Category Archives: Online Marketing Tips

Affiliate Marketing and Social Media

Do Affiliate Marketing and Social Media Fit Well Together?

Affiliate marketing and social media might seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate – but do they really? Let’s explore the myths and the facts around promoting affiliate products on social media sites.

First of all, think about why you joined social media in the first place. Most likely it was to connect with your friends and family and to share photos, videos, and updates. You may have gone along this road for several years before you had the idea to get involved with affiliate marketing on some level. So you posted a link to the latest product or course or service and kept your fingers crossed that someone, anyone would click on your link and buy what you were promoting.

It probably didn’t turn out this way at all. Maybe friends and family members thought your social media profile had been hacked, or maybe they were offended that you would post such a thing. No matter what the outcome, you should not have been surprised.

So now let’s discuss the most effective way to use affiliate marketing and social media in unison. I like to think of this as starting a conversation around a topic of interest to many and then drilling down to a more focused discussion about something much more specific. Let’s use dogs as an example.

I own several little dogs (actually, they own me!) and I like to share photos of them on my Facebook page from time to time. It seems that most of my friends love small dogs because they are cute and sometimes act silly. So let’s say that I’d like to recommend a product on how to prepare natural, healthy food for your dog through my affiliate link.

Even though the majority of my Facebook friends are willing to “like” or even “love” my post about how my Yorkie is snoring once again, very few will be interested in cooking healthy meals for their dogs. But I believe that out of my almost five thousand friends there will be a small percentage who are interested, so I’m willing to go for it.

I start the conversation with a photo of my dog sleeping in her basket and make a comment about her snoring. As people begin to comment I gently turn the conversation towards the food I have been preparing for her. If even one person asks me a question about this or shares their own experience in this area, then I will add my link to the product and share why it is a worthwhile one to check out.

What is even more effective is if you create a Facebook page on your general topic and then make recommendations there over time. I would recommend making it breed specific and addressing the common concerns of owners of this breed. Then people who like that page would be good prospects for what you will promote. Does this make sense?

Social media and affiliate marketing can indeed be a good match when you approach it in a logical way where everyone benefits.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. And please be sure to check out my Really Simple Affiliate Marketing training course. Affiliate marketing tips will help you to achieve the success you want and deserve. And be sure to pick up a copy of my bestselling book, Huge Profits with Affiliate Marketing: How to Build an Online Empire by Recommending What You Love.

Sharing Affiliate Links – What’s Working Today?

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You can always tell when someone is new to affiliate marketing. They will post a link on their Facebook page, without much explanation and not thinking about the fact that most of their “friends” on Facebook will not even know what they are talking about. One person even shared with me that her real life friends emailed and texted her to let her know that her Facebook page had been hacked and that someone had added a link that made no sense at all. Sharing affiliate links requires much more thought than this.

This is an excellent example of “message to market” going all wrong. If you just post links on your social media pages you are not reaching the target audience for the product you wish to promote. Resist the urge and do something that is more effective and less obtrusive. So, what is the proper strategy for sharing affiliate links to achieve the desired results you are hoping for?

The answer you may have already heard is to build a list of people who will be interested in you and your topic. This cannot be achieved overnight, but if you are willing to work on this a little bit each day your list will grow. These people will get to know you and come to think of you as their trusted advisor in your niche. This is a coveted spot to aspire to as you build your online business. Here are some effective ways to make this happen.

Start writing – spend time every single day writing something, starting with posts to your blog. The idea here is to share information, tips, and recommendations with your readers, allowing them to see that you truly care about your topic and are willing to give them what they want and need.
Short Reports – turn your blog posts into short reports. Every time I write ten articles on a single topic I turn them into a short report. I refer to these as “Focus Guides” and get them into an many hands as possible. Giving away a short report on social media makes sense because you are offering something of great value to the people who may be interested in your topic.
Host teleseminars. Allowing others to hear your voice will make a world of difference to how quickly you build your list. And these calls call be turned into podcasts on iTunes very easily. I use a teleseminar service that creates gorgeous web pages for me by using a “fill in the blanks” template. You can also promote and recommend right on the teleseminar page.

I hope this information is helpful to you when it comes to sharing affiliate links. You may have been led to believe that affiliate marketing was easy and only required the posting of a link somewhere on the internet, but the fact is that this is a business like any other and requires some work and commitment in order to bring successful results.

The Role of an Affiliate Manager

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Today I’d like to discuss the role of an affiliate manager in your online business. First of all, what is the role of an affiliate manager? This is someone who manages all of your products, services, and courses so that your affiliates have exactly what they need when it’s time to launch something new, as well as to make sure your products are being promoted by others every single day.

