Honestly, I’m not a big affiliate fan because in the past I haven’t gotten 90% of the money promised either because they disappear before they pay out or they have so many exceptions — paying out once a quarter, has to be over X dollars first, etc. Another negative side is that some of them think that 10% commission or some low amount is worth the 20 hours it takes for us to sell it. Usually the 10% equal $10 and $10 isn’t worth my reputation even $1000 actually.

Today’s article is not about the pros and cons of being an affiliate member. There are some good affiliate programs out there where you will get a check, their exceptions are small or nil, and the commission reasonable for the amount of time, risk, and reputation you place on the line for their product or program.

This article focuses on collecting their information before you give them the affiliate link so you can increase your mailing list numbers or residual income.

Almost all affiliate referrals are handled by providing someone with the affiliate link. The reader then goes from your place to their place. If this is what you have been doing, take the “L” (for loser) off your forehead, and read this to “get SMART quick.”

Stop LOOSING a valuable marketing opportunity — and stop it now!

Instead, set up a bridge page (also called a portal page or doorway page). Use the terms bridge and portal instead since the word doorway has a separate search engine meaning that can be confusing.

A bridge page works simply like this. You set up a bridge page on your web site. You send them to this page instead of to the affiliate site, collect their information, and THEN send them to the affiliate site.

The objective is to offer them something for fr*e*e that they must register for on that bridge page so you collect their information. In fact, you can offer several things.

You set up two pages actually. One that is the bridge page and the other a thank you page. After you collect their information THEN you send them to the thank you page. On the thank you page, you thank them for whatever it is they did and then give them an option to NOW access the affiliate site.

Here are a few ideas on items you can offer on the bridge page to collect their information:

* To subscribe to your ezine. If you have more than one, list these all. * To register for an ecourse. * To receive an ebook. * Offer your opinion or testimonials on using the affiliate’s product/program.

Now, one of the main things most people do not think about is offering them something to purchase. And this is something affiliate offerers lookout for when you sign up to be an affiliate (at least the good ones do). They don’t want their competition becoming an affiliate and then snatching the customer on the way to their site. I am chuckling on this one — I think it is great actually. Most affiliates don’t even know this is happening to them.

Here is a duzie of a hint that I’ve only seen one affiliate program do. This will give you a head start and it’s kind of sneaky too.

You can offer something at a price on the bridge page that has to do with that topic (you have a focused buyer here). Example: The affiliate item is a software product. You can write an ebook on the same topic. Yes, will this piss off some affiliates. You bet, but guess what — that’s business. And also guess what — it’s going to take them a while to figure it out what you are doing too. They are so busy trying to obtain more affiliates they don’t have the time to research each one.

Offering something for a price isn’t as effective as something for fr*e*e. Then again, you have to decide what is your call to action for the bridge page. Is it to collect name and increase your mailing list or to make residual income. Don’t get greedy and offer both. It will bite you in the “assets”. Too many choices and it confuses the visitor and so they don’t make any decision at all and leave without choosing anything — no freebie, no affiliate link.

When you set up your doorway page, set up the metatags and searchable keywords that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to place on your site. Make sure that these same words are in the content.

Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com

Affiliate Marketing is having Affiliates do your Marketing for you. What I mean by Affiliate is someone who tells people about your product/service and you pay them for a desired response, such as a purchase.

Affiliate Marketing is one of the best ways to get the word out about your product/service.

The best way to pay Affiliates is pay per sale. This means that you only have to pay your Affiliates when they actually make a sale. This reduces your advertising costs dramatically. your Affiliates take on all the risks so you don’t have to worry about wasting your money on advertising which may not produce any results.

Using Affiliate is a very cheap way to advertise, however it is very effective. The software required to start up your own Affiliate program can cost only about $50 per month.

Then after that just wait for people to start promoting your product/service for you.

Please remember that 5% of your Affiliates will do 95% of the selling. What I mean by this is that most of your Affiliates will just sit there and do nothing. This can be countered if you teach them what to do, exactly how to do it and providing everything for them so they have to do as little work as possible.

To find out about teaching your Affiliates please see the “How To Super Charge Your Affiliates” article

You don’t have to use this form of advertising just to sell your product or service. You can also use it to grow your opt-in mailing list. This is discussed in another article.

