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You don't have your own product yet and you want to make some money promoting affiliate products. But if you promote affiliate products via email, there is a better than even chance that you are making at least one of these mistakes and it's costing you money. Imagine if every time you promote a product, you make more money with no more effort because you stop making these mistakes – wouldn't that be worth exploring? 1. Promoting A Product Without Knowing Much About It Just because other people are promoting a product doesn't necessarily mean that you should, too. If you don't know what it is that you're selling, it makes sense that you're going to do a lousy job of promoting it. “Hey, buy this product because other people are buying it so it must be good.” What kind of a recommendation is that? That's why you want to either get a review copy from the merchant prior to launch, or buy the product yourself. Then spend time actually using the product. Pick

Every time you turn around, there's another guru offering a high ticket item that will save the day and put a fortune in your pocket – but will it? The thing about selling information to Internet marketers on how to market is that they are effectively creating their own competition – training others to do what it is that's making them rich. Now, if you were going to train YOUR competition to compete against you and try to take away your business – would you tell them everything? No way. For that matter, would you be tempted to tell them things that were – shall we say - not exactly true? Possibly. Here are 4 common myths the “experts” would love for you to keep believing... 1. Long sales copy always out pulls short sales copy. Not true – if you're selling a low ticket item ($5 to $30) then short copy will often out pull long copy – especially if you state the price UP FRONT rather than trying to hide it at the bottom. If you're selling more expensive products, then long

You purchase a product for $9 and you can’t wait to download it and see what’s inside. But instead of a download link on the next page, what do you get? A @#$%& upsell! Okay, admittedly the upsell looks pretty darn good. And it will make your life easier, too. So you spend the $29 and get the upsell. Now to go to the download page… What the ___?! It’s ANOTHER upsell! This one is $200. Which is a shame, because it looks so enticing. If only it were cheaper… …you click on the ‘no thanks’ link. And on the next page you see the same upsell minus the live coaching for only $49, so you grab it! Finally you’re on the download page and you cannot wait to open up all your goodies and get started. What just happened? Did the product seller bamboozle you into buying more products than you really wanted? Did he annoy you with all the upsells? Or did the seller provide you with additional opportunities to get the benefits you want, or solve your problem? You’re probably saying yes to all three

It’s amazing what a little personalization can do to increase sales... Quick example: You go into a store looking to buy something. A salesperson helps you, but you leave without making a purchase. You go back a week later, and the salesperson greets you by calling you by name. How do you feel? Maybe respected, appreciated and memorable? And do you want to do business with someone who cares enough to remember your name? Of course. When Coca-Cola introduced Coke bottles personalized with people’s names, sales jumped 2%. Now I know 2% might not sound like much, but to a company as big as Coke, it’s huge. Personalization – when used properly – can double your conversions. Here are 10 ideas on how to personalize not just words, but actual images - and how you might use these ideas in your own business… 1: Inactive Customers or Subscribers: Re-engage with customers and even subscribers who are no longer active. For example, for customers who haven’t made a purchase in 90 days, or subscriber

I know a guy who lives in a remote part of Oregon. He’s got a long scraggly beard, dresses in jeans and flannel shirts, and drives a new car. By day he fishes and hikes. By night he visits with his friends in the bar, or kicks back and watches TV. He takes several long vacations each year. He hires someone to do his yard work and maintain his house. He never works - because he doesn’t have to. And he’s lived like this since the 70’s. Did he inherit a lot of money? Win the lottery? Rob a bank? Nope. He grew up poor, never went to college, and hasn’t worked since he was 22. What he did do was write a hit song. Just one. And that song continues to pay him residuals to this day. He did something once, and is still getting paid for it all these decades later. So there you have it. Just write a hit song performed by a very famous person, and you are set for life. What’s that? You don’t write songs? Okay, then you might try the online marketing version of this residual game. It’s called make

Your customers are bombarded daily by the same types of offers – so how can you stand apart from the crowd? Let’s take the online marketing niche as an example: Everyone is proclaiming to have THE product that will enable ANYONE to make a million dollars this year, or more. Prospects are confused because there are simply too many choices. What they need is some relief from the continuous barrage of similar looking offers. Here you come, offering not to sell them the latest greatest program, but instead help them to solve the problem they have right now. What is their immediate problem? It’s not making a million dollars this year. But it is learning how to make enough money to quit the job they hate. You offer a Facebook group that is aimed at replacing their salaries and allowing them to quit their job. Finally, they found someone who is meeting them where they are, instead of tying to call them to the top of Mt. Everest. Because let’s face it, when you’re not making a dime online, mak

