Saturday, January 17, 2009

Finding A Hot Product To Sell


In order to locate a product to sell online with any chance for success we need to find a hungry crowd. That is, we must locate similar minded people who have a need for something and supply that need. You notice I said “a hungry crowd,” not a few hungry people, a crowd!

And if we really want to find that “crowd”, our only choice is to do some research. We must be able to understand the needs, wants and expectations of that crowd in order to find the solution for them. If we can provide the solution we have a winner!
These three are the minimum requirements in a purchase. “Needs” are the basic reasons or the minimum requirements consumers are looking for in a product or service.



If the needs are met by a product then “wants” become the determining factors if there are many choices. “Expectations”, on the other hand, are values or intangibles associated with a product or service.
Now, the second thing that must be considered in finding “hot” products to sell are the level of competition or the market shares your product will have. Market share or level of competition means the ratio of your brand’s sales versus the total market sales. To be successful we must therefore choose the market segment where we can either lead or at least be competitive, because the overriding objective of getting into this business is not just to satisfy the needs and wants of our customers but to do so profitably.

The third factor to be considered in finding hot selling products is finding out the general interest level about the product. General interest in a product helps us to gauge where our demand and competition numbers fall into the big picture. Simply said, if there isn’t much demand for the product, and there isn’t much competition, it would seem that it might not be a good product for selling. If however, there are others advertising the product, there is probably potential there.

The last phase of the process is analyzing and evaluating all the information that has been collected. We have to look at all of the data we have collected on demand, competition, and advertising, and make decision as to how they all balance out.
In conclusion: (a) not enough demand means not enough people are going to buy (b) too much competition means there won’t be enough of a profit to go around (c) too much advertising drives up the price of ads and drives up competition as well and(d) not enough general interest, combined with low demand, means there may not be a good market even if there is competition trying to make the sales.

Finding a hot product to sell is part science and part art. It is not going by our personal like or dislike of a product because we are not the ones we want to sell it too. We need to find a group of people who have a need and fulfill that need with a product they will like and that is profitable to sell!

By: Joe Cardinal

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Friday, January 16, 2009

Making Money With Affiliate Marketing


Making money with Affiliate marketing is an easy and exciting process. Many people find affiliate marketing to be the most profitable and accessible method of online marketing. It's fast, you don't have to create a product, and you can make money while you sleep. The main problem is the amount of incorrect information banded around the internet regarding the topic. There are so many people selling the latest solution, that nobody really knows the most effective and painless way to do it!

Affiliate Marketing is simple when it comes down to it. You have a product to promote, you find a way to promote it, and then you focus all your energy on getting visitors. If you follow a proven formula and stick to it on a daily basis, failure shouldn't be an issue whatsoever. Many people struggle simply because they fail to follow a solid plan, and focus their energy in all the wrong places at the wrong times. It's really a 4 part process, find an affiliate network, find a great product, find a platform to promote it, and start bringing in some traffic.


To make money with Affiliate marketing, you don't need many technical skills or any sort of expertise. All you really need to find success in affiliate marketing is the ability to follow instructions and around an hour or two per day you're willing to commit to the cause. I know people who are complete idiots, but still make a KILLING with affiliate marketing. Why? because they Follow the correct set of instructions, and have the tenacity to keep at it.

By: Justin Keown

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How To Start Affiliate Marketing - 4 Easy Steps To Success


Affiliate Marketing is hands down the easiest form of online marketing to get started with. Not only is it the easiest, it can be one of the most profitable, and low maintenance as well. It's these two facts which make it such a popular practice, hence the intense levels of competition in almost every market. Luckily, as far as the general standard of affiliate marketers goes, it's very poor. Not many people understand the true basics of running successful affiliate marketing business. If you are just starting out, there's a simple 4 Step procedure to follow.

Step 1: Sign up to an Affiliate Network


Your affiliate network is the place you'll go to find products to promote and subsequently make money from. The most popular affiliate network at the moment in ClickBank. Clickbank deals primarily with digital products such as E-Books or online services. There is a huge variety of products available to promote at clickbank, all of which sell well and can make some serious money for the affiliate.

