How to Profit in 2009 Using Lessons Learned in 2008

By David Long 

The end of the year is always a good time to review lessons learned and develop a strategy for the upcoming New Year. This time around, with the economy in a nosedive, that’s more true than ever. Despite the tough times — with retail sales down more sharply than anytime in the
past 40 years — it’s still possible to profit in 2009. Just think about what you did right or wrong in 2008, and zero in on the best strategies.

PPC Strategies

Any affiliate who does PPC will want to take a good, hard look at his or her budget. PPC has traditionally required you to watch every penny, to and always make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. Now that is more true than ever. How can you stretch those ad dollars?

Simple. Just don’t forget a very important and always applicable lesson in this realm of affiliate marketing: concentrate your PPC dollars on developing relationships, not sales. With a PPC geared toward making a sale you’ve got one shot to make it. Fail, and your money was wasted. Develop a relationship, and you’ll have returning customers who give you sales (and more word of mouth) month after month.

How do you do that? It’s really not so hard. Instead of just offering a product, encourage your visitors to opt in to your email newsletter list. When you succeed, you now have someone who has indicated an openness to hearing from you later. That gives you many more chances to make a sale.

But don’t just make your newsletter an endless series of sales pitches. That very quickly turns off even those predisposed to read what you have to say. Instead, take it as an opportunity to be the go-to guy or galfor information on everything related to what you pitch. Are you an affiliate for, say, an Internet coffee club? Wonderful. You’ve got a chance to share your enthusiasm over the latest Peaberry from Kenya. Selling cameras? Excellent. There was never a better time to help your customers decide which is the better buy between the latest Canon 10MP and 12MP models.

While you’re thinking about PPC, consider some new arenas. Reach

beyond Google and Yahoo. Try some Facebook ads. You’ll find that, done thoughtfully, you can target a specific niche, and one that is generally expected to have rising income over the next several years. While still dominated by youthful visitors, Facebook is attracting more and more people from all age and income groups. You’ve got the whole world to choose from here.

Hone Your Marketing Skills

With the uncertainty we saw in 2008 that is sure to continue throughout 2009, more people than ever turned to the Internet to make a buck. That’s actually a good thing! Sure, competition is always…well, competitive. But all those added voices also help raise the general awareness of the buying public to what you have to sell. Hone your marketing skills, and you can carve out a larger share of the market.

How?

Look around at other websites in your niche, and you’ll quickly realize that you can increase your revenue by improving your content. If you don’t have the time or skills to do it yourself, one inexpensive way to do looking, finethat is to subscribe to a PLR service. In the interest of full disclosure: Yes, that’s a blatant plug from a freelance writer! Nevertheless, it’s still
tuned website true. Private Label Rights allow you to get content that is professional and easily tailorable to your website (so you avoid duplicate content penalties).

This is also an opportunity to create that new version of the graphics and functionality you’ve been thinking of for some time. When things slow down a little bit, you have a little more time to invest in inexpensive changes that can bring you big profits down the road. Even a good-looking, fine-tuned website can benefit from a makeover. Customers like to see change; it tells them there is a dynamic team behind the site. Incorporate your visitors’ suggestions when you make the changes and you will see higher conversion rates.

When you think about honing your marketing skills, consider what you did in 2008 and how effective (or not) it was. Did you use all the available information from Statcounter, Analytics, and the rest to find out how people found you? A careful keyword analysis will show you what works and what doesn’t. Common sense will carry you far, but it really helps to have hard data, especially if you have A and B versions of the site.

I discovered for example, that months after posting a blog post on 1957 Hamilton Ventura watches, I’m still getting visitors looking for that unique timepiece. I expected that content to be attractive to collectors for about a week or two at best around Christmas time. What a surprise! It turns out that there are a lot more people interested in that niche than I could have known. But I wouldn’t have known it without using the free tools available.

Be Patient

For those of you who just got started in affiliate marketing in 2008, it’s especially important to remember that it was an unusual year in many ways. Seldom have we seen such large-scale, roller-coaster changes and uncertainty, thanks to the economy and the election campaigns. If things are taking a little longer to work out for you than you anticipated, don’t be discouraged. It can only get better from here.

Affiliate marketing takes a long time in the best of times. Building a website, achieving a good ranking, and learning the ropes all require a long-term commitment. Not years, certainly, but don’t expect huge sales in just a few weeks. In the October Affiliate Classroom issue, you might have read the story of Super Affiliate Amit Mehta. (If you haven’t, you should do it soon!) His experiences show how you can really make a lot of missteps but, with grit and by being adaptable, you can get on track to
big riches.

