Mammoth Creatives » Marketing Mediums

Affiliate Marketing Overview

mc_support — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:48:41 +0000

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online.

Author: Josh Bradley

Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and an online marketer. The online marketer, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for and marketing ideas to promote the merchant’s products by linking to the merchant’s website. In exchange,the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds
to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the product link and makes a purchase.

Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some benefits in affiliate marketing.

There are many benefits on the merchant’s side. It gives the merchant a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques. The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic,which can convert to sales. Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a
customer purchases.

Meanwhile, since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, the affiliate also enjoys many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link to the merchant’s website, which prospective customers will hopefully click and proceed to make a purchase. As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliate’s site, is redirected to the merchant’s website and goes on to buy that particular product, the affiliate earns a commission.The more referrals there are the more profit for the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate.

Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from.You can find opportunities for every product under the sun. Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website or area of expertise.

In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort.

You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the
convenience of your own home. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.

Because of the global reach of the Internet, you can easily find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your potential to earn. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved.

If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if it is only a sideline business. By advertising other people’s products, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

Source

Josh Bradley is the creator of HomeBizGalaxy.com – Find articles, tips, tricks and ideas for making more money on the Internet at: http://www.HomeBizGalaxy.com

Looking to Boost Your Online Business? Consider Video Marketing

Admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:16:17 +0000

By Sid Risner

Video marketing is becoming very popular and will soon be the new way that people market their products on the internet. It has the potential to replace all the major types of text on the Internet, yes, it is that powerful. What do you need to do to take advantage of this amazing new advertising format and make sure that your business is at the forefront? In the article that follows, we will talk about the different ways you can use video marketing to create a brand for yourself, increase sales, increase the number of customers you have, and how to carve out a market niche. Video marketing can be one of the most enjoyable and intelligent ways to sell your product or service online.

Videos Through Twitter

This is one the fastest trends to catch up in the Internet marketing world. Not too many people are doing it now, but that number is rising. So what exactly is a video sales page? It serves the same purpose as your average sales page, it just uses video instead of text. This way, you’re not wasting time typing up obtuse sales copy; you just make a video containing your content and post it on the page. And this can create a wonderfully visual and engaging message. Developing videos for marketing is something that takes certain skills and talents. So if you don’t feel comfortable writing your own copy or speaking in front of a camera, you may want to consider hiring a professional to do this for you. It is a plus if you can pitch your product personally. So if you possess confidence and a good speaking voice, you’re on your way to a great reward! Remember that you’re only selling through this video, so only work on that. This means that a professional presentation is very important in order to you to meet your marketing goals. Strike while the iron is hot. You want to be on the forefront of this growing trend because soon the majority of promotional pieces will be in videos.

Make Sure You Close the Deal With a Call to Action

One of the best ways to leverage video marketing is to create and upload your own video blog. Despite the possibility that your marketing scheme doesn’t have a lot of video in it, you might want to use it to keep your customers apprised of updates and specials. You can get a lot of subscriptions to your blog from people who are interested in your videos, which will allow them to learn about your services and buy from you. Many people who have knowledge of blogs are misinformed if they believe that you can only post texts and related ads on your blog. Today’s blog is far more personal, allowing you to produce and upload your own videos that will grab the attention of your regular subscribers. There are many internet marketers who have already discovered the value of a video log, so don’t get left behind; video blogs can help every internet marketer produce premium content that is more appealing than simple text. If you want more traffic to your website, video blogs are one sure way to increase your numbers.

Every day sees more and more people becoming reliant on the Internet for their everyday needs. As this continues to grow, video marketing opportunities are also developing steadily. You can’t wait any longer to start attempting to cash in on this growing trend, or you’ll get left behind. All you have to do is put forth a bit of effort, and the results will be fantastic.

Article Source

Preparing Your Site for True Search Engine Popularity with Keywords

mc_support — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 06:01:13 +0000

Interesting article from Online for Success

Preparing Your Site for True Search Engine Popularity with Keywords

To this day, many budding web designers preparing their own piece of internet real estate often neglect to incorporate well thought out keywords or descriptions into their site design concept. Some leave the area untouched, while others choose to include hundreds of keywords, which in the end can have as little value as none at all.

