Start Your Own Affiliate Program
There are several reasons that you may choose to join affiliate programs. Most people join them because they give you the opportunity to make cash. That’s a good reason! There are two ways that affiliate programs can work for you and you can take advantage of both sides. Most people associate affiliate programs through the concept of joining them to sell somebody else’s products and making a cut off of the sale. You can implement these on your site as well, but they are not necessarily going to drive traffic to your site. Once you have traffic at your site, they are a great way of supplementing your income. To use affiliate programs in a way that allows you to make money off of your own products, you need to start your own program.
If you promote a product by yourself, you are limiting your sales to only your site and the people who stop by. If you develop your own affiliate program your products can be sold in a myriad of places including newsletters and other people’s websites. They join your program, place links on their pages and do all of the selling for you. All you do is pay them a commission, which is usually handled through the service that you start the program through. There are several other good reasons to start affiliate programs to promote your product. One of the best reasons is that you can penetrate niches that you may not know about yourself. Because a variety of different people are looking at your products, they will place them on websites that you may never even know existed. Most people do not have the slightest idea how to start an affiliate program. This process requires a little planning and you should begin planning before you launch your site or product. Your best bet is to begin by approaching people who may be interested in selling your products. Offer them a generous commission on the product, somewhere around 50% is a good idea to entice people. Also, the higher priced your product is, the more willing they will be able to sell it.
The next step is to create a professional sales page for the product. This is a page that should be easy for your affiliates to sell. Also, you need to provide them with tools, such as banners and photos that they can use to promote the product on their website. If you are looking to start an affiliate program, but you don’t even know how to start there are several services that you can use. The main downside to these services is that they often take 30-50% of the sales, but they issue checks to your affiliates for you. In essence, it may be worth it just so you can gain the traffic you need and not have to worry about the hassle of paying people and tracking their sales. An upside is that they can help you find affiliates, which also saves you time. Ultimately, it depends on how much you are willing to spend and lose to commissions. Either way you are able to gain valuable traffic and if buyers need your service or product again, they will most likely come to you directly.
If you aren’t interested in paying an affiliate network company, you also have the option of purchasing software that will help you run your program. The software is installed on your server and this software can also automatically pay your affiliates as well. When setting up your affiliate program it is a good idea to look at your options and choose the one that meets your needs both financially and time wise.
Pay-Per- Click Programs
Pay-per-click programs have been around for awhile now, but they have also changed quite a bit as well. When they were first started, people found them relatively easy to utilize. Basically, all you had to do was set-up a list of keywords and offer low bids. Eventually, you would earn some type of return. They really weren’t concerned with how much of a return it was as long as the program was working. Today, pay-per-click has advanced quite a bit. You are now able to segment your advertising and run multiple campaigns. You are also able to make your campaigns more effective because of this. You can segment your campaigns by using key phrases. This means that you simply find a list of keywords that are at least two words that are similar and then place them in groups. By doing this, you can create campaigns that are based on that string of words instead of just one word. Those two words are bolded in your advertisements to increase the likelihood of your advertisements receiving clicks. The other new technique that can be used is to use longer keywords. In the past, most advertisers were using highly competitive keywords or phrases, but now this is not necessary. 50% of searches that occur on search engines are completely unique. The more unique your keywords are the better you will do. The idea is that if you use longer and more developed lists, you will be able to generate more traffic than short lists with highly competitive keywords.
If you have been using a pay-per-click program with just a few keywords or key phrases, it is a good idea to revamp your campaign to incorporate more similar and related keywords. To set-up your PPC campaign, all you have to do is find a provider. There are several providers including Google AdWords, Yahoo Advertiser Network, and Overture.
Google AdWords is one of the most popular and most people will use it because it generates a huge amount of traffic. You can also use the other services to supplement your campaigns.The next thing you need to do is use the keyword tool in AdWords to generate your keywords. This tool is great because it shows you how often certain keywords are searched and how competitive they are. You want to develop a large list that will allow you to use every similar word or permutation that is offered. After you have your list, you will want to break it down into several lists. Use two to three keyword bases for each list and add similar keywords on to those lists. Many experts recommend having a minimum of 40 advertising groups. Now you can create campaigns for each of your keyword groups. In each campaign, you will want to optimize your ads to display a root keyword or key phrase. These will be bolded so that they are noticeable in your advertisements and will attract clicks.
When you set up your campaign you will need to keep in mind your profit margin. For example, if you have a conversion rate of 1% and your product is $50, then you cannot afford to pay more than 50 cents per click. If you pay more, you will no longer make a profit.
Press Releases
Any marketing expert will tell you that a press release is a must. They are essential in traffic generation campaigns and are perfect if you are just launching your site, a new product or even a contest. There are several press release services available on the web, but PR Web is among the most popular. They offer several options, but their high dollar $500 service will get you a lot of attention. This service sends your press release out to newspapers, publishers, radio stations, webmasters and the other press release services. Don’t worry though; you don’t have to pay $500 to get your press release out there. There are free submissions as well as much more affordable plans that will get you hundreds of views. Although, paying $500 can get you tens of thousands of hits on your site. There is an art to writing a press release. You want it to sell, but you don’t want it to be too pushy and you need a new aspect as well. You will also have to follow the submission guidelines that the service you choose requires. Some services require that you use a character-per-line format. You can also choose whether or not you would like elements such as your telephone number, address or a byline included as well.
The second thing is that you have to consider the construction. Press releases aren’t exactly an article, although there are similar elements. When you write the press release you want it to be compelling and informative. In the body of the press release, you need to have a newspaper approach. Put pertinent details in the first paragraph and then slowly wind down the story into information about your business, with a little salesy call to action in it. It’s important that the whole thing is not salesy, as journalists and other media are not interested in reading sales pitches. It is also a good idea to use quotes, even if they are from yourself, as this gives it that news feel.