Try Something New This Year

Write an ebook. In good times or bad, but especially in bad, you want to look for ways to increase revenue that require little investment of capital. One way to do that (a way affiliate marketers are real experts at) is to substitute your labor for spending hard cash. How? Consider writing an ebook. Another shameless plug for my ghostwriting services! Seriously, though, it’s a great way to make money six ways from Sunday.

One way to profit from an ebook is to use it as an advertising vehicle for your affiliate websites. ClickBank makes that a breeze. That way, even if you don’t see much income from ebook sales (which is sure to be the case if you give it away), you’ve created a very low-cost advertising vehicle. You can also use an ebook to polish your credentials as the expert on a subject. Look how much good publicity Rosalind Gardner received from The Super Affiliate Handbook.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with actually making big bucks out an ebook, and it happens from time to time. The chance to grab the brass ring motivates writers of paper books to keep slogging away, even though only a small percentage get the gold one. The same can happen with ebooks. There are several differences, though, where ebooks are concerned.

With a paper book, the publisher and distributor get about 90% of the sale price; you get about 10% at best. With an ebook, you get all the money. (That’s one big reason ebooks can sell for so much less.)

Ebooks also have a much longer shelf life. Most paper books go out of print once they’re pulled from the bookstore shelves. Ebooks are forever. That means ebook income is, potentially, forever.

Ebooks are also cheaper and take less time to produce. A paper book takes about a year or more to write and another two years to hit the shelves. You can write and market even a large ebook within a few months or less.

Enter a New Niche. People who take risks get the rewards. People who keep doing the same thing over and over again usually do not. You may not be realizing your full income potential because you’re in a niche that isn’t right, or just isn’t right for you. Things change. Some niches get hot, then fade. Who knows why? You may have arrived at the party late, or you may just not have a flair for a particular niche. Try a new one! Maybe you started selling doll collectibles because it’s a personal passion. That’s a great way to get motivated. But you probably have more than one major interest; most people do. Look at some of the others and see how you can monetize them. With people spending more time at home the coming year, there are lots of new possibilities.

More time spent at home means games will likely get bigger this year, both the online and real versions. Entertainment always does well in a recession. (Remember the movies from the 1930s? Ticket sales went through the roof.) That means DVD sales will probably go up. (Streaming films and downloads aren’t quite here yet.)

Home improvement products will improve. As the sale prices of homes decrease, people will be spending more to dress them up, whether to sell them or just to live in them more comfortably.

Those are only three possibilities for new affiliate marketing niches. Giveit some thought, and you can undoubtedly come up with many more.

The Future

The future is always unpredictable. But as you are an entrepreneur, which is central to what being an affiliate marketer is all about, I expect you get jazzed from that. It means taking a risk, but it also means pursuing your dreams. Move your dreams closer to reality by learning from your experiences in 2008. That will make 2009 your best year ever

Have a great future!

About the Author

David Long is a freelance writer and editor with over 20 years of experience. His PLR articles and eBooks have appeared on hundreds of websites. They cover topics that include Wine & Beer, Travel, Gardening, Health & Fitness, Pets, Stocks & Bonds, and dozens more subjects. He can be contacted for hire at JDavidLong@gmail.com
 

Performics and the e-tailing group have released ten tips for affiliates to maximize commissions during the holiday season.

Here are their Ten Ideas to Better Reach and Convert Holiday Shoppers:

1. Centralize and prominently position free shipping offers: shoppers flock to these

2. Create a sense of urgency: remind shoppers of the number of days until Christmas

3. Create a suggestions page: provide gift recommendations segmented by price/recipient

4. Inspire impulse holiday purchasing: showcase top sellers, editor’s favorites, etc.

5. Make finding merchants and merchant offers simple: visibility leads to conversion

6. Aggressively promote sale offers: segment deals by percentage/dollar off, just added sales, soon to expire sales, etc.

7. Remember last minute shoppers: highlight gift certificates during final shopping days

8. Ensure timely delivery: note stock status/shipping availability at merchant/product level

9. Support the brand: provide shoppers with comprehensive contact information, including
FAQ locations and store-based information

10. Think long term: collect email opt-ins for future alerts, newsletters, etc.

This checklist is based on the e-commerce merchandising expertise of the e-tailing group and a review of 25 affiliate sites through a Performics’ sponsored study.
 

