Zen Of Internet Marketing

This is the first in a series of articles I will publish in the next couple of weeks, explaining a step-by-step plan to successful affiliate marketing. This first article is aimed to introduce absolute newbies to the concept of affiliate marketing and to the different ways in which to find a product to promote.

This article is not meant for skilled marketers or for people who are familiar with affiliate marketing and with the process of identifying products to promote, as it will discuss only the very basics. Hopefully some of the future articles will cover advanced steps, which even veteran marketers will find beneficial.

Let’s start by trying to define “affiliate marketing”. I always say that there is a similarity between Affiliate Marketing and the California Gold Rush of the 19th century. The fortune is there and you have to uncover it. Anyway, back to the definition: the affiliate marketer (you) gets a nice commission from the product seller every time a purchase is made by one of the visitors that you have sent to their sale page.

Roughly, you’ll find three types of products: material ones - from shoes to yachts; information products - videos, software, ebooks, that are instantly downloaded to the purchaser’s computer; and subscriptions to newsletters, registrations to a course etc. Thousands and thousands of sellers pay commission to affiliates for purchases and for leads.

So, you see, the gold is there, all over Internet Marketing World. The question is how to find it. And, indeed, many people who decide to try affiliate marketing discover that the first step they need to take, i.e. finding the right product to promote, is the most difficult part of the whole process.

Let me suggest a few ideas for starters:

1. Promote a product that you have bought online and really liked. The way to do it is to go back to the merchant’s website or sales letter, look for a link that says “affiliates” and click on it. There you will find how to become an affiliate and what the terms are. Subscribe for free and start promoting the product.

2. Start thinking about your hobbies, things you are interested in, things you have knowledge about. Perhaps you are a member of some forums in which you discuss your passion. This will help you a lot later, in your promotions. Let’s say you like basketball; you know everything about the game, the teams, and the players. Start searching for products that are associated with basketball, find their affiliate programs and start promoting them.

3. Think of products that are on the hot list in the United States, do a little research and find out if the Europeans heard about them. If not yet, promote these products in Europe only, using the different pay per click programs that let you choose the areas where your ads are shown. The same can be done with a product that you’ve found in any foreign country and is not yet known in the US

4. Talk to your children and/or other teenagers and try to find out what their newest fads are. Teenagers are great customers.

5. Make a habit of looking at the popular magazines. They usually report on the latest trends and fashionable products.

6. And, obviously: become an affiliate at Commision Junction, ClickBank and other such services. Their database has thousands of products and they’ll let you know what the best sellers are.

In Article 2 I will describe the second step on the way to rewarding affiliate marketing.

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Tags: affiliate, article, articles, forum, forums, information products, Internet, link, Links, Marketing, newsletter, pay per click, Products, Success, Video, visitors, website

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 6:37 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.