Step 2: Find a Niche and Product

It's vital to find both a Niche (market) and Product you're going to feel comfortable operating with. I always say it's best to start with something you have an interest in, because it's going to be much easier for you to write about (which you will be doing a lot of for a start). For instance, if you're interested in guitars, pick a product about learning the guitar and promote that, then when it comes to promotion, you're going to know what to say about it, as opposed to promoting something completely alien to you.

Step 3: Create a Money making Platform

Your Money making platform is the key to all your affiliate sales. For most people,a website is their choice of platform, however for someone starting out it's often easier to use a free method such as a Blog or Squidoo page. Both of these methods are still effective, and can bring in good amounts of money. If you have the money to spend however, it's better to go with a website, as you're investing in YOUR business. When you create a Squidoo for example, it's still someone else's website. On whatever platform you choose, you're going to have to find a way to link to your affiliate product with YOUR affiliate link. It's a popular method to use Reviews of the product you're promoting, and offer your affiliate link at the end. This way you gain the readers trust, and they're more inclined to buy from your link.

Step 4: Promotion

This step is VITAL. Without visitors, you're website or Blog is going to make no sales whatsoever. Getting traffic to an internet site isn't as hard as people make out. All you need to do is set out a specific plan, and stick to it every day. For example if you have the money, paying for traffic with Google AdWords is a VERY effective method of promotion. It does carry its fair share o risk though, so it'd be unwise to dive into that without due consideration. Writing articles is another popular way of gaining traffic. An article a day can be hugely beneficial to traffic numbers. There are plenty of promotional strategies available, it's essential to research and choose those best suited to you.

By: Justin Keown

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The 3 Best Affiliate Marketing Techniques


Finding the best affiliate marketing techniques can be frustrating for a beginner. Part of the problem with affiliate marketing is people trying to many things at once. Compare it to a real life business situation, if I opened three stores at once, and only put a third of my time into each, all three would fail. Affiliate Marketing is no different, if I'm trying three techniques at once BEFORE I've mastered even one, I'm destined to fail.

The key is to find a technique you feel comfortable with, and stick with it until you find some success. Only once you've got the technique working should you branch out to other techniques. Doing things this way ensures you'll be earning money faster and building a better long-term business. So what are the three best techniques to start out in affiliate marketing?


1: Affiliate Review Websites

An affiliate review website is a website which reviews products for consumers and offers unbiased feedback. A good review site will recommend the product without over hyping it, and have an affiliate link at the bottom of the review, which customers will click after reading, and instigate a sale from the review site's affiliate link - therefore enabling a commission to be paid to the affiliate running the website.

2: Affiliate Blogs

An affiliate blog is similar to an affiliate website, but it's much faster and easier to set up. With a blog you post information daily (or as often as you choose) and offer value to your readers to gain trust. Once you have readers and their undying support, you can start to offer them products and services with your affiliate links. Generally, once a reader is attached to a blog, they take any product recommendation or review VERY seriously. This makes Blogging a very powerful affiliate marketing method as you can gather followers who cling to your every word. It is essential not to spend to much time selling products though, as readers aren't dumb, they will realise they're being sold to.

3: Pay per Click advertising

Pay per click or PPC is hands down the MOST powerful form of affiliate marketing, as you literally determine yourself how many visitors you get, thus allowing one with a decent budget to engineer some HUGE profits. With PPC you can choose to drive your visitors to a website or blog, or in some cases you can direct them to your affiliate link instantly, and increase chances of success greatly. PPC is often frowned upon by newbie's however as it requires some financial outlay, but I'm guessing you could find $50 if you knew you could make $600 back, right?

By: Justin Keown

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Monday, January 12, 2009

Make Money Online - Just 4 Simple Steps


Are you're looking for a quick way to make money online? Getting started in internet marketing can be tough. In fact it is during the initial stages of most online businesses that many decide to give up. Investing time and energy without seeing any online income can be very discouraging.

Let's look at a 4 step process that should produce you an income while starting your journey into the world of internet marketing.

#1 – Research

Visit sites such as Google trends, Dogpile spysearch, Lycos 50, or Magazines dot com to see what the most searched upon subjects are.

