Pete Bentzen's Blog

Internet Marketing for Newbies

Affiliate Marketing is simply earning a commission from promoting and selling someone else’s product or service.
This is one of the most common ways that income is earned online.

Pretty well all Internet Marketers will do some form of affiliate marketing for at
least part of their income! Many top Marketers attribute over 60% of their total income to Affiliate Marketing.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s an Amazon store, commissions from recommending services you use for your own business, or specifically promoting a product for someone, such as a new product launch, etc.

Affiliate Marketing is a good way for newbies to get off to quick start, as they can earn some income before getting their own products created and/or set up on their sites.

It doesn’t matter what Niche or Methods you use in your business, there will be a time that you will promote someone else’s product or service, and you will earn commissions for doing this.

My top 10 Affiliate Marketing Tips are:

  1. Build a Relationship with your Followers and Subscribers

For people to trust and be willing to buy from you, you need to let them get to know that you are a real person, working like them at this Affiliate Marketing business, and facing many of the same problems they are facing.

The more you have them relate to you and your life, the easier it is for them to follow your recommendations and click those links and Buy Buttons.

Include some personal aspects in your writing, and allow your
readers and subscribers to get to know you.

2. Stay Relevant

When selecting Affiliate products to promote, make sure the products are relevant
to the specific niche topic of your blog, and your mailing lists.
If your subscribers signed up for information about List Building, don’t promote a Dog Wash Service to them. OK… maybe that example is a bit extreme, but you get where I’m going with this. You will not have a successful affiliate marketing campaign if you are trying to sell something way off topic.

3. Keep the Good Content Coming!

I believe that Marketing Blogs and Email Lists should be monetized from day one.
But it’s not all about the monetization, it is extremely important that you feed your subscribers and followers with good valuable and helpful content as well, such as helpful tips and freebies that are very relevant to your niche.

People will soon get sick and tired, if everything they get from you is all about promotions.
If your content is good, fresh and relevant to why people followed you in the first place, they will keep on following you.

4. Select your Affiliate Offers Carefully

Get to know your readers and what their needs are. Run surveys in your email campaigns or on your Blog. See what they are commenting on in FaceBook and on your Blog.

Find out what their problems are, what they are finding difficult to achieve, and offer them products or services that are solutions to those specific problems.

A successful Affiliate Marketer will be one who Knows what their readers need, and provides solutions to those needs.

5. Look for products with Recurring Income Attached:

Spending all your marketing efforts on products that are a one off $9.95 eBook, etc. will probably help your income a little. However, you will only be successful, if you choose products where you will also get commissions for selling a funnel, or recurring membership.

You need to actively look for products that include a membership site, or similar, with a monthly or maybe yearly recurring fee, for some on-going income.

Who knows when Google or FaceBook, or something else in your marketing arsenal, has changes or creates problems, or your market just becomes slow.
If you plan for these issues by having some form of regular income, you will be far better prepared to get through those times.

My aim is to always have sufficient ongoing recurring income to pay my regular bills and expenses, so the one-off sales are the cream on top.

6. Promote What You Use Yourself!

Think about all the tools and resources you use everyday in your own business. What better products and services could you find to offer your readers?

You are living testament to those products and services, and selling them will be easy because you already know all the features and benefits, and can answer any questions that may arise.

Some ways you should offer those services is via a Recommended Resources page on your blog, and by having links in your emails signature file.

7. Offer Your Own Bonuses!

Most product owners offer bonuses with their products these days.
But, everyone promoting that product has the same advantage of these bonuses, and this gives you no advantage.

To make your offer even more enticing, have your own additional bonuses of related products or services, adding more value for your customers.
By making your offer unique and better perceived value, you will improve your conversions and keep ‘your customers’ coming back to you!

An absolutely quick and easy way to do this is with a service like Commission Gorilla!
With Commission Gorilla you can very quickly set up a unique Bonus Page, to send your clicks to. It even creates the Bonuses Download Page at the same time.

8. Always be responsive and Helpful!

Strictly speaking, it is the product owner’s responsibility to provide support for
the affiliate products you are promoting, however, this gives your customers to the product owner.

Make it easy for your readers to contact you with any questions they may have.
There are always people who need to ask for more info, before they click your Buy Button. When you respond to them, it’s a good idea to give them more than they ask for. More added value to improve Your conversions!

Anything you can do to impress and keep your customer!

9. Write Content That Isn’t Time Restricted

Write your Blog Posts, Articles, and Scheduled Emails without references
to Seasons, Holidays, etc.
As you can’t predict when people are going to be reading these items, using ‘timeless’ content is very important.

10. Promote Products at Various Price Levels

This also come back to selecting the Affiliate Marketing products and services wisely. You need a lot of sales for a $7 product just to cover your time and expenses.

Find products that have different price levels, and products with a couple backend offers at different prices.

As mentioned above, I always look for products that have a low priced front end, then an OTO at a higher price, then a monthly or yearly recurring Membership offer.

If you follow these Affiliate Marketing Tips, you will be doing better than a large percentage of would be Affiliate Marketers out there.

If you have another Great affiliate marketing tip, please let me know by posting in the Comments below.

If you are looking for more details on Affiliate Marketing, please check out my Affiliate Authority course, here!

Thanks for reading, and All the Best!
Pete.