Selling affiliate products can be a tough job. I am sure that you have a first hand experience in understanding how difficult it can be. The incentive to sell affiliate products is very rewarding though and that is why some many people want to get into affiliate marketing. In this post I am going to offer you some tips that will compltely help you increase your affiliate marketing sales.

One of the biggest errors that most people do when they get into affiliate marketing is they either create a blog or web site and totally make it into a super huge affiliate product shopping mall. No matter where a visitor clicks he is getting pitched. It shouldn’t be that way. A better way to run a blog or a web site is to offer diverse amount of information.

Not only should their be affiliate products available for sale on the site, but there should also be multiple sections that provide useful information to the customer. Some things that come to mind would be a support forum, an open community blog where customers are able to voice their opinion in comments, a reference library and even a FAQ section.

I understand that the strategy is to create pitch pages (landing pages) towards capturing sales. And that is fine… I think landing pages are an amazing way to close a sale. However, what happens next is what can cause the decrease in sales. After the sale is made and if you have not provided your customer with supportive resources, that customer is very unlikely to purchase from you again.

1 of the key elements towards finding success with affiliate marketing and keeping your sales numbers high are selling to existing customers. When you have a customer sign up for your mailing list, he is very valuable. Your goal should to always keep that customer satisfied and keep him trusting you. If a customer trusts you after he makes a purchase, then it will be very likely that he will purchase from you again.

Another thing to consider is that affiliate marketing is a business. Unfortunately though, not many people treat is with this level of seriousness. 1 of the hottest elements with increasing affiliate sales is working your mailing list. Your mailing list can either be a very pure resources or one that has been exhausted, much like farm land. If you don’t’ tend to your mailing list and take care of it, it will no longer produce for you.

Some of the best ways to keep a healthy mailing list is to treat your subscribers like actual people. I subscribe to a lot of Aweber mailing lists – mainly for the purpose of observing how list owners run their list – and it amazes me how I am treated. I am never thanked or told that I am appreciated. Also, I am always spoken to as if I should know what is going on.

A better way to run your mailing list would be to address your subscribers in a more individual and personal manner. Ask your subscribers how their week is going? Ask them if there is anything that you can do to help them. Remind them that at any time they can simply click the reply button and send you an email back.

Use your mailing list as a pipeline to communicate with your subscribers. Engage with them and do things that encourage them to react with you. Doing these things keeps your mailing list alive and thriving and most importantly… clicking. When it comes time for you to recommend a product, you will have a much greater success selling to your active list compared to selling to a dead list.

I hope that you enjoyed my previous month focus which provided you with amazing ways to increase traffic to your affiliate marketing blog or web site. If you didn’t have an opportunity to read the articles from last month you can view my archives here. Also, I strongly suggest that you subscribe to my RSS Feed and sign up to receive free email notifications. This month my focus will be on teaching you how to increase your affiliate marketing sales by better optimizing your time, your work environment, and by showing you how to find new customers and how to sell to existing ones.

There are quite a few ways to increase your success with affiliate marketing. One of the best ways that I want to talk to you about in this article is with getting to know the owner of the products and services that you promote. There are multiple reasons why it is important to take the time to introduce yourself personally to the owners of the products and services you sell.

1 of the main reasons is simply because it naturally adds to your own self ownership of the items you sell. When you interact with affiliate treatment owners you in return get a more personalized feel for the products being sold. Over time through multiple conversations, you can learn the reasons behind why the products were created. Having that information gives you an edge over other affiliates who promote the same products or services.

A second reason why it is important to meet the owners of affiliate products is because doing so illustrates your level of sincerity towards being an affiliate marketer. Product owners and service provides want to increase sales. Naturally, they will latch on to their most effective affiliates or ones that show the most interest. When you contact affiliate drug owners and service providers and establish a business relationship with them, often they will provide you with special incentives to sell. They may offer special bonuses or even increase your payout percentage.

