Singing Pig

My inbox seems to be inundated with various offers for affiliate schemes on the net. Make X amount for a couple of hours input a week. Is any body involved in any of these schemes, if so which ones, and have you actually made the money these schemes claim you can make if any at all ?

These affiliate schemes are a load of rubbish, they dont work and probably never will

Never heard such tosh in my life!

Affilate programs DO work if you know anything about internet marketing!!

For an ezine owner or anyone who does business online and has a large mailing list an affiliate program can provide endless back end oportunities.

For example, a customer mailing list of 20,000 will yield 0.5% no problem with some decent ad copy, by carefully selecting associated products and services and marketing them to the list on a profit share basis, as per an affiliate program, the list owner will generate a healthy back-end income without having to invest any time and money in developing their own product or service.

To say affiliate programs don't work is such a sweeping statement.

In addition, for anyone who sells a product or service online, starting your own affiliate program is the single most effective marketing tool you have to hand! You are leveraging someone elses time, effort and investment on a pay per sale basis, no matter how hard they work, if they dont make a sale - they dont get paid.

Robert.

Well said Robert, well said

As somone who has an online business and affiliate scheme I can honestly say yes they do work. This is from the merchants view but looking at the amount of money I pay out some months to affiliates I would say they are doing quite well. More often than not they will be signed up to more than one scheme.

Rob not sure if you know but how would I go about getting a mailing list of 20 000 or any amount and what would this cost, roughly.

 

Idea for someone wanting a nice passive income.

I haven't done this but did think about it a while ago, just not got the time. A good way to make a bit of cash is to setup a shopping website, nothing fancy to start with. Then sign up as an affiliate with a load of online shops, Dixons, Tescos, Uplifted Lingerie, Homebase etc etc. Then get your friends when they buy online to go to your site first, click on the link to whatever site they want to buy from and you get a commission on that sale. This can be extended into say local Football, Rugby clubs, you can offfer the club a % of what you make through their players buying from it. The players feel as though they are helping the club make a bit of money and you are creaming off the top of that. So you as an affiliate then have affiliates working for you.

As you get more confident read up on online advertising and this time next year Rodders your site will be number 1 in Google and you will have more money than you know what to do with......

 

Thanks

Jamie

Jamie,

Capturing the email address of visitors to your site as well as your paying customers is the goldon rule of internet marketing. It is something that should be planned for and implemented when setting up your site as it is a key part of the marketing process. Your site should be getting 1000+ unique visitors a day if you're doing your marketing right and your ad copy will be converting 2% at least if it's up to scratch but the other 98% will **** off without doing business with you. Your goal is to capture their details weather they do business with you or not so that you are able to communicate with them in the future with the aim of converting them into a paying customer.

The trouble is too many people online play the short game, out to make the sale and the big bucks there and then with no back end or future plan, this is SO shortsighted!

The most effective way to market online and capture details is to use a loss leader, give something away to the visitor to your site in exchange for their contact details, this immediately starts the pattern of them trading with you, they know who you are, they'll remember you and this relationship building is key. The next step is to follow up a day or so later while you are still fresh in their mind with a simple email enquiring how they got on with their free product, this way they get used to your communications in their inbox. The next communication would be offering them a product but with a sizable introductory discount, obviously time sensitive and you then begin to funnell them on to larger ticket items - this is the importance of a back-end. Start with a loss leader to build your list and make your money on the back-end.

It's all about understanding customer aquisition cost and the lifetime value of your customer, once you know these figures you'll have no problem with making a loss on the first offer.

If I know the average lifetime value of a customer to me is £100 per annum, i've got no problem with giving away £20 notes as an incentive to start our business relationship in the first place!

Hope this helps.

Robert

Great post will have a thorough read tonight.

Do you work in online marketing?

Jamie,

I used to consult in marketing, both online and offline a few years back and I had an internet marketing ezine too with a large subsciber base. I really enjoy marketing now too even though i'm in a different business now.

If you have any questions, post them in a thread instead of PM'ing me cos this way everyone can benefit and that's why we're here, to share knowledge!

Rob