There are hundreds of legitimate ways to earn an income as an affiliate but there are various reasons why certain ways are not manageable for some people because they lack experience, don’t have the financial capacity or just don’t have the confidence to let their creative juices flow.

Here is a 3 step viral marketing formula you can start working on or perhaps tailor it to your comfort level:

STEP 1

This would probably work best for an affiliate product or service that pays recurring commissions. Getting paid monthly after just one sale is the ideal way to earn a long-term affiliate income without having to spend on the overhead and administrative efforts of owning your own product or service.

Usually when you make a sale that person will also have the opportunity to earn money and if they do you will make a commission off their sales so the best way to motivate your team is by showing them step by step how to make those sales. The simplest way to do that is by creating a report and have it passed on to their team and have their team do the same and so on.

STEP 2

For this to work you would have to make sure you get the right tools in place to ensure the person who referred you is getting credit for the sale. An excellent way is to create a PDF report which everyone has free access to these days and invest in a PDF brander.

Depending on how much you want to spend you can always set up a mini-site but that could be way above your means so keep it inexpensive. Do your research because there is always something available to make your marketing a lot easier. The key is to find unique ways to promote and help others do the same.

STEP 3

Making sales is obviously the end result we all want but the best way to succeed is building a list of subscribers that either will help you grow your affiliate income or buy products from you. Promoting without capturing, at a minimum, names and email addresses is going to hurt you in the long run.

Investing in a quality autoresponder service will set you back less than twenty dollars a month but if you think of the big picture the earlier sales will pay that cost multiple times over. So create a lead capture page offering the report for free and you will be building a list of subscribers and increasing your chances of making sales dramatically.

As an affiliate you will encounter a lot of competition, so below are 3 key ways to separate yourself and become a successful affiliate marketer:

1. Promote Yourself First – a lot of people’s first mistake is to promote the affiliate site without promoting themselves first. These days potential customers want to know who is behind the product and service so self-branding is crucially important.  You can show your affiliate site until you are blue in the face and it will be real tough to make sales because prospects have short attention spans but a memorable brand or person is harder to forget.

2. Build A List – a list of active. loyal and targeted subscribers can make the difference between sporadic affiliate sales and long-term multiple streams of income.  Building a list will allow you to maintain communication with your customers and prospects, build relationships and generate consistent traffic to your promotions.  Using autoresponders to build your list is a perfect marketing tool for growing your brand and following.

3. Provide Quality Content – holding on to your subscribers will depend on the information you are providing and how often you give it to them.  Quality content is essential to bridging the gap between apprehension and trust.  You can easily turn off your subscribers by sending them overwhelming sales messages but you can build an army of buyers if you treat them with respect and give them answers, educational content or solutions to improve their situations.

Here are the 3 steps you need to follow to make your life as an affiliate marketer simple:

Step #1

Find a product or service that you can build a strong campaign around. Make sure you understand what you are promoting, but more importantly be prepared to compete with some great affiliate marketers who may promote the same things you have chosen to market as well. That’s okay, because the third step will help you make this easier for you.

Step #2

You need to generate traffic but more importantly it is crucial for your success to bring in targeted traffic. It makes absolutely no sense for you to spend maximum effort, time, money or all of the above bringing in the wrong group of people to your promotions. Targeted traffic will ensure you are giving your message to people who are interested in what you have to say.

Step #3

Converting sales is the toughest of the three steps, but it is undoubtedly the purpose of being in this business. The key to your affiliate marketing success  will be based on your relationship with future, past and present customers. That is why it is essential to build a list of subscribers. Investing in an autoresponder service will mean the difference between failure and success if you are looking to have a long lasting business on the Internet.

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Tip #1

Building a list of subscribers – this will be the driving force in the success of your business. Investing in a quality autoresponder service is crucial as well. To succeed online as an affiliate marketer you have to establish a relationship with customers and prospects. Using an autoresponder to send messages to your list will allow you to do that.

Tip #2

Protect your affiliate links – unfortunately there are those individuals who prey on those working hard to earn a living by cheating their way to your hard earned cash. Cloaking your links with the right tools is a great head start. Remain vigilant and always keep up with the new preventive measures because there will always be people finding ways to steal other’s commissions.

Tip #3

Residual income products and services – signing up to be an affiliate that pays you monthly commissions is a smart way to go. If someone subscribes and agrees to pay the monthly fee to join a membership site you get a percentage of that payment every month. It is without question the best way to succeed at affiliate marketing because of the residual income factor.

Tip #4

Expand your promotional funnel – there are dozens of ways to advertise and market the affiliate products and services you have decided to promote. The key is to try them one at a time, stick to it until you are absolutely sure it doesn’t work, and more importantly keep working the ones that do. You must also consider what you can do for free which will demand your time or what can you afford to invest in financially.

Tip #5

Follow successful affiliates – in this business there are many successful people you can learn and get some great affiliate marketing tips from. You can subscribe to their lists, subscribe to their blog’s RSS feed, or invest in one of their products and services. The key to learning the right way to succeed at affiliate marketing is to choose one or two people you can relate to and understand.

It doesn’t make sense to try learning from a person who makes a ton of money but you have no idea what the heck they are talking about. Those that care about your success know how to teach. Stick to those people and a great place to start is Affiliate Funnel where they show you how to build your business not someone else’s!

Here are 5 Product Recommendation Mistakes Affiliate Marketers Make:

1. Product Overload – many affiliates belong to more than a handful of mailing lists and are constantly bombarded with emails pitching the latest and greatest product.  They are also tempted with the next big thing on a blog post, an e-zine ad or the latest free report they happen to read.   How much value can a product you are promoting have if you are pushing hundreds of other products?

2. Product Bias – obviously no product is perfect. but affiliates will be scared to mention any negative points about it.  People will respect the individual promoting more if they are honest about the good and bad aspects of the product.  It’s even worse if they know the product actually sucks and they still promote it.

3. Product Selfishness – one horrible thing some affiliates do is scream and yell about how great the product is but fail to promote what it can actually do for potential customers.  How can it make a difference?  How can it help them?

4. Product Proof – some products can easily be judged whether it can work or not but many times potential customers want to see evidence, numbers, proof.  Hard facts!  Affiliates just want to make the sale but fail to understand people are looking for more than just talk.  Don’t tell them how much you earned but how you earned it.

5. Product Pitch – here is usually the kiss of death.  If your product recommendation is spoken or written like a sales pitch then the chances of making consistent sales will be minimal.  Affiliates constantly make the same mistake of being the equivalent of a used car salesman and that just doesn’t fly with today’s consumer.

The good news is if you can show a consistent presence as an expert in your targeted market then recommending products could be your most powerful marketing tool.

How do you prove your expertise?

- Offer new and unique solutions people would not get from your competitors.

- Show proof that what you are promoting works as advertised.

- Provide endorsements and testimonials from known and respected people in your niche to enhance your credibility.