Before you take a trip to a foreign country, you likely make it a point to try and learn some of the language, just so you fit it. And so it is with affiliate marketing. Knowing the lingo gets you places.

Here's a short list of terms you will need to know:

Affiliate Marketing: usually associated with a commission structure that pays out only on one level
Autoresponder or Drip System: software that automatically sends out email based on client programmed criteria

Direct Marketing: usually used by people trying to differentiate themselves from MLM (multi-level-marketing)

Forced matrix: a type of sales commission structure

Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM): commission structure built on payouts at two or more levels

Networking: making connections with people to create a mutually beneficial affiliation

Network marketing: used by the MLM industry to denote their businesses operate at more than one level

Powerline: beware the powerline as it's a system to build MLM businesses by telling those that join the company will give people sign-ups. They don't!

The above terms are just some of the ones you will run into fairly frequently. If you run into others, do some research on the Internet.

Knowledge is indeed power!

And now that you have some the basics at your fingertips, you need to figure out what your market potential is and then know it inside out. You have obviously chosen your particular product or service because you feel it appeals to people. You have likely also chosen your product or service with an eye to building a team under you. Bravo for you if that is your goal, as team building with a good program or product/service dynamically increases your market potential. This is important because the larger your market, the wider your target markets become. The wider your target markets, the better the growth for your business.

To get a grasp of just how large your market potential really could be, you need to understand what your product or service offers to people, how it will benefit them and why they need your product or service. If you for instance market nutritional supplements, you will know instantly that virtually everyone, of every age, is concerned about their health. In fact the health supplement industry is booming. Thus your marketplace suddenly becomes one without barriers. You can market to anyone, anywhere, regardless of age, job or geographics. You can also market to those new entrepreneurs like yourself, who want to jump on the work at home bandwagon. The numbers are literally staggering, so imagine how many potential team members you could source in that sector.

Don't kid yourself about your market either; you will need to work your market to succeed. You will need to invest time, and yes – money, into making sure you have up-to-date training, product knowledge and are committed to your product/service and your team. An affiliate business is just like any other "traditional" business, it has to be worked to be successful. This seems to be a major mistake many recruiters commit when signing people up. They promise the new prospect how easy it is, how much fun, and how successful they will be – but – do not tell them they will need to work to be a success. The product/service will not sell itself, nor will it generate income on its own, or find you leads, or help you with targeting your markets. YOU need to do those things. And, if you do them in a slow, sure and steady way, affiliate marketing success WILL be yours.

As an affiliate marketer you really need to know what you’re doing, where you’re going, what to expect, how to handle and how to find and enroll prospects. Wow, sounds like a huge task right? It’s not if you have and use the right tools, the right training and take action daily.

What tools do you need? Instant messengers – doesn’t matter which one or two you choose – just make sure they're a major part of your marketing strategy. E-mail is critical. A well-written e-mail can work wonders in person-to-person prospecting. Use phone marketing even if you don’t fancy it all that much. One quick call a team member inviting them to a training session says lots about your commitment and leadership qualities.

So long as you use relationship marketing properly, it will guarantee you enroll loyal team members, and keep them. They will then duplicate your efforts. Article marketing is smart marketing. YOU provide articles you've written to other Web sites, blogs and eZines for free. This sets you up as an expert, gives you leads, increased site traffic to your web site(if you don't have one of your own, chances are the company you are an affiliate for will have one) and improved search engine rankings.

Blogging and SEO (search engine optimization) are two other tools. Blogging provides an arena to combine text, images, links to other blogs, and web pages. About what? About your business, product/service. You can post updates on what you are doing, what new additions there have been to your product/services, any specials/sales and even product photos. SEO here means understanding what human visitors might search for, and to help match those visitors with sites offering what they want to find. To use any of these marketing tools successfully, it’s important to work with the right people. People who can help you build your business, and that means recruiting.

Everyone knows you need to recruit for your downline, to make your online business a success, to ensure a good income. The term good, qualified, or partner wasn’t mentioned. That's because the prevailing "recruit anything with a pulse" philosophy only fulfills the need for warm bodies. Bad move for your online business success. Why?

If you don’t take time to properly qualify your prospects, you can expect a) that they perform badly b) drop out quickly c) don't perform at all or d) cost you business by giving you a bad name and reputation. Spending time qualifying the people you are going to work with is worth its weight in gold. It takes some extra time, but you can’t afford NOT to do this.

