Is Opt In List Building for the Affiliate Marketer?

As an affiliate marketer you are no doubt looking to make money online for what many consider minimal effort. After all the website is built for you, it converts well and it would appear all you have to do is draw traffic for decent commissions. Sounds good but for any affiliate marketer to make real money online they simply must consider building an opt in email list of their own

Now, building a responsive list like any other endeavour in life entails some work. That said it can be one of the most profitable things you can do to turbo charge your online efforts not to mention the profits too. The time and effort put in will certainly be well worth it.

Your list opens up various other avenues for business. Take joint ventures for instance. You would be in a strong position to leverage your efforts with ad swaps or give away events to grow your list. Launching your own product or service would have a different outlook as you would be able to test it's popularity by the response of your list.

One other great advantage of having a list is that you can ask your list exactly what they want. You then go ahead and produce it for them and be handsomely rewarded. I also think it is very rewarding to be able to help those on your list to make money online too. You can do this by providing the know how and sourcing the right products at the right price for your opt in email list to benefit from.

It is a known fact that most affiliates, probably about 90 percent of them, are not making any money from their affiliate marketing. I think the reason for this is quite simply that they spend so much effort and money looking for traffic. This traffic is usually undirected and any efforts geared towards this will produce very little. Apart from information, people online are also looking for a relationship. Can they trust you? Trust comes with time. Building your own list allows you to gain this trust and your traffic becomes targeted. You can then expect meaningful results to your offers. It beats expecting people to buy from you first time round on your website especially in the light of the fact that people need an exposure of about 7 - 10 times before they will make a purchase.

I am singing the virtues of having a list as being a key to successful affiliate marketing. Many successful marketers have been known to make serious affiliate sales by just sending a recommendation or endorsement email message to their list and receiving thousands of dollars as payment a few hours later.

This kind of marketing experience is really worth building a list for. It does not happen overnight and requires that you have a good relationship with your list for it to be responsive.

Clearly, owning your own opt in email list will help turbo charge your affiliate marketing efforts and put some money in the bank to show for your online efforts. Is it not time you started building an opt in email list? One that enables you to make real money online.

Build a list and build your own traffic - and I mean targeted and responsive traffic.

Would you like to know more about how I do it?

Download this newly completed guide free at: http://www.ListBuildingMission.com

Learn How To Quickly Build A Profitable List From Scratch Without Spending A Fortune.

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Don't Catch These Two Diseases

Burn the FAT!

www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com

One of my favorite motivational speakers is a guy by the name of Brian Tracy, who is one of the world’s top experts on success psychology and personal achievement. In case you haven’t heard of Brian, he is sort of like a calmer, more “laid back” version of infomercial guru, Tony Robbins.

Not long ago, I had the chance to attend a seminar Brian held at the Jacob Javitz center here in New York City. One part of his talk really grabbed my attention, and I’d like to share it with you...

Brian said that that there are two diseases running rampant across America and much of the industrialized world today. If you had to hazard a guess, which two do you think they are? Cancer? Diabetes? Heart Disease? Osteoporosis? Obesity?

Guess what? They’re NONE of the above. In fact, they’re not even physical diseases – they are mental diseases.



The first mental disease, according to Tracy, is called something-for nothing disease. Something for nothing disease is contracted by people who believe they can take more out than what they put in. These are the people who want all the rewards without paying full price, or as Brian put it, “They want to go through the revolving door of life on someone else’s push.”

Quick fix disease is the second of the mental diseases. According to Brian, this disease is contracted by people who always want a quick way to reach their goals. They search for instant cures to solve problems that may have taken months or even years to develop. They seek short cuts to acquire key skills that actually take many months and years of hard work to master.

These diseases are not to be confused with the desire to constantly get better and search for more efficient ways to reach your goals (which is a positive trait). The “diseased” people are those trying to reach their goals faster than nature intended without any effort (which is a negative trait). As a friend of mine once said, "There’s a big difference between seeking efficiency and being lazy."

Brian’s New York City seminar was mostly filled with businesspeople, sales professionals and entrepreneurs, so he referred to financial examples, such as: wanting to work fewer hours and earn more money, investing in get rich quick schemes, or buying lottery tickets.

However, I personally feel that quick fix and something for nothing disease are more rampant and insidious among people with fitness goals than they are among any other group.