So what makes a great affiliate manager? This would be a person who gets along with everyone they meet and truly tries to help them whenever possible. They take networking to the next level by forming relationships based on integrity and mutual respect. This person takes the initiative in reaching out to all affiliates to let them know exactly what is coming up, as well as which products can still be promoted.

When a “super affiliate” knows that you are there to help them make as much money as possible promoting a product, they are much more likely to promote your product than one from someone that doesn’t have anyone available to them to help with anything they need. It all comes down to relationships. You don’t have to know lots of super affiliates right away. But you should be able to establish relationships with them over time and keep that relationship going, even when there isn’t something new to promote.

A great affiliate manager will already have some knowledge of your specific industry, can quickly and effectively come up with creative ideas and manage promotional materials, and already has products of their own. This is the ideal, and it’s important to keep your standards high.

When I was brand new to online marketing I started promoting and recommending the products and services that I had most benefited from. This was a confusing process to me in that I wasn’t sure how all of the moving parts fit together. It was affiliate managers who reached out to me and helped me to put the pieces in place that resulted in sales through my affiliate link.

I’m not sure why everyone doesn’t have an affiliate manager. Perhaps online entrepreneurs prefer to wear all of the hats in their businesses, but the truth is that having someone on your team dedicated to making everything run like a well-oiled machine is an asset.

If you believe that you would make an excellent affiliate manager, reach out to those you have already been an affiliate for and see if they could use your services. And if you are a product creator and vendor, consider bringing someone aboard who could serve you in this capacity. I speak from personal experience when I say that having someone in between the affiliate and the product creator is beneficial in so many ways. This person can serve as a sounding board and liaison as your business grows exponentially.

Affiliate Program: Are You Ready For This?

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Is It Time For An Affiliate Program?

At some point in time as an online entrepreneur you will realize that it is finally time for you to have your own affiliate program. I waited much too long to do this, as I wasn’t sure how to make this leap in my business. Once I did my income increased exponentially, along with my credibility and visibility. I had become known as a “super affiliate” for my promotions of other people’s products and now it was time for me to shine in a different way.

My trepidation with starting my own affiliate program began with my preconceived ideas of how my own products would sell. I thought that it was much better for only me to share these products with those who would most benefit from them and that is was important for me to personally share the story of how each product came about. But it turns out that your affiliates will have their own take on your products. And when they share their thoughts with their communities it is highly likely that many will decide to purchase your product.

So once I decided to give up the psychological ownership of my products and share them with my affiliates, everything turned around for me. My sales went through the roof, new people found out about me, and I began to build relationships with my affiliates that I never imagined could have been a part of my business.

The platform I use for my affiliate program is called Nanacast. Yes, you need some technology skills to set it up, but once I had someone do this for me I was able to make almost all of my changes myself. I am able to create coupons, make changes to my product listings, and even to personalize the amount of commission any of my affiliates receives. And it is all tracked through the Nanacast software, making sure that every affiliate is properly credited for their sales. I am also an affiliate for others who use this same system so I know what it’s like to be on both sides of this shopping cart.

Even if you only have one product right now I would encourage you to create your own affiliate program. That way you will get used to the process and be ready when someone wants to become your affiliate. I have a simple site I set up for this called Affiliate Links and Tools and you can set up something similar.

Reach out to me and others who have affiliate programs to ask your questions and to get started right away. I found that once I had set up my own affiliate program I had even more confidence in creating new products that my affiliates could recommend. You can do the same thing and grow your online business more quickly than you ever thought possible.

Promoting Affiliate Products: What’s Your Plan?

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Promoting affiliate products requires a strategy and a plan. Posting a link on Twitter or Facebook is not a plan, and this method is also not very effective. There are many reasons for this, but the primary one is that trying to sell any product to the people who follow you on Twitter or have friended you on Facebook is like trying to sell something to people attending a sporting event. Most of them are not interested in what you are promoting and have their mind on something else entirely.

Think about your own behavior on social media. Are you ever thinking about making a purchase while you are there? No, you are thinking about connecting with the people you know and sharing stories and experiences.

Instead, promoting affiliate products requires you to get in front of the people who are most likely to be interested in what you are promoting. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways that I will share with you here.

Build a list of people who are interested in your topic
Blog about your topic and discuss affiliate products within your posts
Write reviews of the products you wish to promote on your blog
Add a “resources” page to your blog and include these products
Start a Facebook and/or LinkedIn group on your topic
Submit articles on your topic to sites like Medium and LinkedIn Pulse
Host your own webinars and teleseminars on your topic
Create short videos on your topic and add them to your YouTube channel
Start a podcast on your topic
Write a book on your topic

As you can see, the process of promoting affiliate products to others requires that you connect with people who are most likely to be interested in the topic of these products. This just makes sense when you think about it.

