsement sparingly and only for
your best products. The last thing you want
to do is endorse a product your ideal customer
purchases then returns.
One hundred percent of the costs required
to obtain a prospective buyer goes into developing
your first contact yet it often requires 5
to 7 contacts to actually close a sale. Programmable
auto responders are the most powerful way
to deliver follow-up messages required to
make the sale. Get your own script or use
a dependable service like AWeber to deliver
follow-ups to your leads with multiple email
messages spread out over several days to weeks
depending on the product.
>> http://www.smithfam.com/follow-up.html
Goggle's Adwords program and Overture's
Pay-Per-Click programs are great resources
as long as there is enough profit in the product
to pay for the advertising. These programs
can also drain your advertising budget quickly
so you absolutely must choose your keywords
carefully. The best keywords to buy are the
most specific words for your product. I'm
cheap, and have more time than money; I generate
about $500 in income per $30 cost in pay-per-click
keywords.
The Offline Option
On-line marketers often overlook the off-line
option. A little known marketing secret is
many Internet businesses do the bulk of their
marketing and advertising off-line and receive
the bulk of their orders on-line. For example,
you may purchase small ads in weekly newspapers
that reach your target market. These ads often
cost less to reach more people than conventional
on-line marketing.
When a prospect finds your ad off-line and
go online JUST to visit YOUR website in order
to learn more about your affiliate product
you have developed a higher quality prospect,
they are not only more inclined to buy, they
are also more inclined to request more information
or to contact you directly.
The Super Affiliate
Super affiliates come in two flavors. One
sells tons of products and earns big affiliate
commission checks every month from his or
her own efforts. The second earns big checks
from the efforts of others by recruiting super
affiliates of the first type to their second
level.
I find it more profitable to focus on the
actually selling products rather than on recruiting
affiliates, I find that most
affiliates don't really sell much and
it requires a lot of second level affiliates
to make much difference to my monthly affiliate
commission check. However, it only requires
a few super affiliates to make a big difference.
Good affiliate recruiters often find success
recruiting affiliates even more qualified
to sell a specific affiliate product. The
key is to find super affiliates who are already
in touch with the ideal market yet may not
be aware that the affiliate products exist.
Wrapping up
Look for products
you use yourself to re-sell. Try for a high
percentage of your profit on the first commission
level. If possible, choose products that are
consumable so you can sell it again and again
over time if possible.
Understand the commission structure and
learn exactly what you must do to reach your
first income goal. Last but not least market
on-line and off-line and earn the biggest
commissions on your own retail sales. If you
recruit others, recruit super affiliates and
don't expect others to do all the work for
you.
About the Author
ROBERT SMITH helps thousands successfully
market their Internet based business. You'll
find tons of free marketing tools & resources
on his Internet Marketing web site at:
>> http://www.smithfam.com/.
The WebKit CD - Now with Complete Sales
Website
>> http://www.smithfam.com/webkit/
You can reach him by phone at: 689-1847
PST and by email at. http://www.smithfam.com/askbob.html
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