The Importance of Being Relevant

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 02:07:33 am

It’s a tale of woe that echoes from town to town. As I work with clients and speak to audiences across the country, I inevitably encounter someone reminiscent of Eeyore, the lovable-but-gloomy character from the “Winnie the Pooh” stories. “Our industry is unique,” they moan. “We are in the midst of a crisis and are losing our customer base. Our profits are eroding and we don’t know how to convince people how important we are. Ah, me.”

First of all, I tell them, your industry is not unique — I hear the same concern from diamond merchants, garden centers, and symphony orchestras. What’s unique are the times we live in and the importance of being flexible enough to serve the desires of today’s customer. When I ask, “What are you doing to reinvent yourself in order to make yourself relevant from your customer’s perspective?” I’m usually met with a blank stare.

Global competition, communication technology that’s morphing at warp speed, the value system of the next generation — all are factors that determine whether or not your business will be relevant in the marketplace of the future. In order for your company’s marketing strategy to resonate with customers, you must find the groove of momentum that will align it with the market of tomorrow. Even if it means reinventing yourself.

My recent favorite “comeback kid” story is General Pencil. Founded in 1889, this New Jersey-based, family-operated pencil manufacturer still uses machinery from the beginning of the 20th century to create high-end pencils.

No. 2 Pencils are a highly disposable commodity and can be manufactured cheaper in overseas markets like China (surprise, surprise). By the mid-1990s, General Pencil’s customer base began to decline and the end of an era was in sight. But rather than dry up and wither away, General Pencil took several important steps to resuscitate itself:

Stop, Look, and Listen

David McCullough recently commented on the research and writing of his Pulitzer-Prize winning books, “It’s the thinking that takes most of the time, as it should.” In the midst of what could have easily been deemed a crisis, General Pencil took a deep breath, looked around, and began to think. What are the trends in the industry… and in the world? How has society changed… and how do we fit in? General Pencil put an ear to the ground and began listening for the arrival of impending change.
Exhale — Then Redefine Your Market

With cheap, effective technology overwhelming the market for basic writing instruments, General Pencil had to make some difficult decisions and realized it had to redefine its customer. The company looked beyond a customer’s need and focused in on his or her motivation — what kind of customer might still be looking for a high-quality pencil? The natural answer was artists and art students. General Pencil dropped the marketing of their biggest line (No. 2 pencils) and focused on the market that cared about quality.
Become the Gumby of Your Industry

General Pencil is now so focused on delivering the best to their loyal customers, they bend themselves into pretty much any shape the consumer desires. Recently, a retail-store customer identified demand for a smaller version of General Pencil’s popular Artist Color Pack. Turnaround from idea to finished product? One week. General Pencil not only strives for immediate response, they have no less than 30 new products in development at any given time.

Are you asking yourself the right — and sometimes difficult — questions? Do you even know what questions to ask? If you had to, could you redefine your market? And in the process, reinvent yourself? It may mean a smaller target, but as Roy H. Williams says, “Would you rather own 100% of the people 10% of the way, or 10% of the people 100% of the way?”

General Pencil is a prime example of redefining what it is you offer in a way that speaks to the heart of the customer. An industry may ask, “Why aren’t things like they used to be?” when, ironically, the answer is, “Because things aren’t like they used to be.” Thanks to a global technological revolution, our world gets smaller and flatter everyday. Only those who understand where the competition stands and how society is changing, and then work to create a relevant marketing strategy and message, will avoid sailing over the edge.

Keep Your Company Secrets Under Lock and Key

Posted by rimel - 16/07/07 at 02:07:48 am

If you’re worried about competitors picking up on your next big idea, you might consider a new software program designed to help entrepreneurs prepare professional confidentiality agreements — and save money on legal fees. ConfidentialityWizard, from Fargo, N.D.-based Neustel Software, is a do-it-yourself program that simplifies the process for business owners who need to produce non-disclosure agreements and gives customers the flexibility to create tailored terms of agreement.

Michael Neustel, a U.S. patent attorney and the creator of ConfidentialityWizard, claims that while there are cheap form agreements available on the Internet, none offer the flexibility of ConfidentialityWizard. With ConfidentialityWizard, users can create an unlimited number of confidentiality agreements for $99, rather than paying a lawyer to draft a single form. Neustel Software is offering free trial versions of the program on its website. Users can download ConfidentialityWizard at www.confidentialitywizard.com

Help from Michael Dell

Harkening back to his entrepreneurial roots, Dell chairman and CEO Michael Dell this week unveiled a new brand of notebook and desktop computers designed specifically for businesses with fewer than 25 employees. The Vostro line features user-friendly tools — such as data back-up, network setup, and PC maintenance — intended for small-business customers who don’t have dedicated IT staffs.

