So You Want to Be a Super Affiliate Marketer

If you haven’t heard already, affiliate marketing can be an effective way to earn a full-time or part-time income. Beginning the process of becoming an affiliate marketer is as simple as locating a niche market with products and services that you believe in and trust. You then narrow your list down to those companies that offer a well structured affiliate program.

Let’s back up a bit first and be clear on some definitions about this growing field of business. An affiliate program is basically an incentive program companies establish to encourage others (affiliate marketers) to promote their products. You might think this sounds an awful like like an outside salesperson’s job, but an affiliate marketer operating online is a little different.

There’s no knocking on doors and no inventory to keep. An affiliate marketer isn’t even involved in the commercial transaction. With an effective online promotional strategy prospects come into the affiliate marketer’s website and are introduced to products or services that they may wish to purchase.

The actual commercial transaction takes place through the affiliate marketing program owner’s website and this is all done seamlessly. Even the commission that the affiliate marketer earns is typically calculated and distributed automatically.

Does this sound like something you’d like to explore? Keep in mind that there are affiliate marketers earning 6-figure incomes promoting products or services that they strongly believe in.

If this is something you’d like to do, it will be important for you to first choose the right affiliate program. There are some great affiliate programs available that offer a tremendous amount of materials and tools to help you promote and market their products. While resources can be top notch, that’s not what makes this business profitable for marketers.

The key to success with affiliate marketing is rooted in the ways in which marketers use the affiliate marketing materials made available to them. Depending on how you approach this aspect of your business you can either earn a part-time income as an average affiliate marketer or realize sizable financial goals as a “super affiliate.”

What Is A Super Affiliate?

A super affiliate is primarily someone who generates a significant income for the products or services they represent. Someone who chooses to become a super affiliate typically wants to replace their full-time employment income or is unemployed and is in need of full-time income.

Benefits To Being A Super Affiliate

The most significant benefit to being a super affiliate is the income. Many super affiliates make six figures simply promoting the products and services of others.

Additionally, if you’re one of the top affiliate marketers contributing to higher sales in the company’s affiliate program they will direct special attention to your needs and your incentives. For example, as a top affiliate you might be offered higher sales commissions, or you may receive first notice of new marketing materials and programs. You’ll also find that super affiliates receive faster responses to requests for program, product or service support.

Taking Steps to To Become A Super Affiliate:

Step One: Publish fresh content to your website every day. We’ve mentioned multiple times on this website and you’ve likely read it elsewhere – content has been proven to be the best sales tool available to affiliate marketers. Regularly published content works better than the best positioned advertising copy at pre-selling products or services that you’re promoting on your website.

Possible content includes:

* Blog posts
* E-newsletters
* Autoresponders (sequential emails that are automatically sent out to your prospects via email, at select intervals)
* Social networking on forums where your market congregates and on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook
* Articles
* Press releases

Step Two: Monitor your strategies and test to see how well they work. You’ll want to make sure you know where your prospects are coming from, what motivates them to click through and what information they read and respond to – then give them what they need. This strategy is called “tracking and testing” and it is the only way to shape your affiliate program into a highly effective revenue generating business.

Step Three: Take advantage of the provided marketing materials and be willing to take it a step further. Many affiliate programs do a great job of providing their affiliate with ready to use marketing materials including:

1. Email copy
2. Buttons
3. Banner ads
4. Articles
5. Free promotional reports

It can be easy to overlook the materials being offered to you to promote products and services, but if you’re serious about building a career as a super affiliate, here’s where you stand out from the crowd. Remember the material being provided to you has been tested and developed for results – so take advantage of that fact.

Here’s the extra step part: you want to be a super affiliate so put some of yourself into this and be sure to create your own content as well. Even as an affiliate you are your own company and your website needs to reflect your vision, values and personality (your brand).

Developing a community around your website and providing usable, valuable content is an excellent way to create a loyal following of prospects and customers that trust you and that consider your information credible. That’s a combination that will translate as affiliate sales as they click through on the affiliate links on your website.

Step Four: Pre-sell.Your job as an affiliate is to pre-sell products and services. What this means is that your content, whether it is an article, a review, article, a tutorial or a blog post, speaks authentically about the products and services you promote. Pre-selling is about providing value to your website visitors and prospects, making them comfortable with you and your authority to generate interest and a click through to the company website, where the selling takes place.

Step Five: Follow up. Just like your affiliate manager follows up with you to see how you’re doing and what you need, follow up with your prospects. A great way to do this without being annoying is  to create a lead list by providing a newsletter to which visitors can subscribe, a free report, or any number of products in exchange for an email address and the permission to contact them with valuable information and special promotions.

If you’re planning to make affiliate marketing your career, becoming a super affiliate is likely the best choice for you to make. It is really just an comprehensive and strategic approach to marketing and promoting products or services online that you trust and endorse.

Remember:

• find products and services you believe in
• create a strategy to share information to your target audience
• test and track your efforts, and
• focus on providing value to your prospects

The nice part is you can leave the actual selling to the companies you represent.

Here’s a final tip: one of the best books ever published about affiliate marketing was written by much respected super affiliate, Rosalind Gardner. If you Google her name you’ll see what I mean.

Her focus is on choosing affiliate programs carefully, building simple but professional sites, writing compelling text and building trust from your visitors.

She doesn’t offer get rich quick schemes, just good, solid business strategies and tactics that she uses and has used to generate a sizable income. She currently earns over $1,000 a day in affiliate income.  What appeals to me most is that she’s been at this a long time and you will be benefiting from her knowledge if you’re ready to read and apply what she suggests in her comprehensive, well written book.

Learn more about the Super Affiliate Handbook.

To your success,

Sharon

P.S. Want more free information about ways to build a business online?  Make sure to join the Small Business Study membership group – it’s absolutely free! Click here to join.