If your business relies on cold calls, referrals, instant messenger communications, and e-mails, etc. you will know the importance of properly qualifying prospects. You learn about your prospect and their needs through your interactions with them and determine how your product can meet their needs.

A qualified prospect is a person (or business) who needs or desires your product because it satisfies a need or solves some problem they have. How can your prospect know if what you’re offering is going to help them since they’ve never heard of you or your product? Easy – because you’ve done your homework prior to contacting them and know your product/service will enhance their business.

Homework in hand, you start getting to know the prospect otherwise known as relationship marketing. Over time talking to them, you’ll get a clear picture of whom you are dealing with and you’ll know if you want to work with them as a member of your team. Remember: your product/service/business is YOUR business and you don’t want just anyone to help you build it.

Some will let you know right away they aren’t interested. Some will call you names. Some will laugh at you. Some will rule themselves out with their questions. Like: How hard do I have to work to make any money? How fast can I make money? Right then you know your business isn’t for them because they will not work to make IT work for them or for you.

Don't waste countless hours of your time trying to convince people to work with you. They either want to because they recognize the value of the opportunity, or they don’t. They either want to succeed, or they don’t. There isn’t anything in-between. They either want to take action, or they don’t. They either want to build a business or they don’t. YOU need to figure this out by qualifying them. Once you’ve done that, look out, your business will grow rapidly.

Relationship marketing is putting the "CUSTOM" back in customer. This seems to be a radical idea in most marketing circles these days. The focus appears to be on attracting customers rather than training and supporting them so you keep them. This is also called offensive marketing. Things are beginning to change slowly, but not fast enough and if you want to keep your customers, then check it out and implement it. It will make you money.

Relationship marketing evolved from direct response marketing in the 1960’s, emerging in the 80’s to become a system that emphasizes the building of long term (relationship) customers rather than on single transactions. This marketing philosophy, called your customers "life cycle" offers a range of products/services, as people actually need them.

Why would focusing on your existing people be more profitable? If you’re constantly spending money and resources to land new team members, your profitability suffers. You aren’t building a loyal base of people who stay with you time and time again. Called "churn", these people won’t come back to you. Another term for attempting to keep people and increase their loyalty is also called "defensive marketing". Those who have already opened their wallets are the key to continued profitability and long-term residual income.

You can also view your customer lifetime value as a long-term asset. And what do you do with assets? You value them and treat them accordingly. You keep your customer assets happy so they wind up being loyal. Loyalty is worth money to your business, since the cost of keeping an existing customer is only about 10 per cent of the cost of getting a new one. Pay attention to your present customers.

The customer lifecycle!

Not everyone is the same when they come to you for a product, service or opportunity. They all need something specifically for THEM. If you're marketing online, first start communication and build a relationship with people. The methods are endless, such as: email, instant messaging, community forums, blogging and websites. Your objective is to show them what you have to offer and getting them to your website. That takes work. Once they’re there, get their e-mail address by giving something away right on the spot. The instant reward will keep them interested.

Provide meaningful quality information and credibility. This will often translate into program registrations. THIS is the beginning of your relationship, NOT the end. This is where you start your long-term love affair with your customer and offer value added extras to their commitment to participate. For reinforcement, show them how to get the best value and usage out of their purchase(s). This more than anything will set you apart from your competition. This step will ensure you word-of-mouth referrals (Think team building!) and retention of people.

Last, but not least, provide your customers with the tools or feeling of being a valued member of a "community". This turns them into your biggest promoters and new team builders.

Your web site can use web-based relationship marketing, and it comes in two approaches: open content and premium content. Open content means your visitors can access everything on your site. Premium content access is limited to people who have registered their e-mail address or have bought something. Figure out what works the best for you and do not deviate from your plan.

Remember web-based relationship marketing means you are marketing person to person – not as a business to a person. The distinction makes a difference, as people will actually open your e-mails and read them as opposed to hitting the delete key because they’re sick of reading junk-mail soliciting something This does not take a lot of money nor does it involve a huge risk. It’s simply human-to-human communication, creating bonds with your existing customers, and generating referrals (Think: new customers).

Once you have a person as a customer doesn’t it make sense to keep your existing customers? Increase your loyal customer base? If you answered yes to these two questions, then relationship marketing is definitely for you. Keep your main focus on achieving loyal relationships with new and existing customers.