Dell officials say it developed the line — Vostro is Latin for “yours” — in an attempt to offer small-business owners products that are simple, less costly and backed by reliable service. Vostro computers will not have any trialware, or limited versions of software that expire within a few months and have to be reinstalled later. Additionally, Vostro comes equipped with free customized support tools for the first year. These tools include: Automated PC Tune-Up, which simplifies maintenance tasks; Dell Network Assistance, which eases network set-up and network repair; and Dell DataSafe Online, an online data backup feature. Additionally, Dell has assigned 6,500 employees to handle tech support for Vostro customers.

“For too long, entrepreneurs have been forced to fit either consumer or large corporate solutions into their unique environments,” Dell told customers in New York Tuesday at a town hall meeting announcing the new line. “Vostro changes the game for small-business owners by empowering them to choose the exact IT solutions they need to be successful.”

Vostro products will include four notebooks with screens ranging from 14 to 17 inches and starting at $449, and desktops starting at $319. A performance desktop will launch in late August. For more product information, visit www.dell.com/webelieve

How to Get Your Message Out

10stepmarketing, a Santee, Calif.-based coaching firm has launched a monthly membership club for small-business owners to get continuous marketing support. The new program, called the Step of the Month Club, will provide entrepreneurs with marketing instruction on a different topic every month through how-to teleseminars, videos, and online discussions with marketing experts.

Members will have the opportunity to vote on the topics they want to see covered, and at the end of the year business owners will have 12 marketing strategies for growing their business. Some of the topics covered will include: “How to Publish an eZine,” “Developing a Marketing Message,” and “Creating a Client Attraction Website.”

“My goal with this program is to provide ongoing small-business marketing how-to training and support at a cost-effective price to support these small-business owners,” Debbie LaChusa, founder and president of 10stepmarketing, said in a statement.

The monthly membership fee for the Step of the Month Club is $24.95, and all new members will receive one free month of membership. To register,

Your Home Based Affiliate Marketing Business

Posted by rimel - 21/06/07 at 02:06:45 pm

Did you know that you can make money on the internet without ever selling anything? There are very few home based business opportunities that are easier or cost less than affiliate marketing. There are businesses and people earning thousands of dollars each year doing affiliate marketing. The business plan is simple. Your clients are already established online businesses selling a wide array of products and services. You get paid for bringing customers to your client which is the website you are an affiliate for. You then get paid either a set fee or a percentage of what the customer buys. Some affiliate programs also pay for every time someone clicks through.

The opportunities for affiliate marketing are numerous and growing every single day. Here is how it works. The affiliate places a banner or link advertisement on their website and every time a customer clicks through from the affiliate website to the merchant site and makes a purchase the affiliate earns a commission.

It is not that difficult to find affiliate programs because it has become so profitable and popular as an internet marketing tool that almost everyone seems to be doing it. This does not mean you should settle for just any affiliate program. It is important to choose a program that is at least somewhat relevant to your website or business. This way you have the best possible chance of your customers clicking through to the affiliate website. For example, if you sell cameras or photography equipment you might join an affiliate program with a company that sells photography books.

Be sure to read the affiliate contract carefully. While there are excellent legitimate affiliate programs out there it seems there is always somebody trying to rip you off while making a quick buck. You can avoid these scams if you review affiliate agreements carefully and go with your gut about whether a website or program is legitimate.

The great thing about an affiliate marketing home business is that you are not limited to doing only one affiliate program. You can sign on with as many programs as you want as long as you have room on your website to place their banner or link.

Here are some tips for finding a good affiliate program.

  1. Will the product appeal to your customers?
  2. How much does the merchant pay and for what do they pay? Click throughs? Purchases?
  3. Do they pay only for the first purchase or do they give you a percentage of all future purchases by that customer?
  4. How frequently are commissions paid? This information should be in the affiliate agreement.
  5. Does the merchant provide access to view your account on a regular basis so you can see how the program is doing?

With some good research you can find the right affiliate programs for your home based business website and in no time you will be making money simply for referring customers from your website.

Affiliate Marketing and The TV Show �Lost�

Posted by rimel - 21/06/07 at 02:06:20 pm

I just finished watching the latest episode of �Lost� on TV and noticed it was a little different from most episodes. Instead of the usual mysterious, cliffhanger type show, this one was more of a character-driven background story. Then I visited a �Lost� fan forum and was surprised that many people were unhappy with the episode and thought it was too dull.