We talk about targeting the right people for your product, but just how valuable is it to know your audience? Here’s a quick case study of a deodorant that became a top seller through nothing more than pinpoint targeting of its customers: In Brandwashed: Tricks Companies use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy, we learn how Axe Deodorant took over their market through targeting. Unilever executive David Cousino tells us that Unilever first analyzed the potential male deodorant user by breaking men down into six profiles: The Predator -- He takes advantage of drunk girls, and lies about his job and where he lives Natural Talent -- Athletic, smart, and confident. He doesn't need to lie to score Marriage Material -- Humble and respectful, he's the sort of guy you want to bring home to Mom and Dad Always the Friend -- He always hits that glass ceiling The Insecure Novice -- He has absolutely no clue what he's doing, and things get awkward fast -- the geeks and n

Nearly every day someone approaches me about doing a joint venture because as you know, joint ventures are a marvelous way to get your product in front of a lot of people. Better yet, getting your joint venture partner's recommendation can significantly increase both sales and sign ups onto your own list. But that's the good news – the bad news is anyone with a list gets approached day in and day out by numerous JV seekers, and the vast majority of those requests are either ignored or rejected. So how can you be the one who receives the coveted “yes” answer next time you approach someone for a joint venture? Here are 4 techniques that I've found work especially well... First, make your initial contact all about the joint venture partner and NOT about you. Instead of telling them what's in it for you, tell them what's in it for them. I don't know how many times I've received emails that go something like this: “I need you to promote my new product to your lis

There was once a very sexy commercial on television with the line, “If you want to capture someone's attention, whisper.” Of course it showed a beautiful woman whispering into a man's ear – and it was also false advertising. Can you guess why? Because it wasn't the whispering that was capturing attention – it was the pretty lady. Why is it that sex will capture attention every time, and what (surprisingly) works just as well as sex at pasting your prospect's eyeballs to your website? Here's what I've learned: Humans have 3 brains in one – the analytical, thinking brain; the emotional brain; and the primitive, reptilian brain. It's that primitive brain that cares about one thing – survival. Its job is to constantly monitor the environment for 3 things: Anything it can eat, anything it can have sex with, and anything that will hurt or kill it. That's it. It's a non-stop monitoring system for survival of the individual and the species, and because it

No worries – this is completely honest and ethical, and it's a great way to begin sending free traffic to your new website. Diverting traffic from other websites is one of the easiest methods of gaining free traffic. Ideally, you'll want to “steal” this traffic from high traffic websites, because the more traffic your target sites get, the more traffic you can siphon off and send to your own site. 1. Look for high traffic forums and blogs that are directly related to your own niche. Ideally you want forums and blogs that have high traffic and also allow you to place a link to your website in every post you make, either in your signature file or in a clickable link. Now then, you want to make as many intelligent posts as possible - thereby sharing your link several times or more – and do it in as little time as possible. The goal here is not to spend all day making forum posts, but rather to get in, make your posts and get out so that you have time to take care of other tasks re

So you've got a fantastic looking squeeze page that still isn't converting worth a darn – now what? Sometimes doing the opposite of what everyone else on the Internet is telling you to do really pays off, especially when it comes to capturing email addresses. Split test these and see if your subscribe rates don't increase dramatically... Forget the name . There was a time - a long time ago – when inserting a person's name in an email increased the open rate. Those days are all but gone. Worse yet, asking for their name decreases your response rate nearly every time. The only time to ask for their name is when they BUY from you – not when you're merely asking them to subscribe to your list. So remove that box from your opt-in form, along with any other box besides their email address. The easier you make it for them to subscribe, and the less information you ask for, the higher your conversions are likely to be. Remove the spam sentence . You know that great little s

Scott Anthony of the Harvard Business Review did a piece on “3 Ways to Prioritize a Long List of Ideas, which you can read here ... It's all about how to choose what it is that you should do next, which product to run with, which decision to make and so forth. Of course it's written with large companies in mind, but the essence applies just as well to the Online Marketer. For example... When choosing which product to create next, don't always trust what people say they will do. Rather, trust what they do. When I survey my readers to find out what they want to buy next, I also take into consideration that they may not know their own minds. For example, if you ask someone what they want to eat tomorrow, they're likely to say they want something healthy like a salad. But when tomorrow comes, more often than not they will order the pizza or pasta instead. It's not that they weren't telling you the truth; it's just that people tend to think about the future in on

If you're using Paypal to take payments, here's a neat little trick to increase your sales... When someone adds your product to the shopping cart, it takes them to the Paypal checkout page. The problem is, some people will back out of the purchase at this point. However, what most marketers don't seem to know is that Paypal allows you to place a banner at the top of this checkout page. Moreover, what you choose to place in this banner can reduce shopping cart abandonment by allaying your customer's fear. For example, recently when I purchased a product I saw a banner at the top of the Paypal checkout page that actually asked me to visit another website to sign up for a different product launch! This is obviously NOT the way to use this banner space. Instead, do what I saw one enterprising entrepreneur do the other day – create a simple banner with a short TESTIMONIAL in it for the product they are about to purchase. It can be something as brief as: I Can't Believe T