Another approach here could be to go directly to Amazon or Clickbank to help you determine what the popular markets are.

Next you'll want develop a list of keywords directly related to what market you've selected. It would be preferable to focus on 'long tail keywords' to avoid the heavier competition found with very popular keywords. Using long tail keywords (keyword phrases) will more clearly define the target market you're promoting to.

Your research will ALWAYS be your starting point and the key to your online success!


#2 – Locate Your Promotional Materials and Product

Now we're putting on our promotional thinking caps. Browse the internet to find photos, avatars, or videos that are relevant to the market or niche you've selected. Searching through YouTube or Google images you should be able to find an ample supply of images to serve your purpose.

Next you'll want to find some affiliate products that are relevant to your market or niche.

You should have little problem finding something at Amazon, eBay or Clickbank.

#3 – Launch a Simple Blog

Here is where we start to pull everything together. By starting a simple blog with little frills at either blogger or wordpress (their free version) we can create the platform on which we will promote our products.

Using some of the images and pictures we've located you can post these on your blog.

Your headlines and a brief post from you should include the keywords selected from the list you've already compiled. Be sure to tag your posts and add your affiliate links.

The use of images will help satisfy the multi-media hunger of site visitors while minimizing the amount of written content you'll need to supply.

Be sure to post a new image along with brief written content weekly to continue to attract the search engines and new visitors.

#4 – Promote Your Blog

Now you want to generate traffic to your blog by writing articles and visiting both forums and social bookmarking sites relevant to your selected niche. These three marketing techniques will enable you to create backlinks that will help to boost your search engine rankings.

By consistently applying these methods to generate traffic you should experience a considerable flow of targeted traffic to your blog allowing you to earn an online income.

Thru the implementation of the plan we've discussed above you should be able to make money online pretty quickly. This should also allow you ample time to develop a more extensive long term business plan of your own to continue your online success into the future.

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Affiliate Marketing For Beginners—how To Write Simply And Clearly


Writing for some is a great source of anxiety. For the most part it really has nothing to do with the actual act of putting words to paper, though that is often how it is expressed.

It really has more to do with trying to figure out what to write about. For many the metaphor is sitting there alone on the rock overlooking that overwhelming vista of the canyons and valleys below. What to make of it all? Where do you go from your perch? Vertigo…let me find my way back to low secure ground.

Well maybe the thing to do is pick one point of contact. A house on the hillside below or a flower laden pasture may do just fine. Then get up and find the path that gets you there, one step at a time.


The same holds true for writing your article. Look at your idea, business concept; find your audience through careful observation or research; feel what they feel, know what they are looking for and then start communicating one sentence at a time.

How to Write a Simple Sentence

Your first sentence, usually your headline is the most important. Why you ask? Because it has to have all the right attributes of good communication. A clear subject (usually your reader), a verb (action that relates to the reader) and an object (usually the problem or solution that defines your reader).

That sentence is simple. It has no qualifiers to muddy the idea flow. It is natural in tone. It uses words easy to understand; no fancy spelling or need to explain anything. The reader knows instantly what the message means to him/her and what is expected. The message is clear.

How to Communicate with Clarity

In the words of Professor Strunk, “clarity is not a prize in writing, nor is it always the principal mark of good style. But since writing is communication, clarity can only be a virtue.”

In other words, if you want to get cute or metaphorical, be clear about it. When your sentences start running long, you may want to take a break, take a look, and start over.

Getting lost in the fog of a long winded pitch means you have lost your focus and your audience. Go back and read your words aloud. See how they sound and see how they feel. Then re-chart your course and start writing again.

It is not easy to be clear and simple. It took the artist Picasso about forty years to get his depiction of a bull down to three lines on a canvass. It can take more than a few re-writes to craft your message with as few words as possible.

Conclusion

The great achievement of learning how to write simple and clear messages is that you will be in perfect communication with your audience. That means you will understand who they are, what they are thinking, why they are thinking what they are thinking and what they will do to act on your message.

And is not that what your goal is in the first place; to connect with your intended audience and establish a relationship?