This got me thinking.

In the marketing world, we�re often told to �sell the sizzle, not the steak�, meaning to excite your prospect�s emotions. But if you focus on the �sizzle� in your affiliate marketing business, or any business, you will likely fail.

Why? Because, although it�s human nature to focus on the exciting aspects of your business, they may only play a small role in how much money you make. Focusing on your brand new website, ebook, or other big project, is satisfying, but it�s the �dull� aspects of a business that can determine how far you go.

Like in �Lost�, where the show creators use the slower episodes to tell you about the characters so you care when the exciting bits happen, youe affiliate marketing business has more mundane functions that drive the �story� (your business) forward.

Things like keyword research, web page building, article writing and submission, and getting links to your site are all dull and repetitive, but are vital to your success.

Sure, software can automate many of these functions but not all of them, and if you don�t have a lot of money to buy the software, you will have to do them manually.

So even though you may never completely enjoy these boring tasks, if you want your business to prosper, keep on doing them, at least until your business has grown to the point where you can afford to outsource them. If you concentrate on these less-exciting aspects on a regular basis, you will lay a solid foundation for your affiliate marketing business, and make the fun, exciting parts even more enjoyable and successful.

Earning Money From Affiliate Programs

Posted by rimel - 21/06/07 at 02:06:58 pm

Affiliate programs allow you to refer visitors/subscribers/customers to someone else’s website and if your referrals purchase anything, you get a commission. For digital products, this can be as much as 75% of the purchase cost!

Used correctly, affiliate programs can be extremely lucrative. Used incorrectly, they will earn you absolutely nothing. I should also add that you don’t even need a website to promote affiliate products so they are incredibly flexible. The following tips will help you to use affiliate programs wisely and hopefully, in a way that earns you some money :-)

If you plan on placing affiliate links on your website (or in your newsletter), you should only link to products that are relevant to your own content. It is a complete waste of time linking to irrelvant products just because they pay a high affiliate commission.

Always try and review the products that you link to before making any sort of recommendation - if the product sucks then this will reflect on you.

Don’t expect each affiliate link to earn you a fortune within a few weeks. Some affiliate programs won’t make you any money at all and it is just a case of testing to see which ones work and which ones don’t. Instead of taking the view that you want one program to earn you a thousand dollars a month, aim a little lower - maybe $50 or $100 - but work with several programs. To illustrate this point, I promote a number of affiliate programs and each one earns me between $150 and $1000 a month. Most of the commission payments I receive are for less than $300 a month BUT I receive lots of them. Last month, these ’small’ amount added up to over $3,000!!

The beauty of affiliate programs is that you don’t have to deal with customer enquiries, payment collection, delivery, complaints or any of the administration tasks that go with selling a product - the product owner does all of this for you. Your role is simply to direct traffic to the appropriate site (sure, this is not always an easy thing to do but it does mean that this is the only thing you need to concentrate on).

Ok, so what if you don’t have a website?

No problem! There are numerous ways of advertising your chosen affiliate program without the need for a website or newsletter. For example, it is quite common to set up a pay-per-click advertising campaign with a company such as Google Adwords which links directly through your affiliate link to the main product website. The visitors never even pass through your website and as long as you are earning more in affiliate commissions than you are spending in PPC fees, then this really is money for nothing.

From a personal point of view, I have been using affiliate programs to earn money for some time now and I have recently built several small websites specifically to promote affiliate products of one sort or another. I am not looking for these sites to make me huge profits - just a couple of hundred dollars a month each. But remember, this is a couple of hundred dollars EVERY month for doing NOTHING (once the initial site is set up).

There are so many advantages to promoting affiliate products, not least the fact that you don’t need to create your own product in the first place and there are considerable financial rewards if you get it right.

Affiliate Marketing - The 10 Keys To Success

Posted by rimel - 21/06/07 at 02:06:17 pm

Where can an average person start a home business without investing any money? The wonderful world of affiliate marketing.

For those looking to enter the world of affiliate marketing, there are some key concepts that can help you succeed. These 10 tips will help you maximize potential profit in the affiliate marketing
industry.

1. Focus on a specific area of interest. It can be tempting to sign up for a variety of programs on different topics, or areas of interest, to appeal to a large audience. You need to understand, there are already hundreds of thousands of online shopping malls, which is essentially what you’ll have. It will be almost impossible for you to compete with well established sites offering a variety of products. You need to focus on a particular topic, or niche.

