MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS the 'Affiliate Way'

Carl Hruza An Affiliate Marketer is someone who actively promotes the
products or services of one or more businesses, and receives
commissions on sales generated through his/her referrals.
A successful Affiliate Marketer is efficient and 'savvy',
can locate a good business opportunity and extract it's full
income generating potential.

Applying Affiliate Marketing techniques to promote your
business on the Internet can be very successful, once you
understand some of the basics.
We estimate that around 5 million people are involved in
promoting affiliate web sites. The majority of these, perhaps
75%, will not generate a single commission check.
Approximately 25% will make supplemental income from their
programs, relying on income from other sources, with only a
relatively small number of affiliate marketers who are very
successful.

Therefore, what do the 'successful' marketers do differently
and how can we apply their techniques to our Internet
business?
Broadly speaking there are six methods of promoting a web site
on the Internet:
1. Through the Internet Search Engines.
2. Banner advertising, both pay-per-click and reciprocal banner
exchanges.
3. Opt-in (subscription) email lists.
4. Ezines, article submission sites and reputable Business to
Business resource sites.
5. Free-for-all link boards (FFA), classified ad boards and
directories.
6. Unsolicited Email (Spam)

Let us deal with the last two points first. We do not advocate
the use of unsolicited email, and recommend to all our clients
that they do not respond to unsolicited email, only to
'unsubscribe'.
FFA boards are becoming less effective, largely due to the
decreasing numbers of people who actually read posted messages.
FFA boards have evolved into 'automated' link sites where you
submit your 'offer' to 1000's of boards through automated
bulk-submission services, and you receive auto-responders from
the board operators, advertising their services to you. Most of
these auto-response messages are filtered out and deleted by
the submission service before you get to read them, or are
directed to a 'free' email address where they are dumped -
automated submissions, automated deletions! That is not to say
that they serve no purpose. FFA boards can enhance the
'link-popularity' of your web site, which can gain you valuable
points with search engines.
Which leads us to answer the question posed above - "what do
successful marketers do differently and how can we apply their
techniques to our Internet business". The answer is to implement
a short-term strategy, and then plan and implement a strategy for
the mid to long term. An effective short-term strategy might
involve the use of a combination of Banner advertising, opt-in
email lists, and Ezines to get some traffic flowing quickly. The
effectiveness of each will be largely dependant on your category
of business and the marketing message you create to front your
ads (your web copy). At the same time you must implement your
mid to longer term marketing goals, which will form the 'backbone'
of your marketing strategy. The ideal vehicle for delivering
steady 'targeted' traffic in higher volume and at low cost -
'Search Engines'.
Consider this. If I email my 'sales offer' through opt-in email
to a subscriber base of 300,000 people, I can expect to pay
anywhere between $1500 and $5,000 for a one-time mailing,
depending on the target audience. Alternatively, for less than
$1,000 I can register a domain name, setup some basic advertising
web pages, have the pages 'optimized' to rank well on the search
engines and host the site for a whole year. When traffic starts to
arrive through Internet searches it will be targeted and will
produce a far superior visitor/inquiry ratio than through any
other advertising medium. Most importantly it is a sustainable and
predictable flow of visitors, generated at a very low 'cost per
visitor' rate.
Those businesses that plan for the long term will mostly be around
in the long term. Those that do not, most certainly will not.

"Making it big without spending a penny on advertising" - we see
very few ways of effectively promoting a business on the Internet
these days without some costs. There are many places where your site
can be advertised for free, but how effective are they?

Be prepared to invest some money into marketing your business and
try to seek out reputable services. Exercise caution whenever you
see 'money for nothing' style promotions and do not gamble with your
livelihood.
Thoroughly test all your marketing campaigns so you can identify
those that are successful and those that are not. In the same way,
monitor the progress of your web site and record information about
your visitors and how they found you.
As a small or home based business entrepreneur, value your time!
If you spend five hours submitting your site to free resource boards
that bring you little or no business, remember that it has actually
cost you at least $500.
Trust only to good fortune, never to luck!

About the Author

Carl Hruza - Top Web Promotion
Learn more on how to market your web site effectively and improve
visibility through the Internet search engines, along with how to start and operate your
own Affiliate Program. http://topwebpromotion.com
mailto:sales@topwebpromotion.com