How Much Should You Pay Your Affiliates

How much you pay your Affiliates really depends on how much your product/service costs, its profit margin, how much you’re willing to give up and what action you want to take place.

Lets say that your product is priced at $100. Lets also assume that it cost you $10 to make it. This leaves you with $90 profit.

How much of this do you want to give away to the person that made this sale possible?

Personally, I believe that you should give a rather high percentage of the profits back to the affiliate (Depending on how many sales they regularly generate), because without them, you wouldn’t have made that particular sale at all, so reward them for it.

A fairly decent reward is about 50% of the revenue generated. Your product is priced at $100 so a $50 commission is quite generous. It really depends on your other costs (such as a mortgage) you have, which would help decide on a fair commission to both you and the Affiliate.

Another factor which plays a part is how much additional advertising you do, such as pay per click. For example, if you rely solely on your Affiliates to Market for you, then you may want to reduce the commission you pay to them to help you survive. However, you may want to pay them more, to encourage them to send more sales you way. It really is a judgment call.

On the other hand, if you advertise in other ways effectively, then you can afford to pay higher commissions, because you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket.

In the end it’s all down to how greedy or generous you are. The best advice I can give you is to pay the affiliate what you think he/she deserves. Hopefully that way everyone is happy and earning their fair share.

That is the key to a successful affiliate program.

By Stephen Warren, the creator of http://www.marketershandbook.com, the completely FREE guide to marketing online, with useful articles and links.

Affiliate programs are without a doubt the best example of how
anyone can take the ideas and products of others and spread the
benefits of informing others while rewarding all those who
participate in the process.

Affiliate programs can inspire new ideas and products too. When
one product contributes to another it creates a field of related
products that can and do compliment each other. At the same
time, it is vital to each individual’s success to compare,
update, and adjust their advertising and promotion of each
product.

Product
Reviews can play an equally important part in keeping
affiliate programs refreshed, revised, and rewarding to those
who expect to benefit from their respective products. When you
may have seen success from a product for a while, the constant
input and saturation of a product causes a diminished return on
your efforts. Product reviews assist you in keeping your rewards
equal to your efforts.

To achieve better results in promoting and keeping your efforts
growing, tips and tricks often are the necessary functions of
reaching your goals. Occasionally, you may encounter a
stand-alone business offer that will allow you to operate
totally independent of an affiliate program so that every effort
you apply to it, is not shared or split with the originator.
This is where you can directly measure your efforts against your
rewards. Whenever possible seek to find these independent
opportunities, since you will grow your bank account the fastest
it can and without sharing in your individual efforts.

While we offer an
independent review of affiliate programs, all things do
not remain the same, progress and current evaluations and
awareness rely on you to be constantly updating your insights on
where to invest your time and efforts. Again, if you expect to
succeed in online affiliate programs, monitor your results and
make needed changes when you see that what has worked before,
begins to taper off, it’s not necessarily due to your efforts,
it may be time to make a change in what you promote.

http://wealthsmith.com/clickbank-review.htm

Those of us in home based and small businesses are in effect selling our product. So becoming an effective salesperson is very important. Remember, however, that selling is not the only thing you do. Don’t forget to use your time wisely.

What you want to do to help you move forward is to:

Plan and prioritize. If the majority of your day is spent with your customers, you will need some down time. You need to have time to look at the trends in your business. By this I mean go over your customer records, see where patterns are, what changes you need to make and then set up a plan to implement those changes. If you spend a little time at the end of each day going over what transpired during the day and set up your plan and schedule for the next day, you will be much better prepared for the next day and the subsequent days.

At the beginning of each week, take a look at where you want your business to be and make plans on how to get there. If something you are doing isn’t working, make changes. However, then you need to give those changes time to work. If they don’t work, change them again. Most important is that you spend the time each week to figure out what your business needs are and what your needs are, till you come up with what works best for you, your business and your customers.

As many of our long time readers know, I am a big proponent of To Do lists. Make up a daily to do list, a weekly and a monthly. Remember to consider your goals when making up your To Do list. Where do you want your business to be in five years, ten years? When you ask yourself these questions, you focus on the direction you want your business to take and the income you want to make.