2. Find the best affiliate programs for your niche. This seems to be a “no brainer”, but there are some things you need consider when choosing the most profitable affiliate program. Does the merchant offer products that people will buy? Is the commission you will be paid high enough to pay for some advertising and still be profitable? Usually, products that are difficult to sell, or are higher priced, offer a higher commission. And products that are easy to sell, and have a lower price, offer lower percentage cuts. Try to find the best commission rate for products that are priced at mid range, and products that will be easy to sell.

3. Build a content-filled web site focused on your niche. The primary focus of your web site is to sell the affiliate products you have chosen. But, if your site does not attract visitors, sales conversion will be virtually impossible. Create a site that focuses on the area of interest you have chosen, and populate it with rich, informative content that people would love to read. Good content will establish you as an expert in the niche. Plus, search engines love content which will give you a better position in the search engine listings.

4. Market your web site. You have to let the online community know about your site. Just because you now have a web site, doesn’t mean people will come. Submit online press releases related to your niche, submit your site to search engines. Exchange links with well-visited sites related to your niche, promote your site in online communities, and start a blog (web log). You have to spread the word that your site exists, and that it contains information that will fill the need of your target audience.

5. Market your affiliate products. After you have a consistent number of visitors, it�s time to promote the affiliate products you�re selling. This is usually done with a sales page that is part of your web site. A sales page is basically an article listing the benefits of your product, and what it will do for your niche audience. Benefits can be “it can improve the quality of your life”, or “learn the secrets the experts don�t want you to know”. These sales page benefits may seem exaggerated, but they work.

6. Build an email list. How many web sites have you visited? Have you visited a site, found something of interest, gotten interrupted, left the site and never returned? Of course you have. Don’t let this happen to your visitors. Ask your visitors for a first name and an email address when they visit your site. Offer them something in return for that information. If they have some interest in your offering, but leave the site for whatever reason, you can email them later, reminding them to come back to your site.

7. Don’t hide behind a web site. I am amazed at how many web sites I see with no name or contact information. Most people prefer to do business with someone with a real name, someone they can contact, someone they can get to know. Provide your real name, and an email address on your website so potential customers can contact you with questions, and know there is a real person behind that website.

8. Build a network. Become friends with other affiliate marketers. Share information about the best deals, the most effective strategies, and perhaps, even some lists of potential buyers. Remember, the world is all about a network of contacts, and you never know when one of your contacts will help you out.

9. Do not limit yourself to one affiliate program. Join as many as you can without losing the focus of what you want to sell. Greater variety is good, as long as your products are niche related. The more niche products you offer, the greater the chances that one will be bought.

10. Be patient and don’t quit. Don’t expect great results overnight. It takes time to build traffic to your site, to build your email list, and to build relationships. If you quit, you certainly won’t be successful. But if you’re patient and stick with it, affiliate marketing can be very profitable and rewarding.

Affiliate Marketing at a Glance: Helpful Hints for the Beginner

Posted by rimel - 21/06/07 at 02:06:19 pm

Regarded as one of the choice Internet marketing systems offered to small businesses, affiliate marketing has caught the attention of accomplished entrepreneurs across the globe. With virtually no risk involved in the affiliate marketing game, payment is made only after results are provided. That is one of the several reasons that this form of trade has such a high level of popularity. And with a considerable number of programs currently available online, it is critical to make yours shine brightly above all other professional affiliate marketing systems.

Those with affiliate marketing expertise can easily secure an income of five figures per month. However, less than 5 percent of all individuals involved in these affiliate programs reach this milestone. A huge blunder that many affiliate potentials make is trying to merchandise too many products instead of concentrating on one particular market. In lieu of dispersing your endeavors, focus on your passion, advertise it, and sell it to the best of your abilities.

It is your responsibility to research the product or services that you are offering to the public. With the information you gather, you can produce a resource that builds your credibility with future customers and fellow affiliates. When you have the confidence of your peers, you are building trust in the world of affiliate marketing.

Once you have decided the affiliate market you are interested in, it is time to actively recruit partners. It is in your best interest to find individuals that have already developed traffic and would profit from your offer. You should provide your partners with promotional material, and make their affiliate marketing job as fun and easy as possible. Always keep in contact with your partners, and be sure to deliver updates or changes on products and services. It is also advisable to send tips on how to be successful in the marketing environment.

Promotion is a major component in any form of marketing. Several top affiliates use pay-per-click search engines. However, use these search engines with caution. If you don’t know what you are doing you may lose money. It is best if you discover how to obtain natural search results or employ a search engine marketing firm.

Becoming a marketing guru is definitely not something that will happen overnight. Affiliate marketing takes research, motivation, and most of all, patience. But, as with all things, in the end it is all worth it.

