Successful Blog

5 Common Affiliate Marketing Struggles and How to Overcome Them

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Stefan V.

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Affiliate Marketing Has Its Struggles

While product owners often have successful sales strategies in place like using armies of affiliate to sell for them, affiliate marketers themselves often reap little, if any, rewards. Why? There are many main issues that affiliate marketers struggle with while trying to promote their affiliate products and land sales. Several main issues are listed below, in no particular order of preference. Then after the list of issues, discover how to overcome them quickly and easily.

5 Common Affiliate Marketing Struggles

Here are five common affiliate marketing struggles.

  1. Lack of tech skills for Internet marketing can cause many an affiliate marketer to stumble. Many affiliate marketers lack much needed tech skills in today’s web-based world. They struggle with setting up leads capture pages, aka squeeze pages, setting up autoresponders, blogs, social media channels and other Internet marketing methods.
  2. Affiliate commissions can be very small and can take months to reach the marketer, long after promotional expenses are used for all the hard work of generating leads, clicks and sales.
  3. Communication can break down. Language barriers can be a problem. Consider the Tower of Babel and it doesn’t take much to imagine how difficult it is to really get a point across in another language that you wish to market in.
    And too many affiliates try to market something that they have either never purchased and even used before. They are trying to sell something that are not experienced with. A fine example is an affiliate who is new to working from home, yet wants to promote a get-rich-fast, work-from home scheme. If the affiliate has made it work, yes, by all means he should promote it. However, if the affiliate has never even earned any money from it, it’s not wise for him to promote the program until financial results are solid.
  4. Know what you are trying to market, who your target audience is and what you are trying to get them to do (i.e. you need sales experience, too). Go back to #2 above where the affiliate marketer needs to thoroughly understand the product in order to discuss its features and benefits. Focusing on a dynamic two-step offer of a main feature and benefit plus a call to action at the end of each marketing piece is key with affiliate marketing promotions. The more specific the content and call to action, the better. In other words if you want someone to click and subscribe to your online form, tell them to do just that – and tell them why they should (i.e. tell them what’s in it for them.)
  5. Support from the product owner / main seller is important. Too many affiliate marketers are left in the dark with regards to product support and affiliate marketing tools. All too often an affiliate marketer may get a coded link and a banner or other 1-time marketing piece, and that’s it. Then they are left on their own to figure out the best ways to market the product, how to make their own banners, squeeze pages and so on, to attract leads, clicks, and sales.

How to Overcome Them

If you want to overcome these struggles, keep these 7 points in mind.

  1. focus on what you know
  2. only market products you’ve used and understand well
  3. start with something that will be highly attractive to your audience
  4. choose a product that easy to communicate to readers in any language
  5. have a clear call to action
  6. put your offer where people can find it easily
  7. let that first affiliate product start earning before you try a second one

Keep your eyes on offering value to your audience and making it easy to buy from you and you’ll find your affiliate experience goes more smoothly.

Author’s Bio:

Stefan V. is in Germany a financial expert and he combines the power of his knowledge into the online marketing business. He has done some trial and error until he found the best products, informations, strategies and monetizations. Be in touch and find more here Seven Figure Society

Energize! Act like a startup

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Rosemary O’Neill

Energize! Act like a startup

You don’t have to work in a high-ceilinged loft in San Francisco to take advantage of startup wisdom. The energy, passion, and fast pace of startup culture has a lot to offer almost any business.

It’s not all about the perks

We did have a foosball table in the early days of our company, but what we discovered is that everyone appreciates less tangible perks. A collegial atmosphere, where everyone is respected for their ideas, is much more important than Aeron chairs.

Lessons you can take from startup culture

  • Go all in. Sleep under your desk if you have to.
  • Appreciate your colleagues.
  • Don’t build any internal silos; everyone pitches in.
  • Maintain your hunger for the mission; gather true believers around you.
  • Get all excited over every new customer.
  • Take advantage of guerrilla (free) PR and marketing opportunities.

Even if you’ve been in business for a long time, you can incorporate some of the ideas that make startups successful. But you don’t have to eat Ramen noodles.

What can you do this week to inject some startup energy and passion into your business?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Achieving Work-Life Balance in an Unbalanced World

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boyd jane aka Jane BoydIt’s 2012 and our lives are more complicated than ever. Family and work obligations seem to be at odds with building a successful business, leaving us overwhelmed and exhausted. So that’s why we’ve invited Jane Boyd (@boydjane) of Work Family & Life Consulting (WFL) to guest host our Sobcon chat on Thursday, September 20.