So do your thinking up front and build your message one sentence at a time; remember, simple and clearly focused.

May Your Travels Be Prosperous.

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Sunday, January 11, 2009

An Excellent Affiliate Program


Ever heard of affiliate programs? These are forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates for driving traffic to the advertiser or for other transactions. The advertiser pays the affiliate to place a link on their website, and the affiliate sends traffic to the advertiser in return. Simply put, it is about paying commissions to people who help you make sales. It is that easy. NOT.

Affiliate marketing has its ups and downs. It could be draining if you are not armed with updated information and the technical how toss. But this articles sole objective is to reach out to you and not to badmouth affiliate marketing.

Here are the following reasons on why web marketers go gaga over affiliate marketing as a form of Internet advertisement.


You can turn your website in to a device which can generate income for you. Of course it will not happen if you do not work. The first step to make money here is to create a website. If you do not have knowledge on web design, you may also consider starting a Blog so that you can make money online.

One of the best ways to earn some cash online is by affiliate marketing. You will be promoting affiliate products in your site and you can earn commission when someone purchases the products. As a matter of fact, a lot of online marketers are making money with this method.

To start with, you need seek for an excellent affiliate program. In fact, you have to choose a product which you think it will be full of potential. Of course it will be even better if you have used the products before. You can join programs which sell these products.

However, can you promote the affiliate in your personal website? The answer is certainly a YES. But it may not be an effective way to do so since your site will not be related to the products you are promoting.

To this end you will need to create a site which is related to the niche or products. You will create an affiliate site. The main theme of the site will be on the products you are promoting. By doing this you will be able to drive quality and targeted traffic to your site a lot easier.

It is also very essential to send various sales copies to all the potential buyers. As a result you will need to try your best to build your own subscriber list. Be sure to send the sales copies to the subscribers only otherwise you are just spamming the others.

One thing you may not know is that offline advertising can be very effective, although you are working online. You may ask your subscribers to give you their postal addresses as well. In this case you will be able to send direct mails to the subscribers.

In order to succeed, you have to keep creating new ideas and test them. Only by doing that you will be able to make money with affiliate marketing.

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Affiliate Marketing – The Best Home Based Business?



If you are looking for a legitimate home based business that will give you the opportunity to make some serious money, your best bet would be to look to the internet as a basis for your home business. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of home based business opportunities, and one of the best of these are the Internet marketing affiliate programs.

With a computer home based business, you have the flexibility to set your own hours, but not only that, you can actually make some great profits, and have the opportunity to continually expand those profits. When your online home based business is centered on an affiliate marketing network, you don’t have to stick with one geographic area; your business can reach across international lines, making the world your target market.


Of course there are some hyped up scams out there that claim to be everything you have ever wanted in a computer home based business, but there are far more legitimate home based businesses, affiliate programs are one of these great online businesses.

The home-based business affiliate programs are simply an online business concept in which you sale someone else’s products or service, and earn a commission. Though most members of affiliate programs do run their own home business by selling products for a profit, you may also choose to join an Internet affiliate program, and just advertise for the merchant. Most of these programs are free affiliate programs, and you risk nothing to sign up.

To really take advantage of any affiliate network you join for a home based business, it is in your best interest to have your own website. Your website should be one that is related or focused on selling the goods or services of the affiliate programs that you have signed up with. The best type of affiliate marketing site, is one that caters to a specific group of people that would be interested in the niche affiliate marketing goods you are selling. Remember, your purpose is to have a home based business in which you can make money, and through internet affiliate marketing you will be doing this by selling your affiliate partner’s goods to your website’s visitors.

There are home-based business affiliate programs to suit just about anyone’s needs, including adult affiliate programs. For example, if you have a website that focuses on how to play poker, or even video poker, this would give you the perfect base to begin advertising for casino affiliates. These online casinos pay large commissions; making this a great choice for a home based Internet business.

Another possible affiliate program for a home based business would be if you have a website that’s main purpose is to inform webmasters about different Webmaster tools online, you have a great website to start selling web hosting services for an affiliate partner.

Out of all of the home-based Internet businesses available online, the affiliate programs are definitely one of the best.

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