By far, one of the best resources to learn the basics of making serious money in affiliate marketing is Rosalind Gardner�s The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I made $436,797 Last Year Selling Other People�s Stuff Online. For additional information on this easy to understand handbook visit http://burkepublications.com

To keep yourself motivated and to receive more helpful information about the nuts and bolts of starting and maintaining a profitable online business subscribe to Manna Success Newsletter. Get this free weekly newsletter at
http://news.burkepublications.com

Another source of essential information for making money in affiliate marketing is ClickBank Mall�s Red Hot Products for Online business.

Understanding Affiliate Programs

Posted by rimel - 21/06/07 at 02:06:33 pm

Affiliate programs are commonly misunderstood, in order to understand affiliate programs lets start with terminology. For clarification purposes, an affiliate is defined as any “referrer” or website that promotes a product in an effort to earn revenue. A merchant is defined as someone who owns a product and is sharing revenues with an affiliate based on the affiliate’s performance. Affiliate programs can drive targeted traffic to your website.

There are 3 basic affiliate programs, though only the first two are commonly used.

Pay Per Click - this is when an affiliate is compensated for sending traffic to the merchant. (AdSense is an example of PPC affiliate program)

Pay Per Sale - this is when the affiliate is compensated by the merchant if the referral generates a sale or purchase.

Pay Per Lead - this is when the merchant agrees to pay for a qualified (or sometimes unqualified lead), which is very uncommon because it is subjective and up to the merchant.

Affiliate websites tend to provide information, entertainment, and content services to their customers. The online merchants sell products, goods and services online. These are programs permitting affiliates to earn money based on the visitors to your site who click through to another’s website. Some pay a token amount for the click through and others provide a percentage of sales when a visitor “clicks through” to your site and buys a product or service on the other party’s site. This could represent a value added service to your visitors.

Affiliate programs allow you to pay and track incentives from other websites that send web surfers, leads or paying customers to your website. Commissions based on purchases made by traffic sent from the referring website can be paid. Besides a commission, an affiliate can receive a flat fee, or other incentives for all valid transactions it refers that generate a sale or lead.

Be careful that the affiliate’s web page is not cluttered with banner ads that may crowd out your link, or that be annoying to customers. Affiliate programs enable affiliates to leverage their traffic and customer base in order to profit from e-commerce while merchants benefit from increased exposure and sales.

Commonly traffic to merchant sites is measured and affiliates can clearly see conversion rates. Meaning, they track the percentage of people they are referring, and how much of it results in earned revenue. If the affiliate finds a very low conversion, they will find a better way to monetize that traffic, quite possibly with a competing merchant product.

In order to be a successful affiliate, the affiliate site needs to either have tons of traffic or target a specific audience, frequently one untapped by the merchant. It has been my experience, the closer the affiliate site content resembles the merchant products, the higher the likelihood of a good conversion rate.

Once you are committed to the idea of affiliates, the next step is to determine the kind of tracking system you are going to use. Sales can be tracked by HTML code, which is placed in a shopping cart or on the ‘order confirmation’/'thank you’ page, and cookies, which are created after the customers click on a banner ad. Cookie killers have been a problem for the affiliate industry. Software vendors have an advantage over other merchants in that new technologies allow software developers to better control compensation. Vendors can ‘wrap’ their software insuring that their affiliates are compensated for referrals, even if the customer downloads a trial version prior to purchasing. Buy now buttons in the software have affiliate ids imbedded in the download. Combined tracking systems have more success than those that rely on a single tracking technology.

In order to develop a successful affiliate network, merchants must realize that affiliates spend ad dollars on site, and product promotion. If the affiliate is not compensated fairly they will not remain in the merchants network. The bottom line is that affiliate relationships are partnerships, when both sides feel the situation is fair and equitable the relationship will be a success.

What To Look For When Choosing Affiliate Programs

Posted by rimel - 21/06/07 at 02:06:07 pm

So you’ve decided you want to become an Internet Marketer, huh? Will you sell someone else’s products or sell your own?

If you choose to sell someone else’s products, how will you know what to look for? After all, this is a new venture for you.

Or maybe it’s not. Maybe you have been trying out some affiliate programs which have not brought you any money, or, worse, have not paid you for the affiliate traffic you have sent them.

If you are the new person, or the person who is floundering in Internet Marketing, this article will offer you some simple tips for choosing an affiliate program.

This article doesn’t cover getting traffic to your site, which is another huge piece of the puzzle, and will be covered in a later article, but let’s just start with choosing affiliate programs.