Ten Awesome Ways To Incease Your Sales In Holidays

Everybody thinks that the businesses will slow down a bit in holiday seasons. Ofcourse everybody thinks that people don’t want to start new ventures in holidays too.

But that is not true. People do spend money… a lot in holidays. On gift items, special discount goods, coupons etc.

The only thing is to know how to do business in the holiday season using this attitude.

Here are 10 tips to maintain or maximize your sales in Holidays:

1. Put a paragraph on your webpage that related to the particular holiday. Like chrismas greetings for Chrismas, Happy mothers day greetings for Mother’s day etc.

Then put a picture of your product under it with a discount price for that particular day.

Advertise about this discount product on your home page from a month before the actual selling day.

2. Send discount coupons to your old customers and subscribers and tell them the offer lasts for one or two days.

3. If you use pay per click engines, change your ads a little bit to give the essence of holiday season.

If your ad is like -

‘Garden tools for gardeners’

Change this to -

‘Garden tools for Gardeners.Price reduced to half for the first fifty people. Limited for Thanks giving.’

OK…OK…You get the idea. Right?

4. Install some greeting card cgi scripts on your site. Use them at holiday seasons. So with every greeting card your website link goes to other people. This is very cheap and affordable advertising.

5. Tell your affiliates that they will receive more commission on their sales through their affiliate links in this holiday season.

6. Always submit two or three pages of your website to search engines with holiday discount prices. So if anybody search in the search engines about discount products, your pages will show up.

7. Offer free shipping and handling to your customers.

8. Put a special pop up window that closes with in a particular time. So you can encourage your visitors to buy the product at discount price or with special bonuses through the link in that pop up.

9. Use your Autoresponder to offer special courses or tutorials for holiday seasons. Send the links to your discount products, samples of your product as a special holiday delivery. Encourage them to buy with a holiday discount.

10. Holidays means parties, get togethers and massive sales. You can do offline advertising about your product and website by keeping banners or free brochures at the reception tables, sales centers etc.

About The Author

Radhika Venkata - Subscribe to ‘EbookBiz Magazine’ which is completely focused on ebook business and Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights every month!

http://www.ebooks-world.com/freetosell.shtml

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Are You Ready to Make Money This Holiday Season?

The Holidays are coming, is your affiliate marketing program ready? Is your blog or website optimized? It’s never too early to choose new affiliate programs and optimize your site for the Holiday onslaught!

Waiting To The Last Minute Can Cost You Money

I can’t tell you how many people wait until after Thanksgiving to start thinking about the Holiday season and what they should be doing to prepare their websites to take advantage of it. Here’s a little tip: if you don’t have your website or blog ready by Thanksgiving, it’s too late!

Once a year you have an opportunity just like retail shops to take advantage of Holiday shoppers. For some retailers, the Holiday season is what carries them through the entire year. For website owners, the Holiday season is what can make you stand out from a crowd and fill your bank account.

Tips to Take Advantage of the Holiday Shopping Season

Here are a few tips you can use to optimize your Holiday marketing plan and your website.

• Review your affiliate programs - If you had the same affiliate programs last Holiday season, review your data and see which ones performed and which ones didn’t. Kick the low performers to the curb and start looking at new affiliate programs to join.
• Review Past Traffic Patterns- Hopefully you know where your traffic came from last Holiday season. Make a marketing plan to increase this traffic this year. Last year I had one source of traffic that out produced others by 2 to 1 to my Tool site. However, that source was very low converting. I had another traffic source that sent less traffic, but the shoppers converted very, very well. Guess which source I’m going to spend more time optimizing this pre-season?
• Make Changes to your Website or Blog NOW - Don’t wait until the last minute to change up your website or blog if you’re going to. It may take weeks or even a month for the new changes to show up in the Search Engines. It may take that long for a new keyword your trying to rank for to work it’s way up the SERPS. Build links to your affiliate product pages and write articles for article marketing now! Putting it off until November is a good way to miss the money boat!
• What’s Hot and What’s Not? - Have you looked into what the hottest item in your niche is? What’s the hottest toy this year or the one cool electronic gizmo everyone must have? Now’s the time to start optimizing some of your pages for this hot item. One way you can keep abreast of what’s going on is to go to Google and sign up for Google Alerts. Just use your hot keyword and Google will send you alerts everyday on where, and how, this item is mentioned. Trying to push what was a hot Christmas toy 2 years ago is leaving money on the table!
• Budget for a PPC Campaign - If you don’t normally run ads on Google Adwordsor similar PPC programs, you might want to think about it. Google Adwords can do wonders for your affiliate marketing. If you are already a user, plan on budgeting a lot more for the Holiday season, twice the amount your normally do is a good beginning. Remember, this is a one time-per-year deal and you want to take full advantage of it.

source: Are You Ready to Make Money This Holiday Season?