The third reason why it is important to meet the owners of various affiliate products and services you promote is because you can use that publicly to your advantage. What I mean to say by that is simple. If you have a blog and start writing content that informs your readers and subscribers that you are on talking terms with affiliate drug owners, it adds to your reputation and gives you more credit.

First impressions have a massive influence on sales. When you speak to your customers and tell them that you personally know the owner of the treatment being sold, that goes a long way and builds an excellent first impression. Also, if you play your cards right, you can even leverage your relationship with the owner. A great way to do that is by working special deals with the pill owner and extend the offer to your subscriber and customer base. If you can make an effort towards working a deal with the treatment owner, people will soon discover that you are offering the best deal on the treatment being offered.

If you’re new to online affiliate marketing, you may be looking at all the discussions on affiliate forums wondering, “Wow, these guys are making so much money – but it’s easy for them because they have a lot of sites promoting their products, and how can I accomplish anything if I don’t even know HTML nor have ever done anything online more complicated than simply browsing! And it probably costs a lot of money to buy domain names, host them and build sites on them!”

In reality, getting started in affiliate marketing is much easier than you think – and it’s possible to do it without even having a site of your own. You do not really have to spend the money on domains and hosting to get started and achieve your first sales. If your funds are limited, or you are unsure about the outcome of your new affiliate activity, investing money into it can wait until you see you are making money off it.

You see, there are 2 types of affiliates. First type relies on paid advertising (PPC) such as Google AdWords, second type relies on organic traffic – that is, the search engine visitors searching for the corresponding products. The PPC affiliates often drive the visitors directly to their affiliate URL as opposed to a standalone site (although Google has made it more difficult recently). But doing PPC requires an initial investment. The second type of affiliates rely on organic traffic from the search engines – and here’s where the opportunity lies for you. Just like for PPC affiliates, it is not absolutely necessary for an affiliate working with organic traffic to get a site of their own right away.

Here’s where the opportunity lies for you. Instead of registering a domain and buying a hosting account, go to Squidoo.com and register an account there. Then create a page about the treatment you want to promote. You do not need to know HTML, or anything else about building sites. Just fill out the forms you see there, add your banners, treatment pictures and – most important – your affiliate link, and you’re done!

Is it really that easy, you may ask? Well, you might want to research the topic you’re writing about, as creating a really good and interesting page (or lens, as Squidoo calls them) pays off – the better your lens is the more traffic it gets. Also, an added benefit of Squidoo is in it being an authority site – the one that Google likes. It makes ranking your page easier.

Of course, you still have to put some effort into promoting your page. Unlike with your own site on your own domain, you are a bit limited in ways you can use for promoting your page: you cannot submit it into directories, for example. But you can still bookmark it, place a link to it into your forum signatures, submit articles to article directories with links to your page, and so on.

Squidoo is not the only place that can get you started – you can also try Tripod, or Yahoo! Geocities, or Hubpages, or WetPaint. All these places give you a free account and web space, and do not require any HTML knowledge. Or maybe you fancy a blog over a static page? OK! Head over to Blogger.com and register yourself an account – setting up a blog there as easy as setting up a page in all the places I’ve mentioned previously.

OK, as an added bonus to this article, here comes my favorite technique: suppose you have created pages at all of the places referred to above. Now, to get the most benefit from setting them all up, link them all to each other. This way, promoting each 1 of them will benefit them all.

In the beginning, this may seem like a lot of work and a lot of time. But once you start seeing the traffic coming in through your affiliate links, it will be really rewarding! And when the sales start happening, you can invest into your own domain and host. Back when I was just starting out making money online, I did the same way – and now I have a bunch of my own sites making me money.

And don’t worry if things appear difficult or beyond your knowledge about the web – MoreNiche has many guides for people just like you in which you can find answers to all your questions, from putting up your affiliate links to promoting your sites.

About the author

IrishWonder is well known internet marketer within SEO circles.
He is also an author of the brand new Directory Marketing guide.