and when such representation results in a sale, you are compensated with an amount based on pre-agreed rates.

 Affiliate marketing is actually no different from being a Avon, Amway or Tupperware representative, except that it is typically done online,

 and there are little or no personal interaction involved between the buyer, the seller, and even you as the intermediary or affiliate marketer.

To get into affiliate marketing,

one has to signify their intention by opening an account with a company they wish to represent by filling up an online form. For some like Clickbank and Hostgator, the account opening is free and the approval is immediate. For other networks like Commission Junction, you will have to be approved. Then when you are approved, some of the advertisers they carry might need to approve your account to promote them on a case-per-case basis. Other networks like PeerFly and TrialPay also take some time to review and even verify your application details, prior to approving your account. PeerFly even conducts automated phone call verification.

When you have your affiliate marketing account approved, that means that you can now generate your very own affiliate links so that when you promote the product, and prospective buyers click and buy through your link, the transaction will be traced back to you so that you may receive the commissions generated for your account. For Clickbank, they are called hoplinks and are typically encrypted so that other unscrupulous affiliates cannot steal the sale from you. Encryption also makes it virtually impossible to edit out your account name should the sale materialize later on.

Now since you now have you affiliate marketing link or “affiliate link”, for short,  you need a way to promote it. And I wouldn’t advise that you just carelessly advertise it in forums and other blogs. That would be spamming. The best way to promote affiliate links is by having your own website or blog. You should be generous in sharing helpful information and resources with your readers, so that when you recommend products and services, they would actually consider buying from you. People typically do not like to be sold to. They buy because they want to buy, not necessarily because you persuaded them to buy.

Also, since you now have your own site or blog for affiliate marketing, do aim to capture the names and addresses of your site visitors so that you can progressively introduce yourself to them through a series of value adding or professionally enriching messages. Let them know that you are somebody that they can know, like and trust.  

Welcome to Affiliate Marketing!

If you want to get into the future of affiliate marketing, check this out!

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 It is about making the products and services offered known to potential customers within a specific geographic area.  Through this phone leads generation connection, prospective buyers or clients get to know where they are located and how they can be contacted, preferably by phone so that inquires and clarifications can be addressed and appointments can bet set.  It is one of the most targeted promotional campaign that you can find.

If you are local business owner within the United States, you would benefit from phone leads generation service. 

It is not only economical, it is very efficient.  You will know exactly what worked and what did not produce any results since your promotional efforts are tracked.  Furthermore, you only pay for results. You pay per call delivered to you. You can even specify the qualifications for the leads delivered to you.  Those qualifications can be either length of phone calls, asking the calling to type in some codes, or something else.  Unlike a phone book listing, you have absolutely no idea of where your prospective customers got your number or how they have come to know about your products and services.  With a fresh supply of leads and potential customers, your business will be positioned for growth.  Now these local businesses are not limited to a specific industry – they can be dentists, medical clinics, plumbers, carpenters, exterminators, landscape services, painters, airconditioning or heater maintenance services, beauty salons, restaurants and whatever else that you may wish to tap into.

On the other hand, if you are an affiliate marketer looking for opportunities to generate commissions on sales of other people’s businesses via phone leads generation, this is a lucrative proposal that you can look at and get into as well.  Let me cite a particular network, Acme Phone Leads.  It provides you a two-pronged approach to earn. The first is the commissions from the phone leads you deliver to a client through a specific phone number assigned to you, with a tracking mechanism in place.  They are offering to pay up to $50 per qualified phone lead.  As of the last time I heard there were 231 pre-negotiated offers and you can even arrange to have your own deals with specific businesses you would like to push.  On the back end, this network also has a residual income plan that pays you 5 levels deep for referring people under you, with a $25 for your first level referrals, to get phone leads for other businesses as well.  To me, that is just icing on the cake.  The real opportunities are getting paid per call for the prospective customers you will deliver to the particular local business. Isn’t phone leads generation a great opportunity?

Get into Phone leads generation

- learn about Acme Phone Leads here:

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 While automatically receiving an email responses in my inbox such us, “ We have received your message and will get back to you as soon as possible” assures me that my message has been received, it also raises doubts on my end based on what happens in the next 24 hours.

 So in answer to whether autoresponders destroy the personal touch of customer service, I would say it depends largely on what happens immediately after the initial acknowledgment message has been received.  Let me cite a case in point, Google Adwords.  Based on my personal experience, and from what I have gathered some community forums and even posted feedback on their own site.  If you have attempted to contact them you would get a series of autoresponder messages that would attempt to categorize your concerns in pre-packaged responses.  While that certainly is convenient and would free up much time off their customer service, it also creates the impression of being too impersonal to the point of actually ignoring the customer even when the customer has requested that they be contacted.  In their case, since they have become such an industry giant, it has truly lost the touch of customer service in exchange for efficiency.  I learned later that you just have to resort to contacting them via phone instead.