Health and fitness seekers with something for nothing disease they think they can get twice the results in half the time. They want weight loss without dieting, fitness without exercise, and perfect health while eating, drinking and smoking whatever they want.

Those with quick fix disease want to take a pill, go to sleep, and wake up skinny. They are forever on a quest to find short cuts to fitness goals that that normally take months or years to attain.

People afflicted by quick fix disease are suckers for the latest “exercise in a bottle,” “fat burning cream,” “diet pill,” or “steroid replacement” scams. They impulsively buy miracle solutions on a whim, which they haven’t researched and know nothing about.

Saddest of all, they often waste YEARS of their lives on a misguided quest for the holy grail of weight loss or muscle growth, when they could have reached their goals with a better work ethic and a little bit of persistence.

People with these diseases are violating some of the most basic laws of the universe: Cause and effect, sowing and reaping, action and reaction. This is just as ridiculous as attempting to violate other natural laws such as the law of gravity. Jump off a cliff, and you’re going to plummet to the Earth below – 100% of the time.

But there’s more: Not only are you going to FAIL and hit bottom if you catch one or both of these diseases - the very act of seeking a quick fix or wanting something for nothing makes you a weaker person.

On the other hand, the act of setting a worthy goal for something you want and reaching it through diligence, determination, discipline and hard work changes the very fiber of your being. You literally change on a cellular level; you become a stronger person.

The purpose of having a worthy goal then, is not to possess the goal, it is to become a better person as result of pursuing and achieving the goal. If you get something for nothing, you may have that thing, but you have not become anything. Pity the person who wins a million dollars who has not become a millionaire in spirit and character.

It’s been said you don’t get what you want in life, you get what you deserve. If you want to achieve your perfect weight and improve your health… if you want success and achievement… if you want to win the championship title… then set the goal and go for it!

But whatever you do, don’t catch these two diseases. SHUN THE QUICK FIX, AVOID THE FREE RIDE and deserve it. You can have, do or be anything you want - just pay the price and it’s yours!

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written hundreds of articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide. For information on Tom's Fat Loss program, visit: Burn the FAT!
To learn more about Tom's Fat Loss Support Community, visit: www.burnthefatinnercircle.com

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Tips for Affiliates

Becoming an affiliate is one of the easiest ways to monetize your presence on the internet. It is extremely easy to participate in and once you have set up your account, all you have to do is make it work for you. But how is it that some affiliates earn more than others In fact, these blessed ones earn at least 10 times that of average affiliates Want to know the secrets to affiliate success.

What we are about to divulge are well known tips and not so secret advice. They are not magic spells and programming tweaks that will turn your affiliate program into a million dollar empire. However, these common sense tips are surefire tricks that will improve your chances and give you better exposure. Here they are:

Accept that there will be competition.
Competition is a fact of life with becoming an affiliate. Not all of us can make $5,000 a month just by letting the program work on its own. There are too many like minded individuals out there who want a bigger chunk off the internet pie. That means you will have to work hard to get yourself the exposure and trust you need. Complacency means death to any affiliate and you would be better off keeping that in mind if you want to succeed in this business.

Proper positioning pays.
The human eye is a complex creation of Nature and while no two pairs are alike, there are certain predictable behavior patterns that the eyes follow. Case in point: when surfing, every one of us has a tendency to look at the 'hot spots' on a web page. These are places such as the inside content, the left hand corner, the top portion of the page, the bottom of the page, etc. If you want people to notice your ads, place them in these hot spots.

Choose your own niche.
No matter how many affiliates are already on the internet and how many more will be joining, there is always a place for each one of them. That is why you need to choose your own niche and to choose it carefully. For example, you can not have a website about music and post different affiliate ads or links to TV, exercise equipment and nutritional supplements just because they have a lot of demand. These products are just not related to the main topic of your site.

Instead, choose a niche you can excel in and choose affiliate success programs that are related to it, programs and ads you yourself can promote and write about. For example, if you have a music review site, choose affiliate ads that link your visitors to albums, mp3 songs, videos, books and magazine subscriptions. Coherence is key and your site has got to have it.

Capture that list.
To someone with less than an entrepreneurial mindset, names and email addresses are just letters and numbers. To an enterprising affiliate, they mean potential income. Consider your email list as a captive market to whom you can send different offers. Best of all, you can build a solid network of friends and clients online.

