Secret #1: Pick a Hungry Niche
A lot of people say they want to become a super affiliate. They dream about it. They imagine themselves bringing in loads of sales for vendors. They can picture their PayPal accounts filling up with cash. They can even imagine how it will feel to be respected by vendors and feared by other affiliates.
You know what? Most people dream, yet they don’t take action. But you’re different. That’s why you’re here now reading this post on our MakeCommissions.com blog. So let’s get started with the first secret: picking a hungry niche.
A lot of affiliates find a product, and then they go searching for a market to sell it to. That’s backwards. What you want to do is start with a hungry niche – and then give them whatever it is they’re already buying!
Think of it this way…
If you were in the middle of the desert and selling to stranded travelers, what would you sell? Tell you what, you wouldn’t sell weight loss books, parachutes, lawn mowers or wedding rings. Instead, you’d sell the items that the market really wanted and needed, including food, water and gas.
So simple, right? Just give people what they want. Just put yourself into the stream of money that’s already flowing. Here’s how…
Step 1: Pick a Niche
What you need to do first is pick a niche, any niche. This could be in the overall fields of marketing, weight loss, pets, hobbies, travel, health, beauty, motivation, fitness… or just about anything else. Just think about your hobbies, interests and problems, and you’re bound to come up with several good niches.
Step 2: Determine if the Niche is Profitable
Your next step is to figure out if your chosen niche is profitable. To do this, you simply look for evidence that there’s a hungry market who’s already spending money on products and services. You do this by:
• Searching for the niche keywords (like “online marketing” or “weight loss”) in Google. Are there are a lot of both organic results and sponsored ads? What are these top sites selling?
• Browsing mega marketplaces like Amazon.com, Ebay and the iTunes Store. Again, enter your broad keywords, then look for multiple products being sold to the niche. If there are a lot of products and competitors, and if some of these products are bestsellers, that’s a sign of a hungry niche.
Step 3: Pick a Product
Once you’ve determined that there is a niche full of people who’re spending money, then you need to pick a product to sell to them. This step is easy. All you have to do is go back to the previous step, and take note of which products are popular.
For example, when you run a search in the Clickbank marketplace, the results are sorted by popularity. Just pick one of the top selling products, and you’re almost guaranteed to make money if you push this offer in front of the right targeted audience.
It’s that simple. Don’t make it complicated, because it’s really not.
Secret #2: Build a List
Poor or mediocre affiliates could be easily compared to ‘zombies’. It’s a fitting name. They just shuffle around their niches, blasting out links blindly without thinking and adding to the noise. If you want to crush these ‘zombies’, you need to rise above them.
How?
By building a mailing list.
You see, most affiliate zombies just promote their affiliate links directly. But if you do that, then you’re wasting your traffic. That’s because as few as one or two or maybe three people will buy the product you’re promoting. And that means that the vast majority of your traffic is going to just slip through the cracks and disappear forever, never to be heard from again.
The solution, of course, is to get people on a mailing list free. Instead of trying to sell cold prospects on buying a $50 or $100 product through your link, you simply direct them to a landing page where they can get a freebie for joining your list.
End result?
Instead of seeing 95% or so of your traffic get frittered away, you capture 25%, 40%, 50% or more of this traffic onto a mailing list.
Now you can follow up with this mailing list any time you want. You can reach right into your prospects’ inboxes and promote your affiliate links. And you can sell different products, meaning this list pays you again and again.
But here’s the key…
People aren’t going to sign up for your list just because you hang a sign out that says “FREE NEWSLETTER!” That might have worked in 1997, but today people need a good reason to join your list. They need to know that there’s a clear benefit to getting on your list. And one good reason you can give these prospects is by offering a valuable, in-demand freebie (such as a video, software or even a series of videos or an ecourse) in exchange for their email addresses.
It’s pretty easy to come up with a freebie. All you have to do is create something that’s closely related to the product you’re selling. Since you know that the product itself is in-demand, then it naturally follows that a closely related freebie will also be in demand.
Let’s give you an example…
Let’s suppose you’re promoting an affiliate product called “How to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse.” You might create a short report called, “Five Secrets for Killing Zombies and Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse.” You know people will eagerly join your list to get this for free, since they’re already buying information on the same topic.
We actually created a free video (click here to see it) for that product and give it away. It gives out solid content and if people want more there’s a link under the video to buy the main video course.
This wasn’t hard to do and if technically you are just stuck creating something like a free report or a free video or software then outsource it. You’d be surprised at how easy and affordable it can be.
Point is, you need to give your prospects a really good reason to join your list. Once they’ve joined, however, there’s a trick to pulling profits out of this list. That’s what you’ll find out how to do next …
Secret #3: Build a Relationship With Your List
Would you trust a zombie if he told you he wanted to be your friend?