If you look at the wealthiest people in America today – Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Michael Dell, Paul Allen – you’ll notice they’re all first generation multi-billionaires. And here’s the wonderful thing: If you do what other successful people do, you’ll eventually get a similar result to what they got, depending on things like timing and market, of course. But let’s say you only do 1/10th as good. Or even 1/100th or 1/1000th. That’s still better than if you did nothing. So look at what successful people do. Copy them in your own way. Expect it to take work. And time. And lots of effort. And then be proud of your results, whatever they might be.

There’s been a trend online for the last 20 years to write sales letters that are shorter and have more and more graphics and fancy images. But just because everyone is doing it, does that make it the most effective form of selling? Maybe not. Do you remember direct mail selling? You get a fat white envelope in the mail, and inside is a long form sales letter. No fancy graphics, just plenty of great copy. Here’s the thing: Anybody and everybody can throw up a sales letter online. And they do. But when it comes to direct mail, these companies are hiring the best of the best copywriters to write their letters. How do I know? Because no company in their right mind is going to spend the money to mail thousands (hundreds of thousands, even millions) of these letters unless they know for a FACT that they’re going to convert. And how do they know? Because they test them. They pit one version against another to determine which one is more effective, and that becomes the control. Then they writ

If you’re a product seller, you already know that not all affiliates are created equal. Some will never promote. Others promote once and disappear. And a small percentage will promote your products over and over, making a lion’s share of sales for you. So how do you recruit great affiliates? While there is no one answer, there are many ways to find and recruit those key affiliates who will take your business to the next level. 1: “Wanna Promote?” Contacting websites, blogs and other web publishers. Send them a well-written email to ask them in a very polite way if they would like to become your affiliate. You’ll likely have to contact a lot of people to get results, but it can be totally worth the effort. 2: Use a Service Use a service to locate potential affiliates by category, keyword or advertiser. 3: Bloggers Group High is a site that will help you find the best bloggers and influencers, as well as manage your relationships. 4: Outsource If you have the funds, you can hire a servi

If you decide you’re going to do something, do it. They’ve done dozens of studies over the years and they’ve found there is one major difference between successful people and unsuccessful people: Successful people launch. They get started. They get on with it. They just do it. Unsuccessful people get the same ideas and the same information, but they’ve always got an excuse for not starting.

This method costs you nothing but time – yet it can add mightily to your bottom line. As you already know, a buyer is worth far, far more than a simple subscriber, and here's how to get buyers added to your list for free... Step 1: Create a short report that solves a key problem. In other words, one problem, one solution. Simple. Now give it a great title. In fact, spend as much time on the title as you did writing the report, because the title has to grab attention and get people to read it cover to cover. Step 2: Repeat step 1, only with a different problem and solution in the same niche. Step 3: Set up a squeeze page to offer Report #2 for free in exchange for your prospect's email address. Step 4: At the end (and possibly the beginning) of Report #1, write teaser copy to entice them to go to your squeeze page and grab Report #2. If you did a good job of giving great content in Report #1, this should be easy because they're going to be eager to read more from you. St

So many times we don't want to tackle anything new until we know step by step what we're going to do and how we 're going to do it. You might call it the paralysis of analysis – instead of taking action we... ...think about how we'll do it and ...try to work out all the details and ...do more research and ...think about it some more until ...enough time passes that we ...just blow it off and decide we're going to do something else. Hopefully you can see why this step-by-step mentality can be a real motivation killer for you. You'll never know every step it's going to take to achieve something because you simply don't know everything that's going to happen (and not happen) along the way. Personally, I think all you need are 2 things to get started on any project: You need to know what your end goal is, and you need the first step to take to begin moving towards that goal. Oh yes, and then you need to TAKE that first step. Once step 1 is out of th

You've just finished writing the sales copy for your new product. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to test your copy BEFORE you actually send prospects to it? Because think about this – if you send 1,000 people to your sales letter and NOBODY buys, you've just wasted all that traffic. And if you spent money to get that traffic, you're out that investment. Even if it was free traffic, you've still burned your chance to sell them on your product. Odds are, even if you do rewrite the copy, they're not going to go back a second time and read it again. (Unless you offer some kind of incentive, in which case you might be able to bribe them into taking a second look.) If only there were a way to know ahead of time whether your copy is good or not... Wait, there is! Here's what to do – turn off the phone, sever your Internet connection and refuse to be distracted for the next hour. Now then, imagine you are the prospect. You are thinking like the prospect, fe