My best advice to you on this is to start writing, talking, and sharing as much information as you possibly can on your topic. Also, learn as much as possible and implement what you are learning as you go along. Once you have had some success with the products you wish to promote, you build credibility as an authority on your topic.

My early experiences with promoting affiliate products were centered around my experience in using and benefiting from the products. That’s when I promised myself that I would only recommend what I used personally and loved, and I have maintained that as my standard for more than a decade now.

When I see others promoting affiliate products that make no sense for their niche or that I do not believe they have purchased and used, I know that they have almost no chance of success on a long term basis, if at all. Instead, make sure to follow the steps I have outlined above and connect with people who will value your thoughts and opinions on a variety of affiliate products. As you begin to create your own products you will most likely feel the same way when people want to be your affiliate. This is my experience now, and I have found that people who are not on my list, have never purchased my products, and who promote products in many niches and on many topics seldom have any lasting success.

As you can see, by creating a plan and a strategy for promoting affiliate products you are much more likely to make sales, develop a relationship with the product creators, and build your business successfully over time.

Affiliate Contests: Secrets of a Super Affiliate and How You Can Do It Too

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Affiliate contests make our online businesses more fun, but they also make good business sense. An affiliate contest is one in which the product creator (vendor) offers prizes for those who make the most sales during a specific period of time. I first became aware of these as a new affiliate more than a decade ago, and this is what quickly catapulted me to “super affiliate” status. A super affiliate is someone who can help a product creator with their product launch, enabling them to make more sales and get more attention than they could on their own. Allow me to go into more details on this.

I learned from the very beginning the importance of only sharing recommendations for the products and services I used and benefited from. I gained a reputation as someone who cared more about the quality of the products I was promoting than the amount of commission or prizes. When I did begin to participate in affiliate contests it was only for the ones that I would have recommended anyway. This led to my increased credibility and visibility among my peers and the internet marketing community.

The first major affiliate contest I won was from Armand Morin back in 2010. He was offering a three thousand dollar program and I was a part of his group mastermind, so it made sense for me to recommend his program to my community of followers. After a couple of weeks of hard work, it was announced that I was the grand prize winner. I was speaking at his event in Minneapolis when the announcement was made, so it was even more exciting. My prizes included a laptop computer, a Bose home entertainment center, some smaller electronics, and the prize I had most wanted to win. This was a complete website and sale page copywriting makeover, something I desperately needed at that time.

After that I began to win affiliate contests regularly, and during a two year period I won fourteen iPads. I’ve also won Amazon gift cards and my favorite, cold cash! Again, I do not look for these contests, I simply join in the fun if the person and the product meets my standards of excellence.

I would encourage you to find the products and services you are using and benefiting from and then to keep your eyes open for any contests that may arise. It doesn’t hurt to ask the product creators and vendors if they have an affiliate contest coming up in the near future. This might even make them more likely to host one based on your suggestion.

I created a training on this called Affiliate Contest Secrets. I update it regularly and include the exact emails and strategies that now have me in the top ten on multiple affiliate contest leaderboards simultaneously. If affiliate marketing is an area of interest to you, then I would encourage you to pursue it through the contests that are available. This will boost your confidence and connect you with others who also take this business model seriously.

Why the Affiliate Leaderboard is Important

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The first time my name appeared on an affiliate leaderboard I didn’t even realize it until someone alerted me. The leaderboard is the list of top affiliates in any give affiliate contest. Usually the product creator will post the top five or ten affiliates, but sometimes they will list as many as twenty names if it is a big launch and many affiliates have come aboard to promote. In my case it was for Alex Mandossian’s now legendary Teleseminar Secrets program, and I came in at number twelve in a sea of more than three hundred affiliates.

Now this was back in December of 2007, so I had only been an online entrepreneur for less than two years. Also, my list had just six hundred fifty-one names on it at that time, so the fact that I had placed at all on an affiliate leaderboard was big news. This quickly got the attention of Alex Mandossian, who then scheduled a call with me. When I told him precisely how many (or how few) people were on my list at that time he was dumbfounded. Alex then challenged me to double my list over the next thirty days, which I did by coming up with some creative marketing strategies.

These days I promote products in a variety of ways, making it possible for me to appear on not only one affiliate leaderboard, but on multiple boards simultaneously. This has increased my income dramatically, as well as getting my name out to others who are creating products, services, and courses that might be a good fit for me to recommend to my community.

If you are just starting out, choose a few products to promote. Find out who is hosting an affiliate contest and work hard in order to get on their affiliate leaderboard, or at least get a mention as someone who has made a few sales. Over time this will increase your credibility as an affiliate marketer and an online entrepreneurs. People will also begin to contact you after seeing that you can make enough sales to rank on the leaderboard, and this may lead to valuable relationships over time as it has for me.