Recently, I asked some of the leaders in the affiliate marketing industry to share their #1 tip on successful affiliate marketing. Below are the best results!

1. Innovate before your competitor does. Do something different. Video, or audio or something! - Jim Kukral, JimKukral.com

2. The best tip I could give other affiliates is to network with others in the affiliate community, such as at Affiliate Summit. I have learned so much from the top leaders in the industry, as well as exchanged ideas and negotiated higher commission payouts. I have also made many new friends that understand “what I do”. - Kim Rowley, Key Internet Marketing, Inc.

3. My #1 advice for an affiliate for success is work around the content they love. Then, to earn affiliate program revenue, test out and be patient. - Ayako Bingham, Buy.at

4. My #1 tip would be to always use the product or service yourself before recommending it to others. It makes you more credible and allows you to experience what it is like to be a consumer, instead of just a marketer. - Connie Ragen Green, EbookWritingAndMarketingSecrets.com

5. Meet people. Affiliates are mostly solitary entrepreneurs whose ideas of social interaction are comments on a blog or forum. Go to conferences, join meet up groups and network. Always have business cards with you and a 30 second “elevator pitch” ready. Build business relationships because they will lead to great opportunities in the future. Nothing beats a handshake. - Michael Buechele, 11|15 Media

6. Always treat your affiliate business like a business and make the proper investments (as opposed to the “free source of money” attitude). I am also a huge proponent of “the niche you love”. - Brook Schaaf, Schaaf Consulting

7. Affiliates have many directions they can be pulled in; to keep it simple I suggest focusing on niche products that you are passionate about. - Stephanie Lichtenstein, Andy Rodriguez Consulting

8. Few affiliates are using video, so you should jump in and fill the void. Your computer probably has the software you need (Windows Movie Maker on PC and iMovie on Mac), so make videos with a digital camera, edit, upload and dominate your niche. - Shawn Collins, Affiliate Summit

9. My #1 tip for success as an affiliate is to not get trapped in the echo chamber of affiliate blogs, newsletters, conferences, etc. You should read everything you can about affiliate marketing, but be sure to keep your own perspective and voice. In other words, don’t let yourself be constrained or convinced by the wisdom of the crowd because success comes from pushing the envelope! - Sam Harrelson, CostPerNews

10. One of the best things any affiliate can do is to always try new things, test new ideas, spend the time to learn not just how to implement new technologies, but how to integrate new ideas that will enhance their core business. However, it’s vitally important to know how long to spend on testing and trying new things and to know when NOT to test new things. The successful affiliate is adept at recognizing when something new is a true opportunity, and when it is simply a distraction that sucks time away from the vital core of their business. - Brian Caldwell, PolarRose.com

11. Stay up-to-date- on the latest trends in Affiliate Marketing. In such an ever-changing industry it can be easy to get behind the 8 ball! - Jen Fluker, MarketLeverage

12. Resist the lure of the easy buck. The money usually doesn’t last, resulting in a cycle that can be tiring and unrewarding way to earn a living. If you find an earner, focus on it, reinvest, and see if you can turn it into something that will last for years. - Scott Jangro, Jangro.com

13. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, use multiple streams of revenue sources on your sites, from newsletters to varying merchants. - Aunesty Janssen, Rolet Internet Services

14. Affiliates as a whole tend to have a reputation for solitude and secrecy, but nothing will help your success more than making real connections with people that speak the industry language, both at live events and in online message boards. - Daniel M. Clark, The Big Book of Spam

Tags: Aunesty Janssen, Ayako Bingham, Brian Caldwell, Brook Schaaf, Connie Ragen Green, Daniel M. Clark, Jen Fluker, Jim Kukral, Kim Rowley, Michael Buechele, Sam Harrelson, Scott Jangro, Shawn Collins, Stephanie Lichtenstein, Success Tips

 by Trisha Lyn Fawver http://www.newedgemedia.com/blog/index.php/2008/11/top-14-tips-for-affiliate-success/