http://www.proaffiliatemarketing.com/index.php en positionone@me.com Copyright 2009 2009-09-16T19:11:59+00:00 http://www.proaffiliatemarketing.com/index.php/articles/why-use-email-marketing/ http://www.proaffiliatemarketing.com/index.php/articles/why-use-email-marketing/#When:18:11:59Z Whilst on-line marketing was once seen as a risky endeavour for most businesses, the gap between it and off-line marketing has narrowed considerably. Email is a tool that nearly everyone uses today, and it continues to grow and be more prevalent in the lives of people around the world. Many companies are interested in running email campaigns, but feel that running an effective campaign is either too technical, too expensive, or obsolete due to SPAM abuse. In fact, off-line advertising is expensive and can drain resources that could be spent more efficiently on less routine aspects of your business. With email marketing you can write email messages yourself and have them sent within minutes.  It will cost you only pennies, but the return could be exponential. Many parts of an email campaign are automated using autoresponders, so that you may need to sign into your account only to schedule future messages for time-sensitive messages like special offers. An autoresponder (sometimes called an autoresponse) is an email message that is sent to someone who requests information. Typically the autoresponder is the first in a sequence of messages that are sent to someone (the later messages may also be called autoresponders, or sometimes are known as “follow ups”). Using these types of communications, small businesses can develop a personal relationship with their prospects and customers that their larger counterparts simply can’t match due to their size. But personal contact can be burdensome with so much other work to be done.  It’s a dilemma lots of businesses face. By sending personalized email to subscribers, you can show them that you’re a real, live person with their concerns and interests in mind. Just answer common questions automatically to reduce support costs, then send information they’ll complement you on as thoughtful and helpful. Connect with your prospects without getting pulled away from the work you need to get done. Of course, personalized branding alone won’t build your business. It’s important also to use direct email marketing to promote immediate sales. Whether you’re a local brick-and-mortar business or an online company, you can use email to send subscribers directly to your website or business for a speedy purchase. Links to order pages, special limited-time offers, and coupons are all time-tested, measurable ways to generate sales through email. To run an effective email campaign, you don’t need to hire an expensive design firm or copywriter. You just need to focus on writing some email messages, and you’ve already got a start on that, whether you know it or not. You must discuss questions, news in the industry, and the unique selling points of your products all of the time with your customers.  Just put it into writing! Generating traffic 2009-09-16T18:11:59+00:00 http://www.proaffiliatemarketing.com/index.php/articles/how-do-you-start-an-affiliate-marketing-business/ http://www.proaffiliatemarketing.com/index.php/articles/how-do-you-start-an-affiliate-marketing-business/#When:19:24:13Z Find a market niche, find product to promote, test the niche, build a website, add useful content, promote the site, draw the traffic, convert the traffic, bank the cash. Easy? How do you start? The basic process is this: find a market niche, find a product to promote, test the niche, build a website, add useful content to the site, promote the site, draw traffic, convert the traffic into sales, bank the cash. Well, that’s the theory, but you’d be pretty naive to think that it’s as easy as 1-2-3. Sure, there are ways to shortcut some of this process, remove some of the hassle, etc. and you’ll find some of those products on this site which claim to do this for you. Whether you decide to go down that route is entirely up to you. Check out the reviews and comments and make sure you go through the product and try it out before the expiry of the guarantee period, to make sure it really is adding value to your process. Yes, your affiliate marketing business could produce decent cash for you and quickly too, provided of course that you follow the advice, courses or training that you eventually decide to follow. And therein lies the rub. You have to actually DO something. It’s reckoned that only around 5% of people who enrol on some kind of training course, actually end up finishing the training and get anything from it. For the rest, it becomes more a case of ‘analysis paralysis’ - trying to analyse exactly what they should be doing, and not actually doing it. The reason? They’re looking for the quick fix, the easy money, the ‘build a business and rake in thousands in half an hour without a list, a website, a product or even the knowledge to pull it off’ training which can be assimiliated in a few easy-view videos. Nope, it really isn’t rocket science, but it does take application. The best place to start is at the Thirty Day Challenge. this is a free online training program to introduce the new internet marketer (newbie) to the ways, whys and wherefores of starting an online business. It occurs live every August, but the materials are available year-round. You can check them out here. Beyond that, if you are inclined to make and market your own product, the Thirty Day Challenge Plus program (monthly paid subscription) will take you through what you need to know to get things moving. You’ll find tools and resources on this site to assist with all aspects of the affiliate marketing process, but the key component is you and your focus on the objective at hand. Training & Techniques 2009-09-14T19:24:13+00:00 http://www.proaffiliatemarketing.com/index.php/articles/what-is-affiliate-marketing/ http://www.proaffiliatemarketing.com/index.php/articles/what-is-affiliate-marketing/#When:19:44:34Z Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest growing Internet businesses today. Get on board! Affiliate marketing is a method of promoting Internet-based merchants - product providers - in which an ‘affiliate’ (a promoter) is rewarded for every sale resulting from his or her promotional efforts. It is an application of crowdsourcing - using one website to drive visitor traffic to another - a form of online marketing frequently overlooked by advertisers. Affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Usually, this is because the administration of affiliates is seen as difficult and time-consuming. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers’ marketing strategies. In fact, affiliate marketing is one of the fastest growing Internet businesses today because it takes advantage of the intersection of three powerful and growing trends:   * The continued rise of Internet commerce.   * The proliferation of high-speed broadband to homes, making electronic distribution (downloads) of even large files fast and easy.   * The accepted change of distribution methods from physical to electronic for a wide variety of products. The Internet continues to grow and evolve as a central, global economic hub and marketplace, as evidenced by the fact that online sales are expected to top $1 trillion annually by 2010. Jeff Bezos, chairman of Amazon.com, said “This [affiliate marketing] is simply the first step in the ongoing migration of the $4 trillion global retail economy onto the Net.” Training & Techniques 2009-09-09T19:44:34+00:00