Being a successful affiliate means differentiating yourself from the pack. People have to notice and trust you enough to actually buy something from you or because of you. If you want your affiliate program to succeed, work hard during the initial stages and work even harder as you go on. There will be other affiliates nipping at your heels but if you have established yourself well enough, you can be sure your affiliate will remain competitive and viable.

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What a Lens is and Why You should Make One On Squidoo

Squidoo has been part of the new Web 2.0 category of internet marketing tools since 2005, though it has been picking up pace pretty rapidly. Squidoo allows an author to create a lens, a one page website, which focuses on any subject for free. A particular lens can draw information from numerous sources and place it all on one page for easy viewing and reading. Great for links.

A lens maker can create numerous lenses on a subject, focusing attention on a different aspect of the subject with each lens. On the other had, a lens maker can make numerous lenses that cover many different topics, reflecting the lens makers' different interests and expertise.

Internet Marketing

One of the many good uses for Squidoo lenses is to use the lens as part of an overall internet marketing strategy. One or more good lenses can help to bring attention, traffic, and credibility to a product or business by providing valuable information and resources. Additionally, the lens can help to establish the author as an expert in their field and a person whose advice should be taken seriously.

The single page websites that Squidoo allows an author to create are called lenses because the finished website focuses on a single subject or idea. This focused attention on a subject is very attractive to users of the internet who are constantly searching for answers to questions or problems. The internet search engines whose job it is to find good, focused websites that will answer the questions or problems are attracted to the lenses.

Therefore, the use of Squidoo lenses has become a valuable internet resource for building and marketing a business.

Basic Modules

There are numerous tools available on Squidoo to build a lens. Most of these tools are called modules. The modules create separate sections on the overall web page. Other tools available on Squidoo include the author's biographical area, a keyword list called tags, the lens title or headline, a lensroll, and RSS subscription for readers.

One of the basic modules allows the author to write short articles about various aspects of the lens's subject. Another basic module makes it easy to list and describe appropriate links to offsite information that complements the subject of the lens. For internet marketing purposes the author can use these basic modules to link to their own websites, thereby driving traffic to their own business.

Other basic modules provide links to commercial internet resources such as eBay, Amazon, Starbucks, CompUSA, and many other businesses where the reader can be directed to the author's own merchandise offerings or to merchandise and information that supports the author's own business. These modules can also provide some income, as the lens maker earns a small percentage of the sales of merchandise on these commercial websites.

Interactive Modules

Many modules are interactive in nature, which is why Squidoo is considered to be part of the new Web 2.0 category of interactive websites. Readers can respond to many of the modules, adding their own favorites to certain categories. For example, readers can add their favorite YouTube videos to the list of videos on the lens or add their favorite pictures to the lens's list. Additionally, readers can add their favorite links to a list of links that the author has provided on the lens, or they can add their comments or responses to questions asked by the lens's author. One of the favorite interactive modules is the voting module where readers can vote on a question by the lens's author or vote on a listing of favorite resources.

All of the interactive modules have the effect of creating new content for the lens. The benefit to the lens maker is that the new lens content makes their lens more searchable by the many internet search engines. This is an obvious boost to the lens maker's overall internet marketing strategy.

Syndicated Content Modules

Another category of modules is that of syndicated content that is drawn from other websites. For example, if the lens maker has a blog on the same subject as his lens, he can have the blog posts automatically directed to the lens each time he creates a new blog post. Other types of syndicated content include articles from magazines and newspapers. The lens maker can automatically draw content related to the subject of the lens each time a new article appears in the specified periodicals. Similar to reader interactivity, this constantly changing syndicated content refreshes the lens on a regular basis, making it more attractive to the internet search engines and giving a boost to the lens maker's internet marketing efforts.

Creating a Squidoo lens can be fun as well as wise. It's Free so set one up today and start getting some traffic!

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Clickbank Affiliate Products

For ClickBank products you want to find a product that has a good sales page. This is the most important thing before commission.

If you have a choice between a product paying out 75% commission with a crappy sales letter or a product with an awesome sales letter and only paying out 25% commission. I would choose the 25% one. The average payout for electronic products is 50%.