Here are suggestions to help ensure that even with the use of an auto responder, you would still have that personal touch in your customer service.

1. Send an acknowledgement message but do provide a specific yet reasonable time frame within which you can actually provide feedback.
2. Provide a series of frequently asked questions with the complete and easy to understand answers so that customers may find the information they need sooner.
3. In your feedback or actual response, specify either an email message link or reference that automatically contextualizes the preceding exchange of messages.
4. In your subsequent messages do provide an alternative means of communication such as chat, phone call, skype, another email address that you check more frequently or something similar.
5. Enable the customer to rate the experience and solicit suggestions for how you can improve your delivery of services.

Remember, even in this high tech age of automation and wireless connectivity, people still prefer the personal touch of customer service.

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 Let us quickly go through some of common free techniques you can utilize to start building up traffic to your site.

 1. Keyword Research.  This is based on the principle that you write your content based on what people are looking for when then inquire the search engines. You can use Google Keyword Tools or other similar services.

2. Search Engine Optimization.  This is related to the keyword research you have undertaken.  You then optimize your page on site through keyword densities, or the 3% repetition of your in about each of your posts, specifying alt tags, defining h1, h2 and h3 tags, bolding and underlining keywords.  Off page SEO involves creating back links that point to the merit of your site.

3.  Forum Marketing.  When you participate in various online discussions in various communities that tackle relevant subjects, the member of that particular community will recognize your contribution and will check out what you have to offer or what you represent.  That is where you have the opportunity to place a signature link below each of your posts so that through it, they can visit your site.  A word of caution though, please do not join forums for the sole purpose of leaving links to your site.  That would be spamming and it can get you banned. 

4.  Article Marketing.  You can write article and valuable content related to your site.  It is best to offer real value to your reader by offering facts and information that would be helpful, that would build your credibility and personal branding over time.  Submit this to the various article directories such EzineArticles , GoArticles, IdeaMarketers, Article Alley, Buzzle and the other high page rank directories.  It helps tremendously that you write titles that are keyword rich.  Include a resource box in each article the links that point back to your site.  This activity builds the back links that point to your site and it helps you achieve off-page SEO.

5.  Social Networking.  Join the social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and in your profiles you can specify your URL.  Occasionally, you can share specific links to your friends, contacts and followers.

6.  List Building.  The fortune is in the follow up.  You should endeavor to build your own email mailing list over time.  It does not end in just capturing the names and addresses.  You have to build relationship through regular communications.

 Do not waste time.  You have no reasons not to employ these techniques because they are free anyway.  In time, when the traffic to your site grows and gains momentum, you will be glad you did.

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Most affiliate marketers fail to even make a single sale because they tend to just broadcast their affiliate links and hope people sign or buy the product or service they are offering without them establishing a “know-like-trust” relationship first.   This pattern would then go and on and on, leaving you no recourse but to quit and revert to where you started, but with much less money than what you intended to have.  Of course, that is the last thing we want to happen.

If you have been reading about how to build an online business, then you have most probably heard the adage that, “the fortune is in the follow-up”.  To do this requires a longer term perspective, with a view of maximize the initial contact you have with a potential customer.  There are so many media competing for potential buyer’s attention.  The idea is to maximize the chances of you establishing a relationship of “know, like, trust” or KLT with the potential client. 

How that is done is by capturing names and address, getting them to subscribe and then confirm their and communicating with them on regular basis.  The flow of messages typically should offer items of value for the subscriber like free resources such as but not limited to e-books, articles, software, tips and strategies.  Occasionally, you may recommend actual tools for sales that you sincerely vouch for.  You are making a personal recommendation, and your credibility rests on those products or services that you push.  It draws a line between saying you actually care about people as against you just wanting to make a quick buck out of the newsletter series.  Remember, you are out to establish that you are someone who can be trusted in the very impersonal world of the internet. 

To be able to do this, you would need an autoresponder service.  There are Aweber, GetResponse, GVO, and they offer paid services.  Their fees depend on how big your list has grown. For those starting out, I would recommend MailChimp.  It is free for the 1,000 subscribers and you can send as many as 6,000 email messages a month.

Take the time to plan and write out your message series.  It will matter as far as your personal branding is concerned.  Remember also to space out your messages quite far apart, yet regularly and reasonably so as not to crowd out the subscribers inbox.

Just like regular relationships, it takes time to build your brand and get people to know, like and trust you and your recommendations.

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