As we move toward the end of another year, e-commerce activity will once again set records as it is clear that buying online has become the new “normal” when it comes to finding and buying almost anything.
So it’s perfectly normal for you to wonder how you can get in on this 2oth century gold rush.
Many people start off testing their internet marketing chops by wanting to pick a niche market and sell someone else’s products (Ex ebooks or info products from Clickbank, physical goods from Amazon or Commission Junction)
Let’s take the example of starting your internet marketing business around an ebook or information product listed on Clickbank.
The product sells for $47 and you get 65% commissions each time one of those products is sold…not too shabby is it?
Before you can get too excited though, we have to learn some internet marketing basics first right…like how do I generate traffic to my affiliate links so that enough people will visit and buy through my links?
Try This Approach To Getting Started With Internet Marketing
Getting traffic is one of the more obvious requirements of making money online through affiliate marketing.
There are other important factors to consider as well though, including:
- Understanding the concept of a “sales funnel” and capturing leads before sending traffic to your affiliate link
- Knowing how to capture the attention and interest of your niche market better than your competition
- Figuring out how to turn visitors into action takers so they join your list and buy from you – not just once, but over and over again
- How to do all of this and STILL not spend more money on advertising or spend day-upon-day trying to squeak out a few sales
So, let’s walk through some very important steps to getting started with internet marketing.
1. Leads Not Clicks – the first key piece with any internet marketing campaign is to “pre-sell” to your market getting them to make smaller commitments on the way to larger ones. Your first objective is to get them to take action toward signing up to a list in response for receiving value from you. As part of this process, in return for receiving up-front value (video, report, case study, worksheet, etc…) you can then “drip” market additional paid products and services that fit their desires over time and make multiple sales at a much higher rate than sending them to a cold product link immediately
2. Differentiated Value – just because you are offering someone else’s products through affiliate marketing does not mean that you can simply forward them to that product and expect to get any kind of decent conversion. Instead, you want to have your own unique differentiation as an affiliate marketer that other affiliate marketers may not bring to the table. For example, you may have direct experience with the product you can share (highly advisable by the way). You may do a better job of helping your customer use or benefit from the product or you may offer them insights into why this product is more effective than others they may be considering.
3. Better Understanding Of Your Niche Market: – You want to intimately understand the market that the product is targeting along with the desire and emotions behind that market’s demand for products so that you can put together the right messaging and landing page material to capture the interest and attention of your traffic
4. How best to reach your market…if you can reach them via video, put together a series of instructional videos around the problem space and link them back to your landing page/sales funnel. If writing is your strength, then put together content as articles/blog posts and then pull traffic in via a combination of social engagement as well as strategically creating content that will be syndicated across relevant websites. The other approaches are to test and then roll out paid ads (Facebook, Twitter, Adwords, text or banner ads on sites/blogs, etc…)
The keys to all of this are:Â 1) Have a very good understanding of the target market 2) Build a compelling pre-sell funnel 3) Get involved with the products you are promoting (so it adds extra value for your target market and 4) Work on constantly improving the conversion of your traffic into sales – the more you can improve on this, the more traffic options you have
Finally, let me highlight the importance of having a day-by-day, week-by-week training program you can follow the first time through this process backed by available support and coaching from someone who has had recent (ideally current) success – there is no substitute for learning from someone that is already succeeding with internet marketing.
A program like Information Marketer’s Zone offers very affordable, step-by-step training with supporting content, tools and private mentorship forum so that you can learn from existing internet marketers around the reality of making money online. Give it a try, this will cut months off of your learning curve and get you to where you want to be within a few short weeks.
