Affiliate Marketing News: Ideas For Finding Hot Products
July 18, 2008
In the coming days and weeks I will publish a sequence of articles trying to cover all steps to a lucrative business of affiliate marketing. This is the first article and it is intended to explain the idea of affiliate marketing to people who are just starting to look for information on the subject. I will also show some ways to find a product to choose to promote.
This first article is not for experienced marketers neither is it for those who know and understand affiliate marketing and know how to find good products, as it covers only the essential basics. My following articles will hopefully discuss more complex steps and thus may be of interest even to experienced marketers.
I will start by explaining what affiliate marketing is. Well, I like to say that Affiliate Marketing is to the 21st century what the Gold Rush was to the 19th century. The gold is there - one only needs to find it. But, on a more practical note: Affiliate Marketing is simply an agreement between you and a merchant or a product publisher, that says that the merchant will pay you a percentage of each and every sale he or she makes to a customer that you have driven to their web site.
The “product” may be physical - from a bar of soap to a private plane; it may be digital - anything one can instantly download from the Internet: ebooks, software, video courses etc.; and it may be a subscription or a registration to a newsletter or a list. Tens of thousands of companies pay their affiliates a commission for a sale, a registration or a lead.
As I said, the treasures are there, all over the world of affiliate marketing. The question is how one discovers it. It is a fact that many newbies in this field find that their first step - choosing the right product - is the hardest step on the road to successful affiliate marketing.
Let me suggest a few ideas for starters:
1. Think of a product that you have purchased online and were very happy with. Try to become an affiliate. Visit the product’s web site or sales page and click on the link to the “affiliate program.” You can read there all the details you would want to know.
2. Think about your hobbies. Subjects you are really interested in, such as sewing, poker playing, gardening, anything. You may know a lot about your hobby and perhaps you are a member of some forums. This will come very handy when you are ready to promote the product you choose.
3. Think of products that are on the hot list in the United States, do a little research and find out if the Europeans heard about them. If not yet, promote these products in Europe only, using the different pay per click programs that let you choose the areas where your ads are shown. The same can be done with a product that you’ve found in any foreign country and is not yet known in the US
4. Talk to your children and/or other teenagers and try to find out what their newest fads are. Teenagers are great customers.
5. Subscribe to or buy regularly some popular publications. Follow the reports on the newest fads and fashions.
6. And, obviously: become an affiliate at Commision Junction, ClickBank and other such services. Their database has thousands of products and they’ll let you know what the best sellers are.
See you in a couple of day with Part 2 of the step-by-step plan to successful affiliate marketing.
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