Remember, after you have determined what your goals are, then take your goals and figure out the steps you need to take to get to that particular goal. Do this with each of your goals. Since we are concentrating on sales in this article, ask yourself: Do I need a new product? Do I need to look for other ways to sell my products? If I make these changes will I need additional funds? If I need funds should I get a parnter or find an investor? If I increase my business will I need to hire someone? Once you have answered these questions, then take the steps you have come up with and put them on your To Do list.

It is very important that you have a calendar and that you set deadlines. Your calendar can be paper or electronic. The most important thing is that you use it. Put all your goals, the steps needed to get to your goals, and deadlines to meet those steps in your calendar. Remember, if you use your calendar wisely it will help you accomplish what you need to and help you to get things done efficiently and on time.

To show you how your calendar can work for you, let’s set up a marketing campaign. First, you want to schedule deadlines for everything that needs to be done before you can even start the campaign.

First set a deadline of September 4 to re-price all your current products. By the 12th of September contact the media you will be using for rate information along with their readership information, and what their ad copy requirements are. In our example the media would be newspapers and magazines. However, you can also do the same for television, billboard, etc. By the end of September (the 30th) make up your ad budget for the year. You will want to determine how much it will cost you on a monthly basis, so you can have an accurate determination of your monthly expenses. By the middle of October (let’s say the 15th) set a deadline for your ad copy and any art so that you can meet their deadline. Let’s say in our example it is the 1st of the month. So that would be November 1st.

The above example illustrates how to take a large project and break it down into smaller projects and to set deadlines for them so that you can get the whole project done.

As any successful business owner will tell you, of paramount importance is to keep in touch with customers. You can call your regular customers often, perhaps every six weeks or every month. Or if calling is not feasible in your business, keep in contact by sending post cards, flyers, or a special announcement. Be sure to keep track of when you last talked with each individual, or were in contact with them. Also, if possible, make some comment that personalizes the call, or written contact. For example, ask about new developments in their business or mention the spouse or children by name. Know your customer. Make your customer feel important.

A great way to keep in touch with your customer is after you’ve made a sale, send a thank you note. If your business warrants it, if your customer will probably run out of supplies in three months, send a reminder note.

As we all know catalogs are great, however, they are very costly to mail. Rather than send a catalog why not just send a postcard to your customers announcing the new items you have added to your catalog. If they use a particular product, mention that on the post card. The holiday is a great time of year to contact customers. If your business warrants it, a birthday card is a nice touch. For example, my insurance company sends me a birthday card every year, along with a calendar.

Some other ways to stay in touch is to send them an article about your business or a catalog sheet (these usually focus on one or a couple of items) or start a newsletter and send it to your customers on a quarterly basis or more often if warranted.

Another excellent way to keep in touch with your customer is to become a resource for your customers. Remember, many times when you make a sale, you provide a solution to a problem. Lease purchasing is a solution for those who need to move their home quickly. A repair service is a solution for wear and tear that comes with time. Tax preparers provide a solution to those that dread tax time and all the paperwork involved. Newsletters are a great way to become a resource. You could have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) article on a particular product you sell. Make your customer aware that you can provide them with solutions for a certain type of problem. If your customer has a problem that you can’t solve refer them to another expert. If you are not sure of something when your customer asks, don’t bluff your way through it. Tell your customer that you will get back to them with an answer.

One of the most important things is to deliver what you promise. If you say something will go out on a specific day, be sure it does. If you say you will get back to them with certain information, be sure you do so. Never let your customer down.

When your customers and others think of you, you want to be thought of as a problem solver. Someone who is reliable, organized, and cares. If you do all of the above you can accomplish this and customers will call you, and more importantly, refer others to you.

Copyright 2003 DeFiore Enterprises

Interested in having your own successful, home based creative real estate investing business? Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 19 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to our “how to” Home Business Solutions Digest, it’s like having your own personal coach: subscribeHBS@homebusinesssolutions.com

While proper packaging is required all year long, doing the job correctly takes on new meaning
during “the holidays”. Not only are many of the packages we send out over the next few weeks destined to be gifts for our customers family and friends, but with the increase in shipping volume at this time of year the chances of your packages being handled more roughly than normal is virtually assured to happen. The sheer volume the shipping companies are trying to move and deliver during this “crunch time” is tremendous and in that attempt to handle everything and get it where it needs to be, small corners are cut in an effort to save time and space.