Jane and WFL specialize in the design, development and delivery of progressive work-life solutions that address the issues faced by today’s work environments. WFL is a recognized leader in the provision of high quality, unique work-life consultation services and programs.

For more than 20 years, Jane has been at the forefront of the work-life field in Canada. She has worked with government, business and community on many of the most innovative work-life initiatives in the country. Jane has been instrumental in developing a number of work-life solutions that use a partnership or collaborative approach. She has worked with leading organizations to develop customized work-life programs and services.

On the chat, we’ll be discussing these important topics to help you gain more balance and fulfillment in your life and business:

  • How do you define work/life balance?
  • What areas should you address first in redesigning your work/life?
  • How should you sort out conflicting priorities?
  • How do you know if you’re making progress or just treading water?
  • Any quick tips to implement right away?

So if you’re tired of being tired, but still want to be a success, join us for the Sobcon chat on Thursday, September 20, 12:00 p.m. Central Standard Time.

Going One Better – Five Reasons Volunteering Online is Better than Facebook

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We are living in the age of internet, from our computers to laptops, and tablets to smart-phones, everything is connected to the World Wide Web in one way or another.

Doesn’t matter if you are working, studying, shopping, or just looking to kill some time, turning towards the Internet has become a norm.

While Internet has proved to be a boon as far as studying, working, or shopping is concerned, the “killing-time” bit is becoming more of a concern, mainly because in most cases this pastime is consisting of useless pursuits like sneaking into others profiles at Facebook or participating in some heated discussions at a forum. Ideally, we should be spending this spare time away from our PC screens. But I know from my personal experience that the temptation of “being online” is hard to resist, especially when we can do so much without leaving our chair.

When I say, we can do so much; I wasn’t really referring to becoming an Internet Warrior or finding your soul-mate at social networks. Truth is, there is plenty of “meaningful” stuff that we can do to make this world a better place. By volunteering for a good cause in your spare time, you can do something worthwhile without even leaving the comfort of your home. Online volunteer work ranges from writing and editing work to consulting and tutoring.

Following are five reasons to prove that volunteering in your spare time is better than getting involved in one of those useless repartees at social networks.

Get The Real Likes:

If you think getting “likes” and “thumbs up” from someone who has nothing better to do in his/her life than commenting on your pictures is worth it, then you haven’t tasted the satisfaction that might come from helping someone. Getting a compliment on your attire or some expensive gadget is more like a hollow gratification, far from satisfying. Knowing that you have actually helped someone in one way or another, will give you a lot more satisfaction.

Friends that matter:

If you think I am against meeting people and making new friends, then it’s certainly not the case. Actually, I am all for making new friends, however, when you are trying to befriend with anonymous users pretending to be the “coolest ones” around, you are bound to be like them sooner than later. On the other hand, when you join hands with the volunteer workers at some of these communities, you get to know real people who are more into doing than talking.

Free Your Mind:

Spending too much time watching TV channels or hanging out all the time at platforms like Facebook can be devastating for your growth as an individual. You might fall into the trap and become a part of the rat race, thinking that having a good looking partner and the latest gadgets are the only goals worth going for. Getting out of this self-centered and money oriented approach will help you free your mind and rise above these artificial things.

Learn:

First it was the Television (AKA the idiot box) that was considered to be a big waste of time, but Facebook has very conveniently taken over that position. The biggest downside of spending so much time on Facebook is that there is no learning whatsoever, nothing, nada … zilch. On the other hand, working as a volunteer will result in productive stuff like research, writing, editing, or tutoring, a lot more fruitful as far as learning is concerned.

Moving On:

Volunteer work has its own lure, once you get involved with some of these causes, and saw the difference that you can make, you will find yourself thinking more and more from that perspective. Who knows, you will be encouraged to go one step ahead and take part in outdoor volunteering activities, hence taking up a healthier, more fulfilling, and highly rewarding pastime, not only for your own self, but for the society as well.

Author’s Bio:
Rahil writes for Isvolunteers.org that offers international volunteer and volunteer abroad programs for students.

Are You in Business to Succeed or Fail?

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Going into business  for yourself can certainly be viewed as a dicey proposition.

If you are currently employed under the watch of someone else, do you leave the salary, benefits, etc. to venture off on your own? If you do, is it in the back of your head that a high percentage of small businesses fail within the first five years? Lastly, do you have the required drive and available funds to make it through the toughest of times?