The 2nd thing to pay attention to is do they have an autoresponder? If they do not, you should pick an affiliate that does. Email is a great way to make the customer come back to the website. And often the customer will need to be exposed to the product several times before they purchase the item...especially if the product is expensive.

And to answer your other question, yes if the customer does not buy the product right away and instead buys it through the follow up emails you should receive credit "generally speaking" because there is a cookie on the customers computer when they first clicked on your Affiliate link. The last click gets the sale. Cookies will last 60 days from ClickBank. If someone clicks on
your link and then returns to the site without going through another affiliate link, you will get the credit. If they go through another affiliate link, the other affiliate will get the credit.

This is what clickbank had to say about cookies:

Quote:
We define a cookie as any string of data that is automatically stored on your computer upon access to our online services. ClickBank employs cookies to assign temporary identification numbers to machines that access our web servers. This information enables us to deliver faster service to our subscribers, prevent denial of service attacks on our systems, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions, and assist with awarding proper sales credit to our partners. All ClickBank cookies are 1) of limited duration, 2) less than 5KB in length, 3) only visible to ClickBank web servers, and 4) devoid of any personally identifiable information.

1. Your sales page needs a Bold Red Headline. A headline will grab the reader’s attention and make them want to continue reading the sales page. If you don't have a headline you might as well kiss a good % of your customer’s goodbye.

2. The longer the sales page the better...to an extent. How long should it be? As long as it takes, generally more expensive products have longer sales pages.

3. You need bullet points. People like to skim sales letters and bullets grab their attentions to key points.

5. You need to have testimonials from other people. Most people will trust what other people say about the product. If your product is new, give a couple copies away to friends / associates and ask them to give their testimonials.

6. You must have at good 100% money back guarantee. I fought this one for the longest time. It hurt to think about it, especially electronic products when someone can easily use the product or service and then claim that they want a refund. But trust me, it has been proven that you will gain more sales from this alone, than if you did not have a money back guarantee. It's called "Risk Reversal" Sure some people will ask for their money back, but a greater percentage of people will buy your product so you end up winning in the end.

7. The layout and fonts need to be the same style and color. Don't have 6 different colored fonts in your sales letter. I made that mistake on my first one. It looked like a bunch of fruit loops with text! The main text should be black font size 12 or 14 and I hear typewriter font is best.

8. Graphics should be professionally done.
Don't screw yourself at the end and try to cheap out by doing the graphics yourself or having some crappy artist design your headers, footers and all around design. If anything you should spend the most possible for the best design. Expect to pay around $97 and up to $397 for a nice looking mini site.

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How to Create the Best Affiliate Website

You want to make money with affiliate programs. What is the main thing that you need? A list. And how do you get that list? You must have a website.

Many new affiliate marketers just promote the link that the affiliate program gives them. They may be making some money, but the truth is that customers rarely puchase the first time that they see a product. Now, ask yourself what happens if they decide to buy that product later. You lose your commission!

If you have your own website, you can capture those prospective customers' name and email address and "remind" them about the product that they were interested in.

Many of the successful affiliate marketers only have what is called a "squeeze" page or a landing page. They give out a free report or ebook to get people to subscribe to their list.

My approach is a bit different. I feel that people are visiting my websites because they want information. So, I do my best to give them that information. Sure, I have a newsletter subscription box on my site, but I am having more success with providing the information that people are looking for.

You don't absolutely HAVE to have a content site to have an affiliate website. There are different types of sites that can direct traffic to your affiliate merchant.

1. Price comparison sites. These sites are mostly dominated by the big corporations like Shopzilla so it is more difficult for an affiliate marketer to make any money with comparison sites. It is possible to have a product feed to take care of some of the technical aspects, but it's still difficult.

2. Product review sites. Product review sites are becoming more and more popular. Pick products that match your content topic.

3. "Mini" sites. These sites (as I mentioned before) that normally just have an optin page to gather the names and emails of prospects. Then, you create an autoresponder series to introduce these people to your affiliate products. Your messages are NOT sales letters. They are based on the good, quality information that they are looking for.

4. And, of course, the plain old content site. Although, these days, content sites don't have to be all that plain. Content can be defined as words, videos, audio and multimedia. The possibilities are endless.

