Intro To Affiliate Business Basics
The goal of any business, including your affiliate business, is to maximize profits. Profit is simply your income minus your expenses.
As an affiliate, there are exactly two ways to increase your income (i.e., the amount of money your business makes)...
1) Refermore visitors to the merchants that you represent.
2) Increasethe Conversion Rate (i.e., the percent of visitors that you refer to your merchant… visitors who deliver the response for which the merchant pays,whether that’s a sale, or a lead, etc.).
Simple formula, right? If you refer 100 visitors per day to a merchant and 1% buy, you get paid for that one purchase. But if you send 1,000 visitors per day and 3% buy, you get paid for 30 purchases. Yes, thirty times more! So it’s pretty clear how to maximize affiliate income!
Of course, every business has expenses,too. Maximizing profits does not imply that you must minimize expenses, too. After all, if you spend no money or time on a business, you have no business! You must get the best possible traffic-building and sales-converting results for every dollar you spend... and for every hour you spend on your business.
Time is money.Don’t count your hours as zero cost simply because they do not cost you “out of pocket.” Assign your time a dollar value – it will put your affiliate business on a solid, professional “business footing.” Let’s examine expenses by asking two questions...
Question #1 -- What does it cost to build traffic to your merchants’ sites?
Traffic-building, no matter how you cut it, will cost you... in terms of both time and money. Spending dollars is optional, but spending time is not.
There are many ways, both offline and on, to drive targeted traffic to your merchants’ sites. I will show you the most highly profitable, time-and-dollar-effective way to build traffic to your merchants' sites...
Build your own Theme-Based Content Site -- one that is loaded with high info-value Keyword-Focused Content Pages that rank well with the Search Engines and that get the “click throughs” to your merchants’ sites.
Let’s break that down for closer examination. For your affiliate Web site to generate targeted traffic to your merchants, it must do two things well...
1) Rank well at the Search Enginesso that it pulls in lots of targeted traffic. So far, though, that traffic is still on yoursite. Therefore, it’s not generating income yet. Your visitors are just “looking around.” So...
2) Get those visitors to click through to your merchants.(Some affiliate program models can actually place merchant offerings on yourWeb site. In this case, your traffic does not actually visit your merchant’s site. But you still have to “get the click” to generate income.)
OK, that wraps up expenses and traffic-building. Now for our second question about expenses...
Question #2 -- What does it cost to maximize Conversion Rates?
Good news! Maximizing your Conversion Rate (CR) is simply a question of doing things right. There is no extra dollar or time cost to boosting CRs at your merchants’ sites. This course will show you how to achieve this goal, too
Your primary goals are...
1) Maximize targeted traffic to your merchants, spending only dollars and time that maximize profits.
2) Maximize Conversion Rates. Do things right (no expense).
Don’t do just one. Do both. Why? Because, as you saw above, your payment is determined by traffic multiplied by the CR... not “added.” Your profits grow geometrically when you concentrate on maximizing both traffic and Conversion Rates.
I have spent quite a bit of time reviewing the difference between 5 Pillar Affiliates who refer high traffic to us and who deliver high Conversion Rates (% of visitors who purchase), and those who deliver low ones.
The #1 reason for low traffic and terrible Conversion Rates?
Banner ads! No content!
Retinal studies have shown that Web surfers actually avoid banners. Yes, their eyes look away! Our study found that 5 Pillar Affiliates who relied solely on banners had an average CR of 0.5%. But those who used “in-context” text links (i.e., text links that are part of the content of the Web page) averaged over 3.5%!
How’s that for a reason not to use banners?
Banners are cheesy and hurt your credibility. If visitors happen to click through (a big “if”), they arrive at their destination feeling “pitched” rather than informed. They have a resisting mindset, rather than with an open, ready-to-buy attitude. Remember that example where you sent 100 visitors per day to a merchant and 1% bought? If you rely on flipping up some banners, it will be more like 10 visitors per day and not one person buys!
Conclusion?...
Don’t use banners.
