Practical Steps to Affiliate Marketing Success

Establishing an affiliate business

There are literally hundreds of thousands of affiliate programs available in this eCommerce marketplace, and they all claim to be the best, while many of them try to create the impression that all an individual has to do in order to make money on the Web is use their links and banners, and then wait for the money to start rolling in. That is obviously not the way affiliate marketers begin to make money; although money can, and often does, start rolling in once the groundwork is laid and fundamental steps are taken by new affiliates; so the impression is primarily a false one.

That having been said, an affiliate marketing career can only be successful if the affiliate is ready, willing and able to commit significant time, energy and resources (financial and otherwise) to building the necessary relationships and “following” that s/he can convert into return visitors, referrals and buying customers (traffic) that is the cornerstone of an affiliate marketer’s business. Establishing this cornerstone is not accomplished overnight, and is not made possible by simply placing banners/links on a website and then wait, although links and banners are part of the overall affiliate marketing scenario.

First things first

Individuals who aspire to be affiliate marketers must first determine what kind of merchants (companies that own products which affiliates market and sell) they want to work with from a product-to-website compatibility standpoint; and they must also do the necessary research on a company’s credibility, reputation and commission payout history. Once these two steps have been completed, first-time affiliates can then start thinking about links, banners, buttons, badges and such as well as how they fit in with the design and theme of their websites.

Choosing banners

With most affiliate programs, affiliates are offered a variety of banners to display on their websites; but very few of them will be effective if those banners are not compatible with a site’s content, or if their placement takes away from the sites appeal. The problems with most banners are their size in the sense that if a banner that is overly large (in pixels and kilobytes or kb), it will take a long time to implement (render) and use. Therefore, it is recommended that affiliates use banners that are no more than 15kb in size.

When you, as an affiliate, select any kind of graphical advertising, you should try and keep the theme of your website in mind; because even though graphical ads are meant to stand out and catch the eye of website visitors, they should not be so overbearing that everything else on the page is completely ignored. On the contrary, banners should be placed on website in a way that their presence is complimentary to the site’s design, format and content.

Pop-ups, pop-unders and text link ads

Many eCommerce companies that takes on the role of affiliate merchants now give their affiliates the opportunity to use pop up or pop under ads which, according to popular opinion, are not the way to go; because these types of ads have been known to annoy visitors, and therefore are normally closed before they even have the chance to load. However, if you must use one or the other of these ads, you should opt for pop-unders which only display once per visit, and usually after the visitor finishes his/her visit.

One of the most successful and popular methods of advertising among affiliates is text link ads, because they are easy on bandwidth; they don’t use a lot of space; and they can easily be implemented into most types of page layouts. Good text links provide some information as to why your visitor should investigate some of the offers being made from your website.

Email advertising

The direct promotion via email has really taken off over the last several years, although it has brought tons of spam with it, and was almost entirely responsible for the now famous Can-Spam Act of 2003; so if you plan to use email as a major part of your advertising campaign in promoting your affiliate products, make sure to stand behind what you sell, and make yourself available to answer any questions.

Keep in mind also that many email service providers, including Hotmail (by Microsoft), Yahoo! and Comcast, among others, have installed spam blockers and other software to prevent your marketing emails from getting through to their intended recipient.

Patience

If you feel confident that your website can generate great sales for certain companyies, you should contact them to negotiate an arrangement; but if they don’t seem too enthused to begin with, you should remain patient as companies are approaced every day with affiliates looking to make better deals. The reality remains that most affiliates can’t deliver what they promise, and companies are aware of this fact.

You should always keep in mind that most forms of advertising will take time no matter what methods you plan to use, so devote some time and a lot of thought before you make any type of decision. Although something might not happen overnight, it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen because some things take more time to develop than others; and if you want to get the best out of your efforts, time and resources devoted to an affiliate marketing career, you’d probably be better off if you take your time and get it done the right way, whether it takes a few days or even weeks.