Keywords, though an aging aspect of search engine inclusion and end placement, continue to play a role in those engines that are entirely spider based, scouring the internet for newcomers offering content of value to their visitors. Many of these sites consider some, or all of the following site inclusions when determining their overall ranking within their listings:

Title

Your site title should be succinct, no longer than six or seven words, and must include selected keyword(s), in a logical order, and in as sensible and appealing a fashion as can be developed. When listed, this area will be featured on the spider-based engines as your highlighted drawing card, and must have appeal to your customers in order to be effective. Important keywords should be placed prominently within the title so as to indicate to the spider that these keywords play a significant role in the nature of the page.

Description

There are a variety of search engine expectations with regard to the description area, and the number of terms or phrases that should be included. To offer a simplified suggestion, keep your description to the point, within a reasonable number of words – say between six and fifteen. Utilize both the keywords placed within the title, as well as additional versions of those words, such as plurals, and other related terms felt to be common queries within your market. Prominence plays a role here as well, so keep your major keywords in mind when writing the description, and if the number of words is growing too large when all aspects are incorporated, consider moving the pluralized forms into the meta keyword, and body areas.

Meta Keywords

Determining the keywords of most value to your operation can be an arduous, but necessary task. Utilizing tools such as the Overture search frequency tool can play a strong role in simplifying this process. In the end, your quest should be the targeting of keywords that are popular, entirely relevant to your product or service, with as little competition as possible.

For example, a company in the area of alternative health would do better to focus on keywords relative to specific ailments, where the number of sites focused on these areas is low, versus targeting the keyword health, for which competition is in the millions.

As in all other areas, select and place your keywords in careful order, keeping overall prominence, and number of words in mind. Don’t overdo it in this area, as too many keywords are a signal to some engines to ignore a site that may simply be attempting to misdirect traffic through the inclusion of a barrage of keywords, versus actual content. A safe number of keywords would be in the ten to twenty range.

Body Text

Inclusion of keywords in your page’s body text, as well as the volume and placement of those keywords is an additional factor reviewed by search engine spiders. As they say, content is king, and a well written content page can please both spider oriented engines, as well as the keen eye of a manual review. Keep your keywords in mind throughout development of your page, targeting all forms of the keywords you are featuring. As prominence again plays a role, it may be of value to place your most potentially important words both near the beginning, and end of your content area.

Link Text

Search engines will also take note of your site’s linked text, as an indicator of overall relevance. Ensure that your incorporate keywords into both the text portion of the link that your visitors will encounter, as well as the actual page name that the link will transfer them too. In order for link page names to be legible to an engine interested in them, phrases must be broken up into blocks, as in the following:

http://www.onlineforsuccess.com/internet-marketing-directory.htm

In this example, keywords internet, marketing, and directory are utilized to the best advantage of the site development team. Other forms of breaking up phrases include the use of the underscore: _

Comments and Alt Tags

Site designers often incorporate keywords into their comment and alt tag areas as well. Comments are notes to the designer made while developing site areas to remind them of each area’s location and/or designation. Alt tags are placed alongside link text so that the site visitor who places their cursor over the link can see a quick summary of that link’s offering. Adding keywords to these areas is not an imperative, but assists in establishing the overall nature of the site with the engine. Keep the number of keywords to a minimum, as too many comments and/or alt tags can again be seen as abuse, and result in non-inclusion.

All of the above areas are of value in designing a site that intends to develop traffic flow via search engine listings. Other factors of recent importance include overall site popularity, which is a search engine measurement of the number of sites linked to your property, and the newest technique, theme indexing, which measures the overall nature of your site, versus the nature of individual pages within that site. Understanding these concepts, and applying them to your final stages of design are imperative to successful traffic generation, and your overall potential for online success.

Increase Mailing List Conversion Rate

mc_support — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:48:02 +0000

The core idea behind a mailing list is to capture leads of potential customers, so you have a list of targeted users to instantly contact. The time you send out your broadcast can have drastic effects on the conversion rate of the your offer.