Normally when one thinks of search engine rankings, you think of search engine optimization (SEO) work. The race to juggle and something called algorithms to get a higher ranking with the search engines. SEO is highly over rated and has been made way too complicated. What really happens is this: people go to search for something, say hair loss products, weight lifting information or home business opportunities, and they type certain search words into the browser. It’s the WORDS people use to search that really affect your rankings.

Key Effectiveness Index is the ranking of words used by people when they search for product X. They get site X through N etc. as a result because the words they used to search are prominently used on those sites (either in the meta tags at the top of the page - something you can not see) or they are used in your copy (most often the top 25 words as that is what the engines typically crawl). How does that relate to you and article marketing?

You’ll be delighted at how easy this is, because anyone can do this effectively. Article marketing means YOU provide something you’ve written about marketing, home business opportunities, training, etc. to other Web sites, blogs, and eZines for FREE. FREE? Yes, free! Because in return you get to include a short bio and links back to your site in the "resource box" that appears at the end of your article. Your article will fit into a niche that you pick. So if you want to write about affiliate marketing or blogging, then your site link should lead back to a site that most directly relates to your topic. If you don't have a site of our own, as an affiliate you will likely have one available through the company you chose to represent as an affiliate.

What a perfect opportunity for you to write something about being a marketing master, or lead generation. This establishes YOU as the expert and gives you several very nice benefits such as: lead generation, increased site traffic, and improved search engine ranking. This method of marketing is so popular you can find software packages and web sites to help you syndicate your articles easily to hundreds and even thousands of other sites. Imagine the number of people you could introduce to your business!

Here’s an example of what you can do: Marketer Jane Doe submits an article to iSnare (a web based article distribution service). It’s free to submit to them, but Jane decides to spend $2.00. Her article was sent to over 150 other distribution lists, which in turn sent the article to even more lists. Within a couple of weeks, Jane's article (she searched for it on Google) returned about 650 results. 650 other sites that posted her article and created links back to her site. THAT’S A LOT OF LINKS. That's a lot of team building potential.

Your article needs to be well-written, focused, easy-to-understand and helpful to your readers. DO NOT blatantly promote your product or service or it won’t get used. Put a link to your site in the resource box. Try to stay away from other links in your article because they will be removed by editors. Being subtle is the key with these types of articles. Subtle gets you a lot further in building your online business.

Here's where you can go to get started with your article marketing: iSnare and The Phantom Writers and ArticleMarketer. Google search for article distribution services and you’ll get hundreds of other places to place that expert article. You can choose to spend some money to do this, but if you do, research carefully to find the most cost effective way. In some cases you can even do this for free. This is a great way to accomplish your goals!

Welcome to the wonderful world of frequent, chronological publications of personal thoughts and Web links. Blogs are often a mixture of what is happening in a person’s life and what is happening on the Net. The Reality TV of the Internet. There doesn’t seem to be much that isn’t tackled as a topic for a blog, so why not jump in with both feet and blog about your business/product/service. What a tremendous vehicle for product and other pictures, links and articles you’ve written.

Blogs have been around since early 1997, but really took off in popularity when automated publishing systems were introduced. For instance: Blogger at blogger.com. Try to stick to the term blog, rather than the other alternative which is weblog because it means a server’s log files. By 1999 there were 23 in existence, but not for long. Blogs and blogging spread like wildfire. Of course software designers came up with even more ways for people to publish their own blogs quickly and easily.

The history is important because it directly relates to what you can do with your blog. Original weblogs were link-driven. Today’s blogs are also link driven and that's your key to the success of your blog. Seek out unusual links, interesting links, teaching links, and learning links for your blog, and add your own review or commentary to them.

Add extra facts not found in an article, show your own expertise in the area you market in or invite others to submit their observations. No matter what way you choose to do it, you will win! Get to the point fast as there isn’t lots of room to write a novel. Don't do the essay route either because people don’t have time to read lengthy articles online or anywhere else for that matter. What you’re really doing for potential team prospects and customers is pre-screening or filtering quality sites that would be of interest. What you want to achieve is a public not an audience for your blog. An audience is passive. A public participates, and that is what you want to accomplish with your blog, because ultimately, you want leads.