As a token of our appreciation the free ebook titled, Storytelling Marketing can be yours if you have any interest in the art of storytelling. All you have to do is download it here, enjoy the reading and learn how storytelling can be a powerful ally in any business or marketing pursuit!

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Composites of Entrepreneurial Success and Failure


The motivating factor

An entrepreneur has much to learn in order to be successful. Among the educational requirements are: The day-to-day complexities of running a business, creating and/or producing products, delivering services, making money and dealing with the public. The biggest challenge of all, however, is to develop an understanding of his/herself.

Entrepreneurs must come to grips with what they want and what motivates them; this will support their willingness to face adversity – that is bound to arise – and come out as winners over the long term. Successful entrepreneurs will have learned to transform their thinking, allowing them to prevail where others fail along the way.

True entrepreneurs struggle with their business ventures just like anyone else and for a variety of reasons, among the most obvious of which are a lack of capital, lack of understanding about marketing, and personnel issues. However, from my own entrepreneurial experience (32 years in real estate and mortgage financing business), and what I know of others, there are three underlying causes of failure when individuals pursue entrepreneurial ventures.

  1. They tie the success of their business with their own self worth.
  2. They neglect to set realistic goals and plans for themselves and their business.
  3. They are not prepared to pay the price for success.

True entrepreneurs with the right mindset will prevail over a period of time because they will have learned to understand certain fundamental maxims of entrepreneurial success.

Playing the part

Successful entrepreneurs, in contrast to those who fail, have learned to separate their standings in life from their self worth or self-identity. They understand that positive performance or failure in their own venture is not a judgment of them as individuals. People who are inclined to measure their self-worth against their venture performance are inherently adverse to risk and seek to remain in a perceived comfort zone.

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Being able to differentiate these two identities allows them to see risk differently, and manage it better, which in turn lays the groundwork for success as an entrepreneur. People who have risked failure, experienced it, and learned from it, have not only learned how to separate their business performance from their self-identity, they’ve also learned the lessons of risking and failing.

These risk takers have a clear understanding that early failure in ventures is a natural part of successful start-ups. They are able to embrace those experiences, learn from them early and move on. This is critical to success as an entrepreneur. They must be willing to face and deal with early failures in order to prevent ultimate failure.

Objectives

Even though much is said and written about goals and objectives being necessary for success as an entrepreneur, few people learn the mechanics of successful goal and objective setting and planning. It’s not the plan but the planning that is important, and the goal setting process allows them to develop the confidence to take risks and fail.

Successful entrepreneurs are not only goal driven and goal oriented; they have learned to put into place the steps required to plan strategically and put forth reachable goals and realistic objectives. Visualizing goals, writing them down and putting together a detailed plan for achievement provides the confidence and motivation to prevail.

More than just business or operational plans, they have goals and objectives for all the important roles in their life. They have learned early that if they aren’t working their own plan they are probably working on those set forth by someone else. They chart their own course, embrace risk-taking leadership positions, make adjustments as required and prevail over a predetermined period of time.

Paying the price

As with any other aspirant to accomplished fields of endeavor, an entrepreneur understands that in order to be successful s/he must be prepared to pay the price at one time or another. There are really no overnight entrepreneurial successes. In fact, it has been said that overnight success generally takes 15-20 years. One of the early prices that entrepreneurs are quite often forced to face is the “re-making” of themselves in a way that can propel them to grow beyond the comfort of their sphere of influence.

A primary business tool on hold

Since most people tend to stay within their own psychological comfort zone, they begin to lose the risk taker mentality. They are comfortable with the type of person who is more like them, while the successful entrepreneur moves on to a different circle of associates who understand the journey.

Boldly breaking out

Breaking out, being your own person and venturing into the unknown risk induced is lonely but bold, and forces the risk taker to face the new set of circumstances. Consequently, there can be a new-found stress in old relationships.

It’s been said before that pioneers get shot in the front and the back, and only through a process of separating the venture performance from self-worth, being open to risks, prevailing through adversity, sticking to set goals and objectives, and adjusting your plans will you be prepared to pay the ongoing price that must be paid if you are to be a successful entrepreneur.

 

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