While these leads may be interested, the time you send your email could effect the conversion rate of your particular offer. For example, if many of your leads are business professionals, then sending them broadcasts in the morning, when they usually have the most emails, might result in the lead just deleting your email.

Another important reason to note the time you send out broadcasts, is if the particular product doesn’t launch until a certain time. It would be inefficient of us to physically wait for that time to manually click send.

The following video shows you how to easily use Aweber to post date broadcasts, so you can create them earlier and automatically send them out at the designated time.

Try out Aweber for just $1.

8 DOABLE Marketing Techniques To Promote Your Site OFFLINE

mc_support — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:48:16 +0000

From squeeze pages, to sales pages ,to full on sites, many times we make some sort of online entity and then forget that we can actually go offline to market it.

Yes, there are social media and other forms of online marketing; however, there are just as effective marketing strategies we can employ in the physical world.

1. Business Cards And Pamphlets

Odds are if you already manage a site, then you have told friends and family about it. How many times have you either had to write down the site URL or tell them to just search on Google? While these tactics could eventually get them to your site, we are relying on the person’s memory to help get them there.

By using something like a business card or pamphlets, we are not only helping them remember the URL, but, depending on what all information you share, we are also reminding people what your site is all about.

These type of print material will also make it more likely for somebody to visit your site. Without the card, they may come home and completely forget. With a card or pamphlet, they will be more likely to put the piece of paper by their computer or just go and check out the site right away.

You can easily find cheap business cards and pamphlets and then throw them around. Leave them in places with lot of foot traffic or leave a stack on the bus or metro.

MC readers can get 10% OFF All UPrinting Products!

2. Throw A Party

While it might not be the most cost effective, it will definitely get you noticed and help move along the networking. There are reasons why many companies sponsor parties after various award shows. What better to have a bunch of famous people touting around your name.

Now these parties do not have to be the most lavish events. It can be just a few people or a lot. The goal is to get people familiar and eventually talking about your company. You even arrange simple meet ups through Twitter.

3. Attend Trade Shows And Conventions

Whether you are hosting a booth or just there as a visitor, trade shows and conventions are great networking events. They could be “make money online” targeted or topic specific trade shows. Either way getting out there in person is beneficial to your online career.

These type of events will not only promote your site, but you could also find new partnerships and projects to work on as well.

4. Your Local Magazines/Newspapers

While taking out an ad slot on television or big-time newspaper may be too much, your local newspapers usually have budget friendly prices. Either taken out an ad for your site, or see if you could perhaps write an article for them. Who knows, maybe they will pick you up for more articles.

5. Get On The Radio

Believe it or not, getting on the radio is easier than you think. Some radio shows block out time slots specifically for “regular people.” Not only can it be good free publicity, but it would also make you more of an authority in your specific niche.

6. Become A Speaker

Landing a speaking engagement can be very easy, especially if you do it for free. With the massive amount of groups that are created everyday, there is never a shortage of people to talk to. Simply look up targeted groups through your community or local colleges and schools and inquire if you can speak with them. You can even look up groups about your specific ethnicity and/or culture and see if they will let you talk to them.

7. Hand Out T-Shirts And Clothing

To get a hundred of simple t-shirts with your logo on it, really does not cost that much. You would be hard pressed to find somebody who does not like a free t-shirt. So why not hand out shirts that strangers will wear and let them promote your site?

8. Sponsor Local Teams And Events

Whether it is a little league team or some community event, why not donate some money for some form of advertisement in return?

Your Detailed Instructions On How To Create Viral Content

mc_support — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:37:55 +0000

With social networks, marketing your product or service has never been as cheap and effective. At the same time, as more and more people start to get on-board to the idea of social network marketing, turning your marketing campaign viral is becoming harder and harder by the second.

Before, we move on to various ways to go viral, lets first define what “going viral” means.

To most people, viral means being seen by millions of people around the net, while that is obviously viral, you do not need that many to successful run a viral marketing campaign. Rather, you want a major influx of targeted visitors that are actually interested in whatever you are promoting.