Now that you know that you need a website, how do you go about getting one? Let's take a look:

1. Hire someone to create a beautiful site for you. This can run into big money. You CAN get a reasonably priced web designer if you do your research.If you do decide to go this way, be sure that you ask for references (yes, just like in the offline world), and check them out.

2. Blogging. I love blog sites because the search engines love them AND because they are "easy peasy." The two top choices for creating a blog are WordPress and Blogger.com (http://blogger.com). WordPress is free from http://wordpress.org. It can be installed with just a few clicks from your web hosting control panel (provided you have cpanel type hosting.) Blogger.com is an online service provided by Google. I prefer WordPress because Google has a habit of deleting blogs without notice for reasons that are known only to them. Have you heard the funny story about when Google deleted their own blog?

3. Design Dashboard, by Marlon Sanders: Point and click your way to a beautifully designed website. I have used this and so I know that this learn and you do system is terrific to those who have never created a website.

4. XSite Pro is extremely easy for the newbie to use so that they don't have to have a website designer create a site for them. Just point, click and type. It has a built in template system plus third-party templates are available everywhere these days.

5. Microsoft FrontPage or Dreamweaver. This software is a little more difficult to learn, but I did it - so you can do it if you want!

6. Nvu. (http://nvu.com). A free HTML editor that is pretty easy to learn. The best part? I'll repeat: FREE.

7. SiteBuildIt is the only all-in-one site-building, site-hosting, AND site-marketing system of software tools for affiliate marketers.

7. Squidoo. You can create a squidoo lens with articles that will promote your affiliate product. I would still recommend that you have your own domain name and website.

Also remember that you don't have to promote products that are in the internet marketing arena. Think about your hobbies, interests and talents. You might just come up with a niche that is very profitable.

Stick to affiliate products that fit your niche. People are not looking for gambling products on a fashion site! Yes, there are millions of people on the 'Net but they are looking for something specific. Give it to them.

Your affiliate website is your most important asset because it is where people come up to sign up for your newsletter. You've heard it before: the money is in the list. So, give your website a clean, professional look as well as providing the information that visitors are looking for.

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The Top 4 Reasons You MUST Consider When Choosing an Affiliate Program

Choosing the right affiliate program is vital for your success in making a successful career of affiliate marketing.

Time is precious and you do not want to invest too much of it on programs that are never going to pay off.

As I am sure you are aware, there are many internet scams out there - so you need to be careful before investing your time and effort in any one direction.

In this article, we're going to learn how to distinguish an excellent affiliate program from a rather mediocre one. Yes, indeed. Not all affiliate programs are built alike. Some are simply better than others.

I personally spent at least two years flitting from one program to another and even got involved with the occasional scam. I lacked guidance and lost $1000s trying everything possible to become successful.

I made a few dollars here and there so I knew it was possible to make money online. I just needed a break or someone to put me on the right path.

Here are some points that you need to consider when choosing your affiliate program:

1. How much is the commission rate being offered by the affiliate program? Obviously, you want as high a commission rate as possible. Who wouldn't, right? True, but there is no point gaining 70%-90% of the sale if the product is crap:-) - which leads me on to my next consideration.

2. How sellable is the product? If you are going to spend time and/or advertising money promoting a product then you must check to see if there are other people finding success selling this product.

A good place to start is Google. If you find advertisers on Google selling this product through Google adwords, then you can be sure there is a profit to be made.

You can also do a quick search of topical online discussion forums where you will find the unbiased reviews and testimonials of other entrepreneurs and internet marketers.

3. How credible is the affiliate program? Is there a big, well known Internet Marketers' name on the product? Do they have a track record of great products and satisfied customers.

You do not want to be known for recommending second rate products online.

Building a trustful reputation online is a massive part of becoming successful so it is extremely important that you only recommend products that yourself and others have found to be useful.

4. How and when will you get paid? There are various ways you can get paid your affiliate commissions. I prefer a straight bank transfer to my account. The most commons methods are by company check or via Paypal.

Paypal is an online payment system that will transfer any money you accumulate directly to your bank account. It is free to join but they will take a small charge for each transaction.

Some affiliate companies pay weekly or fortnightly but the vast majority pay once per month. I would not join a program that paid me less frequently than monthly.

Choosing your affiliate program is only a beginning but if you choosing wisely could make the difference between the success of failure of your affiliate marketing business.

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