Of course not. Everyone knows that zombies just want to eat your brains. They don’t give a flying fig about you. They’re all about their own survival.
Guess what? Zombie affiliates are no different. That’s because zombie affiliates often have a “churn and burn” mentality when it comes to their list. These zombies might be able to build a big list quickly, but their readers are unsubscribing or simply falling unresponsive almost as quickly as the zombie is building the list.
That’s a classic affiliate mistake, and you can avoid it (and all the other affiliate mistakes) by picking up your copy of the Affiliate Survival Guide yourself. Check it out. Not only is it eye-opening, it’s also your ticket to rising through the ranks to become a super affiliate.
Quick Side Note: It’s based on the exact marketing strategies that we have used to rake in millions of dollars in affiliate sales over the years. In fact, last year alone (2013) we did around $500,000 in sales for other vendors, most of which was at 50% commissions. And this wasn’t even a large part of our main business. Affiliate marketing is an add on to our own business and it can be for you too. Of course you can also go at it full time if you want.
Now, back to this topic of avoiding the churn and burn mentality…
Let’s put it to you this way: your subscribers are not your personal cash machines. They joined your list because they thought you could help them with a problem… NOT because they wanted to give their money to you. So if you want to build a good relationship with your subscribers, the first thing you need to do is put their wants and needs in front of your own.
How? By following these tips:
• Don’t inundate your list with promos. If you sent out a new promo for a different product every day without even thinking about what you are doing, your list is going to burn out.
• Do keep your name in front of your subscribers. You should be emailing your list at least once or even a couple times a week to create “top of mind awareness.”
• Do promote products via a string of emails. Instead of sending one promo per product, send out two to four emails about the same product. Then watch your conversion rate go up.
• Don’t promote crap. It doesn’t matter if it comes with a big commission rate and a high conversion rate – if it’s a poor product, forget about promoting it. If you wouldn’t recommend it to your best friend, then don’t recommend it to your list. We’ve had to say to NO to many vendors over the years even with the temptations of huge commissions & contest prizes simple because we didn’t believe in the products ourselves.
Secret #4: Boost Your Conversion Rate With This Simple Trick
Affiliate zombies are weird. They seem to think that people should buy everything through their affiliate links. Maybe it’s an entitlement mentality. Or maybe their brains have deteriorated to the point where they don’t realize there are dozens, hundreds or even thousands of other affiliates competing to sell the same thing.
Don’t make this mistake. Never forget that your readers, visitors and subscribers have plenty of other options. Even if they really want a product, in just a click or two they can be on the sales page using someone else’s affiliate link. They owe you nothing.
So, what you need to do is give your readers a reason to buy through your affiliate link. And a great way to do this (and boost your conversion rate) is by adding value to the offer such as a bonus.
What this means is that you offer your readers a bonus product if they purchase from your affiliate link. What you’re doing is giving your readers more bang for their buck… they get more value for the same price tag.
Now think about this…
You and your fellow affiliates are all promoting some awesome golfing guide. You toss in a series of videos that illustrate the grips and drives talked about in the guide to anyone who buys from your link. So whose affiliate link is the prospect going to click? That’s right, he’s buying from you… because not only does he get a great guide, he gets a valuable video series as well.
Naturally, you can’t just toss in an unrelated or junk product and expect it to spur sales. But if you give your customers something they really want, you can bet your conversion rate will soar. And if this product somehow enhances the use or enjoyment of the main product—just like the above example—that’s even better.
For example:
• If you’re selling a blogging guide, then toss in free blog themes or plugins.
• If you’re selling a diet book, toss in a free low-calorie cookbook.
• If you’re selling a guide about how to write romance novels, then include a set of templates and story ideas.
We’ve actually put together one central location for all of our affiliate promotions that we offer a bonus over at BestBonusBlog.com. If you head over there real quick you can see what we do and there might even be a bonus running right now if you luck out.
We offer added value, most of the time for a limited time (24-48hrs) and it works plain and simple. (Just ask some of the vendors who we promote for)
Secret #5: Get Eyeballs in Front of Your Offers
Naturally, in order to build a list, you need to get traffic in front of your squeeze page.
A lot of affiliate think any traffic will do. Instead of really considering where the traffic is coming from, they focus on the numbers in their traffic logs. Then they’re surprised to see gobs of traffic… but very few subscribers. Worse yet, the subscribers they do get aren’t all that responsive.
So what’s the problem with these affiliates? Simple: they’re not getting targeted traffic to their landing page.
Think about it…
All the traffic in the world doesn’t mean a thing if it’s not targeted. For example, sending knitting patterns to a list of Harley Davidson enthusiasts isn’t going to garner a great response. That’s pretty obvious, right? And yet these affiliates continue to send untargeted traffic to their pages from unrelated blog commenting, “start page” schemes, untargeted traffic exchanges, ads on unrelated sites, and other sources of low-quality traffic.