Now that we got that out of the way, lets look at a couple quality marketing methods to launch a viral campaign…

What Makes Good Viral Ready Content

When it comes to something going viral, it has to usually be unique, different, and funny.

Video – No doubt the source of almost anything that happens to goes viral is video. In fact, video is getting so popular that major companies like Vitamin Water and Nike create high profile videos solely to release online. In most cases, these videos usually require you to have some famous person doing something unusual, doing a spoof, or just something strange and funny.

Lists - Everybody loves awards, praises, or some type of recognition. That being said, the “Best of” lists are some of the best textual pieces to go viral. Create a list of the best people to follow on Twitter for a specific topic or the best blogs to follow.

Resources - People love cheap stuff, especially if cheap means free. Have a killer product or at least on that gives off the impressions that it would drastically benefit people? Give it away for free or at much lower than the current price. Regardless if your product is good or not, if it seems enticing people will follow.

How To Promote Content To Go Viral

Probably 70% of a successful viral campaign is through some form of luck: either you managed to be in the right place at right time and/or you get somebody more popular or with more reach than you pick up and promote your product. I can say with 100% certainty that 99.95% of content that is simply posted online and left to run, will NEVER go viral.

Creating viral content requires perfect coordination between multiple marketing mediums. The following is a step-by-step example on how to create viral content:

1. Create a video on topic - You will see that most of the Nike viral videos are usually promoting their latest basketball shoes; however, most of the videos either have some sort of joke or exaggerate to what the shoe does. Remember Kobe Bryant jumping over a car? The idea behind the video is to get the viewers to say “What?!?!” and then get them to share the content with others.

2. Post the video - Post it anywhere and everywhere. Upload the video to every media site you know (i.e. YouTube, blip, Vimeo, Viddler). Share your video on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Obviously you want to learn how to increase your Twitter followers before hand. Submit the video to every social bookmarking site you know (i.e. Digg, Delicious, Reddit). Finally, email it. Whether it is though your mailing list, to personal friends and family, or both start the circulation. People love forwarded things in email, so why not get the movement started yourself?

With 6 degrees of separation, you never know who will see your content.

Obviously not everybody wants to or can create videos, so what about the textual content you want to go viral?

1. Mention high authority names – When it comes to sharing textual content, you already limit your marketing choices because you cannot post the content to video sites, so instead we need to try and increase the impact of our social networks. An easy way to do this is to mention high authority names in your article.

If you are creating a list of the top people to follow on twitter for stock trading tips, then name some of the top stock traders on Twitter. People love seeing their names posted on a “best of” list and will almost always retweet or some how link back to your article. Now once their followers see this article promoted by the high authority name, it will instantly give your article more credibility and his or her’s followers are more like to relink your article again.

As you can clearly see, creating viral content requires complete harmony between your individual marketing campaign and the luck of picking up other promoters on the way. What may make one piece of content viral may not work again; however, once your content goes viral make sure you have the overall funnel filter already in place to profit off that traffic. After all, there is no reason to go viral if you cannot end upf selling what you wanted…

Started a site of your own and not making any money yet? Check out the free Site Starter course that will teach you step-by-step how to use your blog or site to make money online.

How To Effectively Increase Your Twitter Followers

mc_support — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:38:56 +0000

If you are doing anything online, then it is a must to be on a Twitter. It is basically free traffic, so why would you not want to use the fastest growing social network?

While the overall premise of Twitter is relatively simple, a bunch of 140 character comments, the actual use of Twitter is much more complex than people even understand. Everyday new users are getting on Twitter and the next week these same people have basically given up on the platform.

The following are some effective ways to build a responsive Twitter following…

Where People go Wrong

First, lets look at where most people go wrong on Twitter. This can also be the case for most social networks, talking to yourself. Often times many people sign up for Twitter and then start posting Tweets about their thoughts, links, or anything that does not actually address somebody’s questions or comments.

While you may gain a follower every now and then, actually building a Twitter following requires you to do more work then just tweeting away your own thoughts.