Try exploring this idea with your blog as well. The HOW you want to write it. Make it a mixture of links, commentary and personal notes, or a record of your own thoughts about something you observed or tried in your marketing business. Whatever style you choose, make it distinctive to YOU and written in your own voice, letting your personality shine through. One of the principle tenets of relationship marketing is getting to know your prospects, and in return letting them get to know YOU.

SEO started out being fairly straight forward, but as it got more popular, it got more complicated. Things start out as a relatively easy thing to achieve, then along comes someone who makes it more complex. This seems to be the case with Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing (fast becoming the MOST popular form of Internet advertising). It’s starting to become more and more complex and expensive. Pay-per-click means a search engine that bases its search rankings on a "bid for position" basis.

You bid a price per click to be in a specific position of the search rankings for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. For instance, the #1 position for the search phrase "pay per click" needed a bid of $2.03 per click. The 15th position was a bid of $0.85. What position you want and what you’re willing to bid/pay to get the position is up to YOU!

Budget and willingness to bid impact your site's ranking position when the search engine displays searched for keywords or keyword phrase results. You’re not charged the PPC bid until a searcher actually clicks or selects your website name or URL.

If you want to drive traffic to a site (or blog, as your blog is considered to be a site as well) fast, THIS is the way to do it almost instantaneously.

There are hundreds of PPC search engines you can buy traffic from.

Here’s the top ten with some tips to help you out:

Google AdWords - biggest and best for volume, traffic quality and user interface. Most expensive.

Yahoo! Search Marketing - First GoTo.com, then Overture, high volume and quality with a few bargains still around. $50 credit on sign up.

MIVA - One of the best, and under rated PPC search engines. $5 credit on sign up

Enhance - strong emerging PPC search engine, solid quality control. $25 bonus on sign up

GoClick- Cheap traffic, fast growing, loyal following, lets you start an account with only $10 and bid from one cent.

MSN AdCentre – new player on the block, still has some glitches to work out as it’s frustrating

7Search - smaller engine, good quality traffic good interface.

Search 123 - One of the first search engines. Cost effective, good support. Fund with $50, they'll give you $20 free.

SearchFeed - Strong return on investment, reasonable search volume. Geographical targeting available with 11 countries

ABCSearch - Solid targeting, decent traffic sources, good customer service. Will Match your initial deposit up to $100

Marketing online with natural/organic seo

Marketing is about helping customers/ prospects find your website/business/blog because you want to grow your business, increase sales leads, or lower customer acquisition costs. Smart marketing means you’ll use a combination of SEO AND PPC. It's online search engine advertising, and it works and generates new business.

To be even more specific: organic/natural search engine optimization is the process of tweaking/optimizing a web site or page or blog so it ranks well in the free listings of the search engines. This is the best and least expensive option for getting visitors because visitors click on free organic listings more often than paid listings.

Roughly 65% of business websites were created for customers without any search engine optimization. That means two thirds of businesses on the web are in the bottom of engine results. Since some close to 85% of online sales come from search engine traffic, that is a problem.

Organic optimization involves something called the "White Hat" approach and has to do with keyword research, key phrase placement in your Meta tags and content, and the application of special formatting such as headers, bold and bullets.

You need to do online AND offline optimization. Regularly submit to directories, write press releases, submit articles, and get other links pointing back to your site or blog. To get relevant links, just start a blog about your key phrase. Link from it to your web site or another blog, and keep the content on both fresh and original. 70% of search engine users visit organic sites, and 50% of them select the top results. You could easily get a large number of visitors to your site or blog.

It's an e-mail, newsletter or sales letter written to persuade the reader to place an order, request more information, or to show support for the product or service. It nudges the reader to take a specific action by making an offer to the reader, NOT an announcement. The letter needs to go to the right target audience, appeal to their wants /needs and be useful and informative.

To sell also means you'll need supportive documentation, other flyers, pamphlets or what not, since the sales letter often doesn't do the entire job of selling for you. Mention that in your letter.

It's easy to get started, you just need to know your products and services inside out, and of course you do, or you would not be in affiliate marketing. Nothing takes the place of your knowledge and how you present yourself. You'll need to have resources on hand in addition to what you know, things like – online resources, ads, articles, newsletters books etc.

Next sort out the benefits from the features of your products/business/service. What does the product do for the prospect who needs it? What do they get or gain from buying it? What is the unique selling point of your product/business/service (and this applies to prospective customers and to prospective recruits.) A benefit is the specific outcome of a feature. A feature is something the product already has. The benefits are what motivate people.