With a national unemployment rate of still more than 8 percent, it should not come as a surprise that many people are taking that chance, that chance where they can potentially make something out of nothing and turn a business profit.

As someone who has gone through a pair of corporate layoffs over the last six years, it has become more and more apparent to me that job security for the most part is a thing of the past.

Unlike many of our parents who worked for one company most of their lives, many of us today sport resumes that list a couple of employers, even a half dozen or more in many cases.

Starting your own business can be downright scary, however the rewards can be downright impressive. Yes, the financial rewards are important, but what about that feeling of satisfaction that you built something from nothing and made it work?

While there are courses and coaches that can help the prospective small business man or woman, there is really nothing better than those firsthand experiences.

Yes, you will hit some bumps in the road, perhaps many. Yes, you will question your decision to start a small business at 3 a.m. when your loved ones and neighbors are asleep. Yes, you will sometimes, many oftentimes, wonder if leaving that comfortable corporate check every two weeks was really worth it.

Being someone who has given more and more thought to starting his own content writing business in recent months, I can simply say that I would never discourage someone from pursuing their business dreams.

None of us can say with certainty what the small business climate will be like a year from now, let alone a few months down the road.

If you start a small business and it ends up not turning out the way you wanted, never forget the fact that you tried.

In the end, isn’t trying to succeed at whatever you choose what life is about in the first place?

Photo credit: ehow.com

Dave Thomas has more than 20 years’ experience as a writer, covering news, sports marketing, SEO, press releases, social media and more. You’ll find Dave at: http://www.examiner.com/news-in-san-diego/dave-thomas

 

Calculating ROI and Tracking Sales on Your Advertising Brochures

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by Tara Hornor

Making an Investment in Marketing

Are you spending money on advertising brochures for your business? If so, it is important that you begin calculating the return on investment (ROI) to find out how much your business is benefiting from them. This also helps you prioritize your marketing efforts as you’re going to want to focus your marketing dollars where they have the greatest effect.

The sole purpose of making an initial investment in a marketing method such as advertising brochures is to end up making more than that original investment. Your goal is to spread the word about your business, gain new customers, and ultimately make more money.

Calculating ROI on Your Advertising Brochures

If you have never before attempted to calculate your ROI, don’t be intimidated. By following a few fairly simple mathematical equations (nothing a small business owner can’t handle) and gathering the right information, you can become a master whiz at knowing your profits for brochures, postcards, or any other print marketing material.

Calculations

The calculation for ROI is simple: (Profit – Cost) / Cost.

So let’s apply that to a sample project. You have the following costs:

$1,000 – designing the brochures
$1,000 – 10,000 brochures
$3,000 – mailing the brochures
$5,000 – total cost

After mailing out your brochures, you start to get orders. After a few weeks you step back and calculate that your total sales for the brochure campaign were $15,000. Here’s how you would plug this data into the ROI calculation:

($15,000 – $5,000) / $5,000 = $2

So you have two dollars as the result of the calculation. What are you supposed to do with this information? The result of this calculation tells you that for every $1 you invest, you get $2 back. That’s an excellent return on investment!

Simple, right? As long as you know how to determine which of your sales actually came about as a result of your advertising brochures.

Tips on Keeping Track of ROI

Most business owners appreciate the simplicity of ROI, as it is easy to calculate. But tracking actual profits that come explicitly from a campaign can be tough. When you create advertising brochures, you should have a specific advertising campaign in place. Since you will need to find out how many sales actually came from that specific campaign, make sure you use specific methods for tracking your campaign numbers.

Some of the techniques used for tracking a specific campaign include:

  • QR codes that customers scan. The code leads them to a specific landing page built specifically for your campaign.
  • Special phone number that is only associated with that campaign.
  • Coupon codes associated with that specific campaign.

The fact is that you probably have several marketing methods going on at any given moment for a single campaign from social media to emails to brochures. Be sure to isolate, as best you can, which is providing your profits so you can track properly. Therefore, if all of your marketing efforts are for advertising your latest product line – running shoes, let’s say – then be sure that your email leads to a different landing page than your brochures do.

As a business owner, you do not want to waste your money or your time, which is why you need to calculate ROI and track progress of the campaign on a regular basis. Once you do this, you can get a better insight into what consumers like and do not like. You will be able to figure out which brochures are working and which ones are not worth the initial investment at all.

Author’s Bio:
Tara Hornor writes about marketing, advertising, branding, web and graphic design, and desktop publishing for PrintPlace.com a company that offers online printing for print marketing media. Find her on Twitter as @TaraHornor .