1. Mass Follow

While this is not really the most efficient way to build your Twitter following, it is surely the fastest. Odds are if you follow somebody, then they will follow you back. While many of these people will never actually read your tweets, the odds of conversion is always likely with a high count. Just make sure to not start looking like a spammer to other potential followers.

2. Use Third Party Mediums

If you have a blog, profiles on other social networks, or just some other type of site, then you should really be advertising your Twitter account on those pages. Not only will you gain followers, but these will be targeted followers because they were funneled through from your site.

A list of Twitter third party mediums:

3. Interact

While this method may be the most time consuming, ultimately it is the most effective way to building a responsive Twitter following.

Just like a normal party, you do not expect to walk into a room and have everybody suddenly start to talk to you. Odds are you will need to approach most of these people if you are ever going to grab their attention.

Whether you use Twitter search, StockTwits, or other 3rd party sites that monitors Twitter, track what people are saying and respond to questions or comments you may be able to add value to. Odds are very high that you will grab a follower on just that one comment, and most likely it will be a very responsive one.

Further Twitter Reading - How To Easily Brand Your Twitter Background

2 Important Reasons For Using A Squeeze Page

mc_support — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:01:50 +0000

We have covered the difference between a sales page and squeeze page, but why would somebody choose one over the other? You want to sell something, right? So why not slap up a sales page and a direct link to the check out page?

While an effective sales page can definitely work, a squeeze page can actually be more efficient and imperative to lasting revenue.

1. Spread Out Sales Time

The theory behind both pages is that you are trying to convince the visitor to buy your product or service. Remember that these type of pages are single long web pages, so there is only one reason for people visiting your site: they have some problem, and they are looking to see if your product can help solve it.

With a sales page, there are really only 2 outcomes: the visitor buys your products or they leave. If you are lucky, they may bookmark the site, but odds are if they weren’t totally persuaded with your sales page the first time, then it won’t really convince them when they come back.

A squeeze page allows you to extend the sales time. Think of it like a salesman at a store coming home with you after you did not buy their product at the store. A squeeze page allows you to capture the visitors email address, and then can continue the selling process. Give them some free samples, trials, examples, or whatever. Point is that you get more than once chance to sell. Unless they unsubscribe, then obviously they are still interested in what you have to offer.

2. Capture Leads

Going back to the sales page we really only have one outcome after a visitor buys your product. They take it and leave. Yeah, sure you could create some sort of system that captures the customer’s email during check out, but odds are that most of us do not know how to do this.

If somebody buys your product after going through your squeeze page, you have already captured that leads info. Just because they bought your product does not mean you cannot use their email for future product launches or promotions. Remember they are still subscribed for a reason. Now instead of starting from scratch, for your next launch, you actually have a batch of potential customers ready to be reached instantly.

How To Make A Squeeze Page

There are many free web templates available for people looking to create either type of these pages. Usually for sales pages all you have to do is personalize your text and link to the checkout page; however, for a squeeze page it is a tad bit more tricky because you need to have a email marketing service. Some service that will allow you to capture and store these email addresses, and then send out emails.

The funny thing about email marketing services compared to all other web services you need (i.e. hosting) is that it is pretty much impossible to switch services. Well… you can switch, but because of the Anti-Spam Act, if you change providers, then you are required to have all your current subscribers opt-in again! Lets just say you will lose 75% or more of your subscribers.

A personal mistake I had made, was deciding to choose a free service when I first started to build my list. While it worked out okay in the beginning, I quickly realized how many things I was leaving on the table by not having the features available with premium services. No autoresponders, lack of ability to create a session of automated emails, not being able to split-target lists, and so on. By the time I had decided to switch I had 100 subscribers, but I had no idea I was going to have to get them to opt-in again. Soon after, my list quickly dwindled below 30 and I was required to build it back up.

Thankfully, since I have signed up for my email marketing service with Aweber, my profits have gone up like crazy. At times, I make more with my list than my individual sites.

I could go on for days about the benefits of a squeeze page. The truth is that you should point people to your squeeze page, have them opt-in, and then from there you send them to your sales page. See how that works?

Want to know more? Check out my free report on how to build your email list.
Learn about or sign up for Aweber.