Before you start writing, you need to ask yourself some questions. For instance, how am I going to market this product/service? (Actually make a list of all the methods you want to use from the Internet to print advertising and read them frequently.)

Will you need other information to go along with your letter?


What do you need?

What do you need?


Who is your competition?


How are they marketing their product?

How much money do you want to spend on advertising?


Are you marketing goals/hopes realistic?


Who is actually your buyer?

Why would they want to buy what you have to offer? The most common why is fear of missing out on something. Does your offer appeal to their emotional needs?

Ready to write

Start pulling your e-mail together. You have up to 50 characters for the headline/subject line. It needs to tell your reader what the letter is about, and make a promise about what the item you are marketing will do for your reader. You have about 7 to 10 seconds to hook your reader, so use your main selling point first and add the benefit with it.

EXAMPLE: Imagine an inexpensive proven hair loss product without side effects. 100% money back guarantee.

Use power words and those are: free, proven, imagine, how to, fast, cheap, enjoy, now, learn, introducing etc. Use them, but don't abuse them.

The body of the message expands your theme, gives details and shows how you will make good on the subject line/headline promise. Your close, or call to action urges your reader to take the next step you want them to take.

If you cannot put two words together and have them make any sense, talk to a copywriter. This is one letter you do NOT want to mess up, as your business success rides on it.

In a conversational tone of voice, tell a story your reader can identify with. Almost like a testimonial. Make an announcement about a new product/service/business, maybe a one-of-a-kind event, or important news about your unique selling point. For instance, your new business offers free market evaluations on your antique jewellery.

Treat the reader as your equal – in other words, if you are selling hair loss products and services, then address your letter with Dear Fellow Hair Loss Customer. Look for a provocative quote for your hair loss product: "Product XXX grow now has a topical all natural proven hair loss product that will promote new growth."

You could open with putting your finger on a problem the reader has, one your product will solve. For example: tired of trying numerous hair loss products that don't work and cost too much. We've got a cheap solution – XXXgrow. If you use this approach, you could also think about telling your reader a secret, or some piece of information not many people know. This is where your product research comes in really handy.

You could add more to your email, but you are best off keeping it short and to the point. The actual body of your message should be written in the same spirit as your headline/subject line. Quickly give the details of your unique selling point. Point out the benefits right away, don't keep them guessing and leave it until the end, or you will lose them. Prove your benefits claim, and this where the extra information you squirreled away may come in handy. Be creative, provocative, descriptive, moving, emotional, and build to the call to action.

This is where you ask the reader to do something, like order your product/ service or join your business etc. You must make it easy for the reader to contact you. Provide a form, a toll free phone number, an e mail link, your URL or even your blog site, and make sure they actually work. Test them first before sending the letter.

Close with thanks for their time and consideration. Many Internet marketers say save the best for last and put it in a PS. For instance, if you order before XXXX date, you'll get a free web banner. Actually, this kind of information is likely best put in the beginning of your letter, right after the unique selling point/benefits area. It provides more incentive for the reader to keep reading. More initiative to keep reading to find out the benefits. Leaving the cost savings or free goodies until last is darn close to being a bribe. Not to mention the fact that if you don't grab them with the first 7 to 10 seconds, and that means putting your heavy artillery in the opening, you could lose them.

Before you send your letter, find test readers. Ask them to tell you what they feel is missing, how you could improve on your offer, and if they would buy from you.

How many people a day do you talk to about various things, including a product, service or business? Answer likely is, quite a few. What you might not know is, major brand name companies are now hiring word of mouth marketers to talk their products up to friends and family. Proctor and Gamble enlisted 225,000 teenagers to rave to friends about things like Herbal Essence and Old Spice. And they signed up 500,000 volunteer Moms for something called Vocalpoint. Moms talk about pet food, paper towels, hair color, etc. The Moms get coupons and marketing materials free.

Moms are free to say anything they want about the product, but they don't bad mouth it, nor do they take advantage of the offers. It's because these word of mouth marketers feel like they're a member of an inner circle and that the companies recruiting them actually give a darn about them and their opinions. This is yet another way for you to promote your unique selling points and products and services, and it doesn't cost you very much to do it, other than some time. You get the idea. 

LEAD GENERATION