#1. You should find affiliate programs that:

a) are relatively easy to set up (code is either created for you or easy to create)

b) will pay you well. This depends on your definition of what being paid well means, but generally, for most beginners, and some novices, if you can see yourself being able to make more than $250/month, the program is at least worth looking at

c) give you products which people actually use. There are lots of products in the market which will sell, but do you really want to be selling pet rocks? If you do, please don’t take offense. Most legitimate affiliate advice sites won’t feature affiliate programs that are exclusively selling something like 8-Track players and tapes. While there are probably collectors out there who would love an 8-track player and cassettes, the fact is that the market is done with 8-tracks. The point is, there should be a genuine need for, or interest in, what you are selling/reselling.

So you find a program which meets the above criteria. Now what? Do a Google search on the company. Find out what people are saying about them. You may have to dig a bit, but the combined experience of the professionals (and not-so-professionals) who develop and contribute to the Internet on a regular basis is, collectively, the best source of advice you will find on making money, or affiliate programs, anywhere.

If you want advice on some great affiliate programs, you can visit sites which have already reviewed the information about companies and present it to you in a straightforward way. If you are ready to find some great affiliate programs, then you will be able to find categories of affiliate programs on these sites, which will generally represent the type of products you would like to sell.

Search engines love content, and so do your site visitors. Content is one of the most important aspects of getting people to your web site, and helping them to see the value in what you’re selling. You should strive to choose programs with products which are related to your web site.

In other words, if you have a site which features information about the Toyota Camry, you’re going to be pretty hard pressed to be able to get your page content matched up so that you could sell, say… baby rattles.

Find affiliate programs which relate to what you already do, and then promote those products.

Finally, see if you can find someone to actually talk to (ok, email would be okay) who has received regular checks or payments from marketing products. We think that this is, perhaps, the most important part of any affiliate program, because the main reason you promote their products is to receive a check for your efforts.

So there you have it, some simple tips for choosing great affiliate programs! Hope this helps you to reach your income goals, and also helps you to develop a long-term plan for on and off-line financial and personal success.

A Review of James Martell’s Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook

Posted by rimel - 21/06/07 at 02:06:43 pm

I have a girlfriend and a job. I like my girlfriend a whole lot better than my job and she feels the same way. One of the things we have been doing for the past 6 months is talking about how cool it would be to quit our jobs and do a full-time business on the Internet. Its all my fault. I started this dreaming by telling her things like: there�s has got to be a way to do it, we just need to find out how.

Quite by accident I stumbled across James Martell�s Affiliate Marketers Handbook � 2005 and I think I�ve got it. I had only a vague understanding of affiliate as it applies to Internet marketing and I did have some doubts at first. I confess to a case of contempt-prior-to-investigation because when I first opened this e-book I thought it was some kind of MLM nonsense. I don�t do MLM, not even a little bit.

I can assure you that no where in this little how-to book on affiliate marketing will you be asked to buy into something. There are no meetings that you need to drag your friends to, quickly converting them to distant acquaintances. No down line that you need to keep motivated to create your income. And most importantly, no web space to sell to soon-to-be former friends, no soap, no gummy bears.

For those wishing to get rich quick while sleeping, don�t bother reading this book or this review. This is a method which can provide income if you work at it. And if you work hard at it, a good income. That is all James Martell claims and in my experience that is what you can expect. So, after that reality check, lets drill down into this little ebook to find out what it does say.

To begin with an overview of affiliated marketing, as presented in the book, Amazon.com (a seller) pioneered the concept of offering a small fee to any web site (an affiliate) who would place a link back to Amazon of any product sold on the Amazon web site. It wasn�t very much, maybe a nickel or so; the theory was that if you wanted to discuss a book on your web site, you would like to get something for telling your visitor where she could get that book. The business plan caught on and pretty soon many sellers copied Amazon. Someone, probably 10 seconds after Amazon, realized they could get paid for becoming a kind of boutique Internet marketer in which they created a web site devoted to groupings of like products, all of which were sold by affiliate sellers.

OK, so where�s the magic? Lets suppose you decide this is a good idea and you decide to make a site selling gold socks. You go out and find all the affiliate retailers who are willing to let you put their logo for gold socks on your website and agree to pay you a dime every time someone clicks on their link. If that�s all you did, you�d be sitting around for a long time before anyone knew you were there, much less people who were actually in the market for gold socks. And you�d better not quit your day job just yet. In James Martell�s Affiliate Marketers Handbook � 2005, we are taught a better plan in 8 steps. This plan works from carefully chosen products and works �backwards�. Gold socks? � stupid idea. Clothing boutique? � good idea. And that is the magic. Lets drill down a little deeper and paraphrase these 8 steps to support our discussion here.