Forget all about all that. If you want to build a responsive list, then you need to start by getting your offers in front of tightly targeted people. For example:
• Do guest blogging on related niche blogs.
• Do a pay per click campaign with tightly focused keywords.
• Do ad swaps with newsletter publishers in the same niche.
• Buy graphic ads and email ads from content publishers in the same niche.
• Start up a Facebook Page.
• Write search-engine-optimized content for your own blog.
• Become a contributing member of niche communities (niche social networking sites and forums).
• Comment on other peoples’ related blogs.
In all cases, the more tightly related the audience is to your offer, the higher your conversion rate.
Let’s give you an example. Let’s suppose you’re building a list by giving away a poodle training guide. Advertising on a pet-related site may pick up a few poodle owners. Advertising on a dog training site is a bit more targeted. But advertising on a site devoted to poodle training will get you the highest quality traffic.
End result? Better conversions, more sales and more money.
Secret #6: Do This to Make More Money
Are you leaving money on the table?
Most affiliates do. Then again, most affiliates are just acting like mindless zombies but we know you won’t after reading this and taking action. Now the reason they’re leaving so much money on the table is because they’re not tracking and testing.
We know – tracking and testing sounds like difficult. But it’s not. It’s actually a fairly simple process. And the whole point is to figure out what your readers respond to. Specifically:
• What products convert the best.
• What email subject lines work best.
• What calls to action boost your conversion rate.
• What ad headlines get people clicking.
• Where’s the best place to put an ad on your blog.
• What Google AdWords keywords work the best in your campaigns.
• What ads get the most clicks on Facebook, AdWords, etc.
• What P.S. in an email boosts response rate.
• What types of graphics boost click through rates.
• The best places to buy advertising.
And so on. Point is, if you can track it, then you should be testing it.
Here’s how it works:
• You use tracking links for everything. That means that you use different links in different campaigns, different emails, etc. That way, you know what ads, emails and campaigns are producing the best response. You can use links like those from yourls.org or even use more robust tools like piwik.org.
• You test one thing at a time. For example, if you’re testing emails, then change just one the, such as the subject line of the email. If you send out two emails with multiple differences (such as different subject lines AND different calls to action), then you’ll have no idea which factor created the difference in response rates.
• You allow enough “actions” for statistical reliability. A good rule of thumb is that you need 30-50 actions in order to determine which campaign, subject line, headline or whatever else it is you are testing is delivering the best response rate. By actions, we’re referring to opening an email, clicks on a link, joining a list, or purchasing a product.
• You tweak for better response. Once you start tracking, you’ll know what works and what doesn’t. You can drop the copy, ads and campaigns that don’t work. Meanwhile, you can tweak the “good” ads, copy and campaigns to make them even better. Then you can take your winners and put all your resources behind them.
To sum it up… this is how you make more money without getting more traffic. It allows you to get a better return on your investment with paid advertising. And it allows you to save time by focusing on what’s working in your business.
Point is, don’t act like those other affiliate ‘zombies’. Don’t throw money and time away on things that don’t work. Start testing and you’ll know for sure! (A really cool tool we use to test landing pages is LeadPages)
Secret #7: What Super Affiliates Know About Achieving Goals
Quick, what are your affiliate marketing goals?
A lot of people make the mistake of setting vague or unobtainable goals. They’ll say, “I want to make more money.” But that’s too vague. After all, making $1 extra is “more” money. But that’s probably not what the person had in mind.
Another common goal is to make a million dollars. And while building a seven-figure business is obtainable, it doesn’t happen without the following:
• A good business plan.
• The willingness to put in the time and effort required to build the business.
• A burning desire.
• Time.
Most people who pick a really large goal get impatient. They don’t follow through. They end up just chasing after the next bright and shiny thing that crosses your path.
This won’t happen to you, not this time. That’s because we want you to pick a realistic goal, and then work backwards to achieve it. Here’s what we mean:
1. Figure out how much you need to make each month in order to comfortably pay your bills.
2. Figure out how many sales you need each month to achieve that monetary goal.
3. Figure out how much traffic you need to drive to your site in order to reach that sales goal.
Simple as that, you now know exactly how much traffic and how many sales you need to reach your monthly goal. Now you can create a focused plan to achieve that goal, and commit to taking the steps necessary to carry out your plan.
Keep focused. Don’t falter. Don’t become another zombie.
Ask yourself, how much do you want this?
By this point you should be getting the idea that zombie affiliates don’t make money. You don’t want to be like them. And if you intend on dominating your niche, then you need to discover the secrets of rising above those other affiliates, crushing them, and become the most feared and respected affiliate in your niche.
This article was taken from
http://www.makecommissions.com/blog/marketing-tips/7-secrets-of-becoming-a-super-affiliate/
Because the importance of the information it was brought to you by_
Victor Martinez B.