With the above paragraph being commom knowledge to experienced sellers and shippers, it’s always a good idea for anyone shipping packages this time of year to take a few minutes to review some of the basics and make certain that everything is in place before the rush hits and we get caught unprepared for it and try to cut corners ourselves. Depending on what your product is, chances are it might be a gift for someone and there is basically only going to be one chance to ship it out and get it there on time and in one piece. If it arrive damaged and the process has to start over, what are the chances of the second package making it there on time?

Starting with the outside of the package, usually a cardboard box of some kind, choose one that will allow a good 2″ on each side of extra clearance room. This extra room is for the cushioning material used to protect the item inside. This extra room is also a good idea if you’ve ever seen how packages are kind of jammed into nooks and crannys in the trucks used to transport and deliver packages. Every square inch of truck space is a valuable commodity so if there is a 5″ space and they have a 6″ box, guess what - you got it, that 6″ box WILL fit in that 5″ space!

Next is the cushioning material used to fill the space. Be sure to have a good supply of whatever it is you will need - bubble wrap, packing peanuts, blank newsprint paper, kraft paper or whatever your favorite material is. If you are shipping fragile items such as glass or china, a good way to package them is a combination of both bubble wrap and peanuts. Wrap the item in bubble wrap and tape to secure. Then using the peanuts - preferably the “C” or “S” shaped ones that won’t crush and settle during transit - create a bed for the item on the bottom of the box, place the item in the center of the box and fill the rest of the void with more peanuts making sure the peanuts settle into place so that no open spaces are left. Crumpled newsprint or kraft paper can also be used to fill open areas as well.

Getting a box of the proper size can be challenging at times especially for those who re-use boxes from incoming shipments. Choose one to small and the result can be a damaged product. Choose one too big and you have to use extra void fill to fill in the space. You can’t stretch a box to make it bigger, but you can trim one down to size quickly and easily with what is known as a box sizing tool. Basically this tool is nothing more than
a multi-pointed wheel that perforates the inside wall of a box so it can be easily folded over at the desired location. An adjustable bar that hooks onto the top of the box makes a straight and even line possible. Simply ste the sliding bar to the proper height and then go around the box with the tool. After that, slit the corners of the box from the perforated line to the top and fold the sides in. Even a large box can be trimmed down to size in less than 20 seconds.

To give your packages a little more impact and visual appeal during the holidays, you can throw in a splash of color. Colored tissue paper, mailing tubes and tape can be used to create eye catching packages that are remembered. Color tape is available in masking tape for inside boxes and also in carton sealing tape for closing and securing the exterior box. Red or green tape on a white box automatically makes it look like a wrapped gift.

Even the packing peanuts can be used to create a visually appealing effect. Mix white and pink peanuts together for a nice soft look that will compliment and enhance the item inside. A nice touch that many of our customers have complimented us on in regards to using peanuts is that we will put peanuts in a poly bag and seal the end shut. This way when the package arrives at its destination the receiver only has to remove the bagged peanuts and not a bunch of loose peanuts that usually blow all over the place and annoy people. It can’t be done in every instance, but we try to do it when we can.

The use of “FRAGILE - Handle With Care” or “Do Not Bend” labels is a debate that may never be settled.
While it may be a good idea to mark potentially fragile packages in the hope of it being given at least a little extra care, I have seen and heard shipping employees take those labels as a challenge to see just how well packed the box is by throwing and kicking it around. This is the exception to the rule as the vast majority are really trying to do a good job for the customers.

The last thing is what holds it all together - tape. Resist the urge to save a few pennies here by buying the cheap stuff. While you don’t have to spring for the top shelf, high dollar tape, a good quality tape will be worth its cost. The cheap tape tends to tear easily and does not stick well, especially in a cold enviroment such as will be encountered during its journey during the month of December in the back of a tractor trailer. The best overall tape for sealing boxes and taping bubble wrap or foam around items a good quality 2″ wide, 2 mil tape in either 55 or 110 yard rolls. Both sizes fit in standard tape guns and do a good all around job in the shipping department.