Step 1 is about creating an organized infrastructure for yourself. You may think you don�t need advice about organization and you may be right. On the other hand, maybe you do. For example, a username/password database to manage a large number of different UN/PW�s is probably too basic for you, but for some of us, the structure is welcomed. This may be a working definition of my ADD. In any case a careful read of this step, following the directions explicitly, just might save you some serious turmoil in the near future. Having an expert help you lay down an organized infrastructure based on what you will need in the future is priceless. Too, I like the following philosophy from page 129:

Plus, do not set yourself up for failure by thinking you will get rich overnight.

If you�re doing this part-time, while holding down a full-time job, then it would be wise to set a realistic goal of, let�s say, $500/month for your first site.

That amount is VERY realistic. And once achieved you can build from there.

Step 2 was the first realization of my own back assward thinking about Internet Marketing. See, I thought you get a product and then market it. James� program tells us to get marketable products first. It does make a modicum of good sense. There is no point selling wadgets if everyone is buying widgets. And if you must sell your beloved wadgets, that�s OK too, just don�t plan on paying the dental bill with the proceeds.

The rubber meets the road when it comes to finding out what people are looking to buy on the Internet and which merchants offer good affiliate programs. He details how to use Commission Junction (there are many others) to define the best industries. Commission Junction (www.cj.com) collects data on retailers who offer affiliate marketing programs. Again, I was happy to get the detailed instructions on the effective use of this humongous database. The process of deciding which retailers have the best affiliate programs requires a few hours of careful thought. But following directions here can save you a lot of time later. About evaluating and comparing potential advertisers, he says:

Make note of their commission structure. Look at their home page.

How does it compare to others in the same category?

Is their affiliate join page user friendly? Or, does it employ a lot of lawyer jargon and demonstrate an attitude of restriction in their policy requirements?

Do they seem to appreciate their affiliates?

THAT�S the key as far as I�m concerned.

Step 3 makes me cringe just a little, as in why didn�t I think of that. James claims there is a way to determine the most common words that are searched in the major search engines. He further wants us to use these most common keywords in our nascent web site, including naming the site. He tells us how, in minute detail, of course. His words:

And, this is because you will gain an AWESOME strategic advantage when your domain name contains the most popular keywords for your industry, — especially since the advent of link popularity as a MAJOR search engine ranking technique.

The idea is to be easily found by people who are trying to find you. That is about getting ranked high on the search engines. I was astounded to learn that www.wordtracker.com provides this keyword data and in my perusal of their site, I found ideas coming to mind about how to capitalize on this information. To stay focused, however, we are reminded to always find keywords relating to the industry chosen in step 2.

Step 4 covers the technicalities of web design using FrontPage templates, a little on HTML coding, domain name registration, and web hosting. These are topics I wish I had known when I first cracked my book on Microsoft FrontPage 98 a few years ago. I say this because I think James Martell does a great job of making a potentially confusing area, especially for beginners, imminently simple.

I don�t care how you slice it, designing a web site is a challenge. IMHO anybody who says otherwise is a wanker. There I got that off my chest. But it can be made more difficult or more easy, depending upon one�s attitude and willingness to learn and take advice. And most importantly upon having a good source of information. The biggest problem I have faced in this process is seeing the forest for the trees. In my view James scores highest in this area.

After you get the latest update of FrontPage, buy a few templates, get a keyword-based domain name and a hosting service � don�t worry, this is detailed quite nicely in the book � you publish to the Internet, and that is a way cool experience. Hells bells you�ll probably run back to your site every morning for a week just to see it on the Net. I did and I love it, though I confess it never seems to be perfect, but that�s just me.

But I�m getting ahead of myself, not too uncommon in the web design world. Before we get on the Net there are some critically important steps to take. Just read on.

Step 5 is a detailed answer to the question: how do I get noticed on Google (or Yahoo, or, or, or)? I decided when HTML first came out that I did not want to learn it. I am so lazy that certain people routinely to hold up a stick to tell if I am moving. I knew there would be a lot of software that would do it for me and I was right this time. That is what FrontPage does. This chapter is about manipulating HTML on your web pages to make it very friendly to search engines. James is pretty good about respecting this part of my intellectual indolence. James, thanks.

That doesn�t mean I can afford to be a chicken about learning how web pages are constructed. I am not a chicken.

This 76 page chapter is a behemoth and is pretty close to the nitty gritty of what James has to offer. You will learn about Title tag, Page description meta tags, Keyword meta tags, Alt tags, Headline #1 (H1), and Headline #2 (H2), among other things. In this review I will not detail these topics except to say the way they are presented makes this potentially tedious process as easy as I have seen. And we like easy, don�t we.