And once you have your own products, begin hosting your own affiliate contests. I did this when I first launched my Really Simple Podcasting training course and it was very helpful in attracting bigger name affiliates and generating buzz for my new course. I most certainly would not have made nearly as many sales if I hadn’t done this, and seeing your name on someone’s affiliate leaderboard is excellent motivation.

Only recommend what you have purchased, used, and benefited from in your own life or business. Even if the commission is less than what you typically earn, stay true to yourself by not allowing that to be a factor in your decision to promote. And connect with others on the leaderboard to see if they might want to promote your products as well. This is first and foremost a people business, and affiliate marketing allows you to do this in a way where everyone wins.

Refunds in Affiliate Marketing: What Now?

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Affiliate marketing refunds are a natural part of this business model. You may be wondering what happens when someone asks for a refund for a product you have recommended and promoted. There are actually two answers to this question. The first one is that the platforms we all use to sell and track our sales have built in systems for handling refunds. Whether someone paid for a product with PayPal or using a credit card through a merchant account, the transaction can be reversed and everyone made whole again. That’s the legal term for this event, but it certainly does not tell the entire story.

First of all, you never, ever want to recommend a product or service from someone you are not familiar with. This is just good business sense, especially because we are doing business on the internet in a global environment. Also, if you have not purchased a product and used it yourself it doesn’t make sense that you ask others to do so. The only exception I make to this rule is if someone I have done business with online releases a new product, and then I am very likely to recommend this to my community because the vendor has already established their credibility and has a track record.

Another way I work to avoid affiliate marketing refunds is to offer a generous bonus to those who make their purchase through my affiliate link. This way people are far more likely to consume the product they purchased and to make use of my bonus as well. I make every effort to offer bonuses that make sense for the product I am recommending so that everyone benefits.

And if all else fails, I stand behind from I recommend and promote. I offer what I refer to as my “Green Seal of Approval”, meaning that I will give someone a refund if for any reason the product creator will not. This has only happened once since I became an online entrepreneur. No one I know has ever recommended that person’s products again, and that is how it should be. It’s kind of the way we filter out the people who come online and do not serve others. The online world is a small one, and no one is able to stay in business for long if they engage in practices that are not fair.

I hope this article has been helpful to you in understanding more of the affiliate marketing business model. I continue to earn about forty percent of my income as an affiliate marketer and love connecting with people who create the products and services that we can all benefit from. Over the years these relationships become even deeper, and some of these people are the ones I count as my close friends on the internet. Do not allow the fear of affiliate marketing refunds keep you from becoming someone who is willing to recommend and promote products and services to others.

Affiliate Marketing: What Should You Recommend?

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Affiliate Marketing for New Online Entrepreneurs

Knowing which products and courses to promote as an affiliate marketer needs careful consideration. When I was just getting started I was taught to choose the most popular products and those that paid the highest commissions. But that did not feel right to me, so I abandoned that advice in favor of the strategy I still use today. I only recommend the products and services I have used and benefited from. I refer to this as “recommending what you love” and it has served me well over the past decade with my affiliate marketing efforts.

When I work closely with new online entrepreneurs and I share this method of affiliate marketing, they ask me where to find these products and services. The answer is that exactly what you need is already stored securely on your hard drive or in your cloud storage. Go through your purchases and downloads to see what you have that you are using and getting real value from and that will be the start of your inventory.

These days I am inundated with emails from people who would like for me to recommend their products to my community. But seldom are these ones that I would share. I prefer to find valuable products, services, and courses organically, and to then go through them and implement what they have to offer. Then I can make a knowledgeable decision as to whether or not I will recommend them.

Also, remember that I make purchases almost every single day. But this does not mean that I will share them with others. I am at a different level in my business than most of the people on my list, so it would not be in their best interest if they were to make similar purchases. Instead, I’m always looking for simple and straightforward products that will help the people in my community to move forward in a logical way.

If you are on the product creation side of this equation, think about the target audience you are serving. Then look for the people who also serve the same or a similar market and approach them about promoting your products to their list. Many times I shake my head in disbelief when product creators approach me with something that my list and community would never be interested in hearing about from me. I often joke that most of my people could stand to drop a few pounds and love animals, but that doesn’t mean they would want to purchase products on weight loss or dog training from me. It isn’t how they think of me and not what they signed up for when they opted in to my list.

Choose the products and services that make the most sense for your market. Make sure you have purchased, used, and benefited from them first before recommending them to others. This advice will serve you well over time and just makes good sense for all affiliate marketers.