Keeping some of the basics of proper packaging in mind will help insure everyone has a happy and joyous holiday season.

About the author - Steve Madsen is the owner of http://www.pacnseal.com, a Suffolk, Virginia based packing and shipping supply company that ships throughout the US and Canada. He has written numerous articles to help business owners with their packaging operations and participates on several internet forums answering questions and offering advice.

Have you ever heard or read the phrase “multiple streams of
income” before? Do you know what this phrase means? For many
businessmen, creating multiple streams of income online or
offline is one way of securing themselves as well as their
businesses in the future. They also believe that it can also
save them from the so-called famine effect in the business
industry. Once you are engaged in affiliate marketing business,
it is advisable if you have multiple streams of affiliate
marketing income so that if one of those income streams
vanished, it will not upset you the way losing your sole stream
would. If you depend on just one source of income and this
single stream has been downsized or has lain off, you’ll surely
find yourself bankrupted and hopeless. Try to ask the most
successful online entrepreneurs, and you’ll discover that they
have established multiple streams of online income.

There is a businessman that said and attested that the very
first step you must take in creating multiple streams of income
is to assess or evaluate your resources. Start by assessing
yourself first. Jot down your answers to the following
questions: What are the talents, abilities, strength and gears
that you possess? Are you gifted with excellent and creative
writing skills? Can you do well at sales? Are you good in
communicating with people? Are you born with an artistic skill
or unique ability that other people don’t have? Through this,
you can determine the kind of business where can possibly excel.

Next, look around and write down you assets and physical
resources such as computer, color printer, scanner, digital
camera, cell phone, CD or DVD burner. Write these all down
because it can be used as a resource. Consider also your friends
and family. Find out what do they possess that you have access
to. Remember that no man is an island. You can use the talents,
abilities, knowledge and resources of everyone you know.

That’s basically the initial step if you want to create multiple
income streams. But if you’re already a webmaster or a site
owner, you definitely have an edge. Why don’t you join affiliate
marketing business to help you gain extra income out of your own
website?

Being involved in affiliate marketing is one of the most
desirable ways to make multiple sources of income. It is because
affiliate marketing programs come in various shapes and forms.
There are a large number of affiliate marketing programs that
you can sign on with and start gaining bucks right away. In
affiliate marketing, you can make money by promoting and
reselling your affiliate products and by recruiting new
affiliates. What’s good about this is that you can find widest
array of training materials that can enhance your marketing
abilities. In affiliate marketing, you can be sure that there
are genuine products to promote and sell and there is real
income to make.

Either part time or full time, being an affiliate marketer is an
excellent way to create multiple income streams by means of
promoting products and services from web merchants. Here, you
can get affiliate commission without investing big bucks in
making your own product and without worrying about book keeping,
customer support and ecommerce. All you have to do is to promote
and resell the products and services in your site and pass on
potential customer’s the merchant’s site.

In affiliate marketing, it is advisable to promote more
merchants in your site so that your visitors will have variety
of destinations to choose from. Using multiple merchants in the
same site or niche means only one thing - you have multiple
streams of affiliate income. There is absolutely nothing wrong
with this business strategy because this is one of the best ways
to protect your business and expanding your horizons. Through
this, you can be assured that you won’t experience crisis if
ever one of your web merchants closed his/her program.

However, you should choose only those affiliate programs that
interest you so that you can effectively advertise and promote
them. Don’t ever be tempted into signing up for numerous
affiliate programs in the hope that one of them will bring
income. Select wisely and don’t be engaged in selling products
you know nothing about. Go with the stuff that jives with your
enthusiasm; your passion can capture your client by the nose and
guide him/her to your affiliate link.

You should also work hard to make your multiple streams of
income more stable. You can do this by embracing some strategies
and tactics and by developing within yourself, some traits that
can help you become successful in any kind of business such as
patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge.

Lastly, just remember the adage that says “Don’t put all your
eggs in one basket.” So that if one of them is lost, you can
still have some to make omelets. And what do these eggs have to
do with multiple streams of affiliate income? Well, it goes
without saying that the more streams of income you possess, the
bigger and better your money lake becomes.