This is all for the purpose of being search engine friendly and having your site migrate to the front of the search engines when putative customers search on the well-researched keywords. For me this is the money shot.

Step 6 gets you intimately involved in Commission Junction, where you will sign up for some affiliate programs…well, let James tell you:

�you will have become a member of the Commission Junction network as a publisher, downloaded, printed and studied their 57-page Publisher Account Manager Guide, joined some of their most lucrative affiliate programs, selected links from your chosen advertisers, copied the HTML code for each into the appropriate Product page, embedded protective shareware into your pages to protect them from �scumware� (more on that later) and previewed all Product pages to ensure merchant links are loading correctly.

This is serious business. You work hard, you get paid well. Every page you read or create is an investment in yourself. You�ve made it this far, so no doubt you have some heart and are very motivated to make a decent living as an affiliate marketer. Let�s get to the homestretch.

Step 7, in which we finally get to upload to the Net and submit to the search engines, produces something you can show your girlfriend. (My GF, it turns out, beat me to it. Only she didn�t run through the house going whoopee, so I didn�t notice. Demure little thing.)

We are directed to www.selfpromotion.com, a site that is donation-only and very user friendly, to automate the submission of this web site, we have so carefully created, to a bunch of search engines. The point is we want to be seen by people who matter� customers who search on the keywords we have cleverly embedded throughout our web site. James has a lot to say about www.selfpromotion.com with its Tooter tool. Thankfully, he covers some of the basics about pay-per-click engines and other important but difficult to find information.

As usual the detail that James provides is gratifying. For example www.hitslink.com, a low cost multifunction hit counter for your site is a gem and provides quite a lot of information about your site visitors.

Step 8 has some final touches that serve to increase our Google (and others) standing considerably. I believe him when he says this is inside information and I won�t go into detail here. Its about ranking by popularity and some relatively simple things we can do to make this whole thing come together so we are looking very professional.

Since my writing is getting smaller and smaller, I must be at the end of the page, so let�s finish this up and go home.

As I have worked through the tutorial, and at the same time shared it with you in this review, you may wonder if this is a really easy business. I don�t think so. It takes quite a lot of time to wade through the material and, at least for me there is a fairly steep learning curve. I have been assiduously reading about affiliate marketing lately and man, the field is crowded, both with some honest business people � I consider James in this category � and with some dunderhead hucksters who have flashy blinking-light web sites selling get rich (wealth is a common term here) yesterday schemes. I find that crap sickening and always wonder who is gullible enough to go for their pitch. So, sorting the wheat from the chaff is an ongoing challenge. I�ve read some things from payola analysts who would swear the pope is a Jew if the price is right, who try to tell you how successful you can be if only you follow the masters plan for financial salvation. (Projectile vomit here.)

When I view this as a job, albeit one my girlfriend and I can do together at home, but still a job, I do get a little warm and fuzzy. I guess its something about working in my underwear and only going out to shop and party or ride my bicycle or stare at daisies in the park. But lets not fool one another by claiming there is something automatic about this. A lot of people want to make a buck in their underwear and, like you too, bubba, I am no supermodel and make sure I am fully dressed when a camera is within about ½ mile. That means there is competition and that means that though I can take a nap when I feel like it, I had better make plans to work to stay ahead of the wolves. This brings me to a final point about my little friend, James Martell�s ebook.

He evidently started this business giving work shops in 2001. We all know what a changing behemoth the Internet is � think build a 50 story building on the shifting sands of the Sahara � and by god keeping current is a problem. His solution is pretty cool, I think. James Martell�s Affiliate Buzz is a 30 minute audio thing you can listen to periodically for $10 per month. He ain�t getting rich here, likely this fee just about covers expenses in creating the thing, but it is worthwhile because getting updated information about the ever-shifting sands of affiliate marketing is no mean feat even for the jaded professionals among us.

Do you want to create a web site that is built around key words and sells things that people want to buy on the Internet? Do you want to have an ear plastered to the warm, shifting sand of the Internet in one of the few successful business plans to emerge about how to do Internet marketing? Do you want to stay home to fight with the kids and see first hand what a deserted place the park is on Wednesday afternoon with no particular time that you have to pedal on home? Would you like to see your PayPal account go up more than down? If so, then James Martell�s Affiliate Marketers Handbook � 2005 is a damn good place to start and worth every nickel you pay to get your sweaty eyeballs on this little ebook. IMHO.

Blogs - CSS Top Sites