Yes, I know “they're so-o-o-o-o easy.” It’s always easy to not make money. That’s how all those get-rich-quick-guys do so well... the allure of easy money.
No such thing.
I must repeat… don’t rely solely on banners. see a low CR (i.e., CR under 2%), I know that something is amiss. Great efforts deserve greater results than 1%.
Yes, I agree that these efforts are better than banners. But remember… creating these sites takes a lot more work than tossing up a couple of banners. We’ll see in a moment that it’s misdirected work. (The good news is that this course will redirect those efforts into high-profit areas.)
Time for a philosophical perspective...
In life, the vast majority of people just keep doing the “same old thing.” Life seems easier that way. But “doing the same old thing” guarantees the “same old results.” So in the long run, it’s actually much, much harder.
In the movie, “The Renaissance Man,” Danny De Vito’s character makes a profound statement... When he said that, I remember thinking, “You know, he’s right. Except in rare cases of extraordinarily good or bad luck, people basically end up where they are as a result of choices they make and courses of action they take.”
People tend to blame a lack of success in life on “bad luck” or “poor timing” or other people. And yes, at times, that can be accurate. A heck of a lot of factors beyond our control canblindside us. In the long run, however, as long as we persist in our efforts, these factors tend to even out and De Vito's statement remains valid.
Now, here’s the good news...
E-commerce is simpler than life.Due to its digital nature, there are fewer variables... so the outcome is more controllable. Which means that we can boil
When I see some 5 Pillar (“5P”) Affiliates with CRs over 10% (and a few over 20%!), I figure that those with CRs at 1-2% or less could be multiplying their sales five-or-more-fold. How? Not by working harder, but simply by channeling their motivation in a better direction.
Let’s continue with the case of 5P Affiliates who make “great efforts” but get so-so results... As I reviewed many of these affiliate sites (those who are getting sales but have CRs under 2%), I realized that almost half were basically one big sales letter for SiteSell products and Ken. Which means that these affiliates are selling(with
sales copy) when they should be PREselling(with great, and related, content that is of value to the reader).
There’s really not much point in straight selling off your site -- that's what your merchant’s site needs to do. Picture this...
A visitor arrives at an affiliate’s site that is really just one, big sales site. Yes, I know that the words are sincere -- I owe all 5P Affiliates a big thank you for the truly wonderful things they say. But put yourself in these visitors’ shoes for a moment. They don’t see inspiring, editorial content. They see a sales effort.
But they were searching for content!
People resist sales efforts, so your click-through actually goes down. And if a visitor does click, what does she see when she arrives at an SBI! site? More sales effort. And, in some cases, many of the words on SiteSell’s site are similar to the words that she’s just read. Result? Poor Conversion Rate.
If your site is basically a “bunch of sales letters,” you have not yet built your credibility and likeability with this visitor. Your visitor ends up feeling “pitched.” And then she feels double-pitched if(chances are low) she clicks through to your merchant’s site. That’s why the CR actually goes down.
To make things worse, as she “smells” a sales effort, she becomes less likely to click! So referred traffic drops, too.
OK, let’s see...
1)Referred traffic down.
2)And Conversion Rate down.
But these are the two ways to increase your income. (That’s what we talked about near the beginning.) We’re going in the wrong direction!
Conclusion? Don’t sell!
Instead, warm your visitor up for your merchants by PREselling her with great content that she values and respects. She’ll click-through with pleasure, arriving at your merchants’ sites in an open-to-buy mindset.
It’s your PREselling effort that will boost your traffic-to-merchants and CR, which in turn maximizes your income.
This brings us to our second philosophical premise…
“The #1 Affiliate Reality”...
Your CR depends upon what you do and how you do it. You do not need Lady Luck, Sir Serendipity or anyone else. There is always a reason for how well you do, and that reason always relates to what you do and how you do it.
Once you realize this, then you know success really is do-able. Some people do succeed... big-time… but not necessarily the first time. Just keep trying until you find the right approach.
- See more at: http://blog.advertgoal.com/intro-affiliate-business-basics
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