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“I Want to Collect the Money Bag as Soon as Possible”

I was inspired to write this post because someone had asked me just a while ago how to get some people to sign-up under his affiliate link. Joining affiliate programs can make you rich — when I say rich, I mean REAL rich. I am not a “super affiliate” or whatever term that describes a person who’s an ultimate guru in affiliate marketing, but I have made a few thousand bucks by promoting others’ products. This post will, hopefully, teach you to do the same.

Let’s have a little scenario simulation. (I love doing this!) You’ve registered for some affiliate programs, and now you want to promote them in order to generate some sign-ups/sales and get the “money bag” as soon as possible. You start putting your affiliate links in your site, forum signature, and on a few blog comments. After doing all those, you expect to earn some serious cash by the next day…

The next morning, you eagerly wake up and check your affiliate stats. You see “Total Earnings: $0.00″ on your dashboard. What’s next? I guess it’s time to call it an EPIC FAIL!

You see, just by merely placing your links on certain sites WILL NOT generate decent revenue for you. Sure, you may get the occasional sign-up from a complete stranger, but it’s too random that you may not even experience it! To be able to guarantee that you’ll earn some money from being an affiliate, you have to do some work — this is where REAL marketing comes in!

Fantastic Ways to Increase Affiliate Sign-ups

As I have just said, you need to do real marketing in order to earn as an affiliate. Don’t expect some “magic tactics” or “instant affiliate sign-up generator schemes” in this section of this post. What I’m going to share with you are ways which I used in order to generate a good amount of sign-ups in the affiliate programs that I joined. Ready? Here we go.

Let your whole network know about the product.

Well, what better way to kick things off than to let everyone in your address book know about the product? Just a reminder though, it would be better if you send them enticing e-mails rather than just telling them to “check the product out” — if you do that, they wouldn’t really bother!

Review the product on your website/blog.

This is a common thing that people do, but it can be effective especially if your website has a decent amount of followers. Simply give an honest review (based on my experience though, a biased review tends to attract more sign-ups ) and place your links in the review.

Create a website dedicated solely to the product!

I’m sure you’ve seen those web hosting review websites which have articles about hundreds of web hosts. People search for web hosting reviews, and when they visit a review site, they gain some information about a web host. These review sites have affiliate links to the web host itself, so people will just have to click the link instead of putting the URL into their address bar! Why don’t you do the same? Create a site dedicated to the product you’re promoting and provide helpful information. For sure, people will come to your site and cash will come flowing into your pockets (well, not literally).

Post a related video on YouTube, then place your link in the description.

This works best for entertainment/recreation/sports products. Let’s say you’re promoting a guitar product. Maybe you could create a guitar tutorial, provided that you know how to play the guitar, and then put your affiliate link in the description. A call-to-action message placed near the link will help boost your sign-ups.

Buy typo domains.

I have done this many times and it proved to be an effective method. I was promoting web designing services before. Now, the website was fairly popular that it gets type-in traffic. I bought a couple of typo domains and I managed to get 11 sign-ups in one month. Not bad for a medium-sized web design firm with some type-in traffic! This method works wonders when done right, just make sure that this does not break the affiliate program’s terms of service.

Create PPC Campaigns.

Not just normal PPC campaigns though. Make sure your ads are attractive! Here’s a tip on how to determine if your ads are attractive: For example, you are a HostGator affiliate, and let’s say HostGator allows people to create PPC campaigns. (I’m not so sure about it.) When people search Google for “HostGator”, they will see the official HostGator site and your ad. If you were the searcher, would you click your ad or HostGator’s search engine listing? If you answered yes, you’re on the right track.

Give incentives to people when they sign-up under you.

Please take note that there are some affiliate programs which do not allow this method.

To encourage people to sign-up, you may give them some rewards/bonuses. I have already done this a couple of times and it works great — especially if you let them see that it’s a win-win situation. Let’s say you’re an affiliate of a shirt company, and their shirts currently cost $15 each. You get paid 50% (or $7.50) per shirt that they sell through you. Now, tell your friends (or whoever) that when they buy 5 shirts, you’ll get them one for free. Now that sounds like a sweet offer. They get 6 shirts for the price of 5!

Let’s calculate: 5x$7.50 = $37.50 revenue
Give them one free shirt: $37.50-$15.00 = $22.50, or if allowed, buy under your affiliate link - $30.00

You’ve got profit! Although the numbers are small, imagine if you were promoting products worth more money. OR you could always offer other things that would not affect your profit. Maybe you could offer some of your own products as an online entrepreneur.

Bonus Tip: Focus on One Program

If you focus on only ONE affiliate program, you would have more time to market it. Your concentration would not be shifted to other products since you only have one to promote. Try this, you might even earn more than when you promote 5 products at the same time!

Summary

Spread the word to everyone you know, review or maybe create a website dedicated to the product, utilize certain sites such as YouTube, and you will earn as an affiliate. Don’t forget about how humans surf the web — they don’t rely on search engines only. There are times when they type the URL straight into the address bar, so why not buy some typo domains see an increase in your revenue? PPC campaigns and incentives also work wonders.

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