June 17th "Seminars with the Experts" Call.

David Gale - Joining the Ranks of the Affiliate Marketing Elite.

There are countless stories of aspiring Internet Marketers who abandon their online goals to return to so-called "normal" lives. For David Gale, a former window cleaner and father of five, failure was not an option. By concentrating on affiliate marketing, resale rights, and Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising, David is on his way to financial independence. He shared his affiliate marketing insights on an informative "Seminars with the Experts" call.

Why Choose Affiliate Marketing?

Gale recommends affiliate marketing - not only for beginners, and not just for the usual reasons (i.e. low startup costs, less work, etc.). Use affiliate marketing to perfect your traffic generation skills. Test several affiliate products to see what works best before selecting a program to promote. It does not make sense to sell items without test marketing! Traffic is the lifeblood of your campaigns, so analyze your initial affiliate results before committing to full-scale marketing.

How Do You Choose an Affiliate Product, David?

Gale presented solid criteria for selecting affiliate programs:

1. Must offer a high front-end commission with a significant back-end.
2. Must have a strong, converting salesletter. How do you determine optimum page length? Test it, of course! Look at the best sellers' sales pages for ideas.
3. Actual sales results from reputable digital product sites like Clickbank.
4. Personal interests and strengths.

David provides a cardinal rule as well:

No tricks with Google and the major search engines.

If you are offering a free report to boost sales, give it to those who provide a legitimate name and valid e-mail address. Use a verified (double) opt-in system and send the download link via e-mail to guarantee real contact information. To help avoid the Google Slap and add to your credibility, consider adding 'Contact Us' and 'Earnings Disclaimer' pages to your website.

Common Stumbling Blocks.

David Gale spoke about a number of obstacles that prevent people from realizing their affiliate and hence Internet Marketing potential:

1. Doing nothing at all.
2. Unbalanced action; i.e. either too much input (i.e. information overload) or too much output (i.e. program/product hopping, lack of focus).
3. Overemphasis on short-term results; i.e. money instead of long-term, sustainable business building.
4. Lack of testing and results' tracking. For example, failing to try list-building (opt-in) forms at different sections of your page (top, middle, end).

Potpourri of Internet Word Association.

Towards the end of the call/webinar, David reviewed common affiliate and list-building tools and their role in your upcoming campaigns:

Blogs: Relationship building with list subscribers; search engine traffic generation and backlinks.
Joint Venture partners, Affiliates: Traffic generation, offer high commissions to generate high commissions.
Seminars, Events: Relationship-building, networking.
Internet Video: Screen capture, screen shots to post on your website (opt-in page) for list-building.

Should you Promote One, or Several Products at a Time?

Gale advises us to market one product at a time. Your personal resources are at a premium, so it is better to establish a product that can make money for you before moving on. In fact, once you have the "formula" for one product try duplicating the results on something similar. Although not for everyone, Google's suite of tools can help you establish a budget for your advertising campaigns.

Use of Private Label, Master Resale Rights.

Apart from affiliate marketing, Gale likes private label rights (PLR) products. PLR allows you to rebrand and customize all aspects of a given product, and often provides a sales graphics package that would be expensive to purchase separately. Make sure you stand out from other PLR purchasers. Collect good information from multiple sources and use it to make a great product that you can truly be proud of.

Conclusion.

David Gale may not have achieved Guru status yet, but his call performance proved that he is well on the way. Success is all about following a series of well-established best practices - dare we say a system? Making mistakes is part of the process. So is swallowing your pride. When it comes to affiliate marketing, stop guessing! Just ask your current subscribers what they want.

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Rahul Majumdar is a full-time information marketer specializing in teleseminar reporting, article marketing, and information product creation.