Getting Started In Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the quickest and easiest ways for those who are new to making money online. You do not need to create a product, handle the distribution, or deal with the customer service headaches. You send people to an affiliate offer and when they buy you get a commission. But as a new marketer you may be stuck and not be sure exactly how you should go about setting yourself up to get started as an affiliate marketer. Don’t worry. It isn’t difficult and it won’t hurt.

First you need to choose what market you want to get into. It is usually best to pick something that you are interested in while keeping in mind that it must be a market where people are spending money. If no one is spending any money then you won’t be getting any commissions. There are a few evergreen markets that always have and probably always will be full of people who are looking to spend their money. Wealth and how to make money is a classic evergreen market, people are always looking to increase their income. Health and wellness is another evergreen market encompassing things like fitness, weight loss, and thousands of individual diseases and conditions. People will always be willing to spend money on the topics of love, sex, and relationships. And any hobbies that people get really passionate about like golf can be gold mines.

Now that you have a market selected you need to pick out a product that you can recommend to the consumers in that market. You can search the internet but the easiest way to find products is to join an affiliate network like Clickbank or Commission Junction. Affiliate networks will have hundreds of different products in your market that you can promote. Many affiliate marketers will tell you that they have a secret formula for picking a winning product. You don’t need a secret formula. Just examine the products closely, buy a few of them to get a better idea of what they are about, and pick a product to promote that you would buy.

The next step is to get an autoresponder and set it up. I suggest getting AWeber. You will want to write a series of short messages that explain the benefits of the product you are promoting. Your autoresponder will send out your messages to your subscribers at any time interval you wish. It takes multiple exposures to get a sale so you want to be sure and collect their email addresses so that you can stay in front of them.

To collect their email addresses you will want to set up a squeeze page. This is a page that you send visitors to before they go to your site. It is a simple page that should only give the visitor two choices, either sign up for your list or leave. Consider giving something away, an ebook or a video, to entice your visitors to give up their email addresses. Once they have signed up to your list send them on to your offer page.

Now start sending traffic to your squeeze page by any means that works. You can try pay per click, media buys, article marketing, or any of the hundreds of other ways to drive traffic. Which methods will work best will depend on your particular niche and how targeted it is.

Once you have a good stream of traffic coming to your site start looking for other related offers or products to promote to your subscribers. It is much easier to sell to someone a second time than it is to continually go out and try to find new customers. You have already earned their trust. Hold that trust dearly, never recommend something that you would not buy yourself. Your list is the key to making big profits for many years to come.

That is affiliate marketing in a nutshell. Once you have a site that is producing well it is time to expand. You can either start multiple sites within the same market promoting related products or you can branch out and start in a completely new market. The choice is yours. Remember to have fun and enjoy yourself along the way.