Writing for Your Wealth

Today, we’ve got a guest post from Laurie Stoneham. When I found out I couldn’t make the Affiliate Summit convention last month, I asked her if she’d like to take notes to share with you guys, and here she is with some tidbits…

There are tons of ways to make money online. Tons. And making tons of money is certainly doable with affiliate marketing. One of the people quoted later in this article is thought to generate roughly $15 million in annual sales! But this is not a business for the inattentive, lazy, or faint of heart. That’s the message I got from attending the recent Affiliate Summit conference held in Las Vegas.

An absolute newbie in affiliate marketing, I’ve been a writer for years and will be launching a blog and a couple of article sites later this year that I want to monetize. Having “won” one of the 20 Gold Passes that Brian Clark gave away on copyblogger.com, I attended the 3-day conference to learn as much as I could about this method of making money online.

Learning the Basics of How Affiliate Marketing Works

There’s no consistent vernacular in the industry. If you have a website, you’re a publisher, affiliate or reseller. The products and services you promote through banner ads, text or product links, are known as your advertisers, merchants or retailers. You’re paid commissions from advertisers, according to an agreed upon formula, and that’s how you make money from affiliate marketing.

For beginners, it makes the most sense to join the large affiliate networks that offer hundreds (or thousands) of products/services and handle all the business details for you. The largest networks are free to join: Commission Junction, ShareaSale, LinkShare, ClickBank, and Google Affiliate Network.

Finding What Works and What Doesn’t

It’s virtually impossible to know what will and won’t work all of the time. There’s no secret formula. Throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks is said to work best.

eBooks about getting rich with affiliate marketing are usually a waste of money.

Nick Koscianski of nickycakes.com, who’s famous for his bluntness, said during a panel discussion, “If you’re not tracking, you’re stupid.” He recommends Tracking202 and Prosper202 pay per click (ppc) tracking software.

Track everything by split-testing (evaluating variations) your copy, pricing, offers, etc. to see what’s most profitable. After a week, if it’s not working, get rid of it.

Google’s free Website Optimizer was also mentioned several times for testing, optimizing and increasing conversion rates (percentage of visitors who do what you want them to do, i.e., click through, subscribe, buy, etc.).

Working Smart in a Way that Works for You

Geordie Carsell of www.revenuewire.com cautioned that there are costs for everything you do, so you need to find out what’s worth your time, balancing what’s fun to do with what makes money.

It generally doesn’t work to try and do everything yourself. Exchange services with someone who has the skills you need, i.e., writing for coding in a revenue-sharing partnership or barter arrangement. When you get big enough to need administrative help, www.virtualhires.com can link you with a virtual assistant.

Complacency and laziness kill. Some of the work that needs to be done on an ongoing basis gets boring, and those who get lazy get left behind. But if you do what’s necessary and keep at it, you will make money.

Marketing That Works

During his Keynote Address, Gary Vaynerchuk, Director of Operations of winelibrary.com recalled one of his favorite expressions, “Content is king, but marketing is queen, and the queen runs the household.” Gary spends less than an hour a day creating content and the rest on marketing and monetizing by interacting on social media, leaving comments on blogs, making phone calls, tracking what people are saying about him, etc.

LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are considered the premier social media and can be extremely effective marketing tools. Be smart about interacting on these networks, though. I understand you can spend hours “tweeting” with very little return on investment (ROI).

For marketing wisdom and guidance, marketingsherpa.com was praised.

Gathering Nuggets from the Experts

I asked several experts what advice they would offer beginners just getting into affiliate marketing:

One of the best ways to make money with affiliate marketing is to teach people how the product or service benefits them with a tutorial or demo. You’re ’selling’ to people without making them feel ’sold.’

~Brian Clark www.copyblogger.com & www.teachingsells.com

It takes a very dynamic person to be successful in affiliate marketing – someone who always embraces change and market trends and responds to those trends.

~Jeremy Schoemaker ShoeMoney.com

Do something different, non-traditional and unexpected.

~Peter Shankman helpareporter.com

Imagination, research, common sense, trial and error and implementation followed by a review of the results, will work best in the long run for anyone.

~Billy Kay mailordershoppe.com

Learn how to use PopShops as quickly as possible. It’s a free, easy way to add a datafeed to any site, making it easy for customers to shop. Just make sure to review the text before publishing it – frequently there are typos in the datafeed you’ll want to correct. Better still, slightly rewrite to make the copy original and fresh.

~Jeannine Crooks DigitalInstructor.net

There is a wealth of valuable information contained in the ABestWeb.com forum – and all for free. So I suggest joining and reading, beginning with “The Magic Bullet” thread.

~Bill Swartwout OCtheBeach.com

Don’t be afraid to reach out and connect with other people. You never know where it might take you. It seems the more people I meet and connect with, the larger my income grows. 

~Miles Baker MarketingWithMiles.com

The key qualities for success are focus and consistency.

~Chris Molnar halloweenalliance.com

And my favorite because it’s exactly where I am –

You have to know when to stop learning and when to start doing.

~David Cunningham antiques-sos.com

I don’t know if I have everything it takes to make a ton of money online. But I do know that I left the Affiliate Summit with a ton of great information and a number of good contacts – all of which have me headed in that direction.

Today, Laurie Stoneham writes “anything but fiction,” and will be launching several profitable sites in 2009.