Learn Affiliate Marketing

Learn Affiliate Marketing - The Biggest Mistake Made By Affiliate Marketers
By Chris Coger
Learning affiliate marketing is one of the most profitable means to start your own business online. The ease of joining marketplace like ClickBank or Commission Junction make it very attractive for more people to jump on the bandwagon. I have seen many aspiring affiliate marketers promoting their wares without the faintest idea what they are doing. The biggest mistake marketers made is to send traffic directly to the merchants' websites without collecting their visitors' names and email addresses.
Do you know how many opportunities you are losing if you do not build a list?
Imagine spending the time and money on pay-per-clicks or optimizing your website to attract traffic to your web page and not able to control the outcome after sending to your merchant's website...
You have to be aware that not all merchants are good in selling and converting your leads into sales. They may have a good product but their weak copy may just hurt the response. Never make that mistake... targeted leads are your goldmine! You need to own your list and turn on your money-making "ATM machine" whenever you choose to. The smart marketer builds a simple squeeze page to collect the name and primary email addresses. You can easily set up a squeeze page with a html editor like FrontPage and an autoresponder like Aweber or 1shoppingcart.
Many marketers fear that by showing a squeeze page, your visitors may just lose interest and leave the webpage. For me, I think it is perfectly alright.
Here is my take: If you are not able to give a compelling reason for your visitors to part with their names and email addresses, what make you think that you will be able to get them to part with their money? The squeeze page is probably the most important process to determine the success of your internet venture. To get extra mileage, you should start a swipe file and learn how to build high-converting squeeze pages for your niche.
Spend the time to look for irresistible 'ethical bribes' and put them in your squeeze page so that your visitors will gladly give you your personal details. The gift can be in a form of a free report, a mini e-course or a MP3 recording that are related to their interests. This is just the beginning of your relationship with your subscribers. For a start, you have to give them good free content to win their trust.
Some marketers advocate to start selling in their first welcome messages. I beg to differ. Trust has to be earned. You need to send them valuable information to establish yourself as an authority in your niche market. I will only start to talk about my affiliate product in my third email to them. I will approach the subject as a product review and give my personal recommendations. This is like sharing some good information with a friend.
By the time I send my leads to the merchant's page, they are already pre-sold. Your subscribers are likely to seriously consider your recommendations and your chances of a sales will be greatly enhanced. Just by following this simple strategy, you will be ahead of many affiliate marketers who are still trying to figure out how to make this business model a success.
Chris Coger a.k.a The Ninja Marketer earns a comfortable income online and helps many affiliate marketers to accelerate their income online.