When times were good for you, you just expanded, things happened so quickly that you didn’t even have the time to do everything exactly the way you were supposed to, because you were just worried about maximizing profit right away, am I right? Thought so. Well most companies were no different. New shiny technologies were emerging faster than ever, new sales avenues, new products, new social media platforms. It was exciting, who can blame you for jumping in with two feet and no shoes on. That was then and this is now. The following is a step by step guide on how to rebuild a foundation for affiliate marketing success.

Step One

Rebuilding a foundation for marketing success is all about getting back to the basics of affiliate marketing. Take a look at your current affiliates, which ones are performing? Which ones aren’t? Which of your affiliates were performing well last year, but have since fallen off the deep end? Identifying where you and your affiliates stand is step number one.

Step Two

Step Two is to lose weight. Slice off some of the fat with regards to affiliates that take up a lot of your time but don’t yield a high financial gain. Then take a look at your offers, are there too many? and is your companies overall main message being spoken through every ad? Identifying these issues is vital to step number three.

Step Three

Get Organized. You’ve identified all of your problem areas, get all of your ducks in a row, and get ready to take action on your problem areas. Prioritize which areas need the most help and will have the most effect on your business and get ready for the next step.

Step Four

Take action. Now we’re ready to go forward with our plan for rebuilding the foundation growth. Clean up your message, start contacting those affiliates who used to perform well, take the areas that used to work well, and get them in solid working order.

It really is all about getting back to the basics, getting back to what used to work well for you. Once you get those right, your network will start to see small gains. After a short time those consistent small gains will give you the foundation that you need, in order to really start building your affiliate programs out even further. We all have a tendency to over think things. Especially when we’re fearful of losing our businesses. Trust your instincts, continue to learn, work your butt off, and I promise that you will get back to where you want to be.

Step One

Go to google and perform the following searches -

“Daily Link Roundup”
“Weekly Link Roundup”
“Monday Link Roundup”
“Friday Link Roundup”
“Link Roundup”

Step Two

Find Blogs that are similar to your blog and contact the owner with some of your best content attached. Make sure you spice up the email a little bit with some information about their site, and maybe even comment on a specific article of theirs that you read.

By Buttering them up a little bit I can 100% guaruntee you that you will see more responses than if you were just to send them the content. It makes them feel good because it makes them feel like people are paying attention to them, and really care about their site.

Step 3

Go to Blog Carnival and find some blog carnivals that are related to you topics of discussion and submit.

Not only will you start to see an increase in traffic, but each piece of content that you get in either one of the daily link round-ups or a blog carnival is a solid link back to your site. It’s the perfect way to start getting more easy traffic to your site.

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1. Reddit.com – This website can absolutely exploded your site with traffic, and it could start a chain reaction that leads to your site getting quite a lot of traffic. Check out how I got 3000 page views in 24 hours? To see the power of Reddit.com when generating traffic.

2. Digg – Best seo social site online. Can be used to get your site indexed on Google quicker within 24 hours but also can bring in tons of free traffic if used well.

3. Yahoo answers is best used when you are promoting something specific. Search yahoo for something related to your market and answer the question. This is important as you don’t just want to be another spammer, you need to show that if the person clicks on your link they will receive quality information.

4. Google, Yahoo and dmoz.org directory. I only found out recently, but having your site indexed on one of those major directories is a very powerful backlink to have and can do wonders for your Google search position. All are free to submit unless you go for the piad inclusion, it’s worth it if you have the money. But if not don’t worry your site will be eventually get indexed and you will have a very good backlink to your website.

5. Stumbleupon – I can’t get my head around Stumbleupon.com and that is why it is not ranked high. However, in terms of traffic it can bring in as much and in some cases even more then reddit.

6. Blogs – Blinklist.com – Mybloglog.com, Blogger.com – and Technorati.com. Again by creating your own profile and submitting your site, not only do you create an online presence so people get to know you, but you are placing a link on a site that will increase your page ranking and again will bring in more traffic. This will be less then the other social sites, but none the less it has an added advantage and that is the traffic will be more specific to your market.

7. Twitter and Friendster.com to keep your readers updated. Again, with the release of Twitter as a new form of marketing was created. By creating followers on your profile you can easier update your readers on your latest site news. Again another great traffic source.

8. Another good idea for free traffic is to search on Google for your market and then type in ‘directory’. This is quite simply the best way to get targeted traffic.

9. Reviews. Another way to get massive traffic is through review sites (but only submit if you are prepared to take a beating, not everybody is nice lol). Such as Reviewmyweb.com and Xomreviews.com/. You can even extend this further by joining sites as such the digital point forums and asking people on the forum to review your site. However, if you really have a unique product submit your site to killerstartups.com and if selected this will increase your sites visibility online – and it 100% free.

10. Finally number 10, to get your site instantly indexed on Google submit your website to stat sites such as Cqcounter.com,Alexa.com, Websiteoutlook.com and Siteanalytics.compete.com. These sites are constantly indexed by Google and by referring your sites to them. You increase the chance of your site getting indexed by Google, create more backlinks, increasing your Google rankings and in doing so (if you use the this and the tactics above) drive a hell-load of free traffic to your website.

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1. Figure out your Target Market: Find out who your target market is. That can be your entire customer base, or just a select few of them. Either way you decide to do it, make sure that you know who they are, if you don’t know who you’re dealing with in any marketing idea, chances are it’s going to die hard and fast.
2. Give Something People Want: Look, I’m sorry this might seem like a pretty basic idea, but you won’t believe how many emails I get from people asking me why their idea flopped, then I find out they were giving away a wiener whistle to their target market of Business Executives. Okay that was a bit of an exaggeration, but comparable ideas have come across my inbox. Give away an appropriate product for your target audience i.e. a free webinar on real estate investing to real estate investors.
3. Determine the Info You Want From Them: Okay now that we’ve got the prize all figured out, determine why you’re even giving the product away. What sorts of information do you want, what is the goal of the giveaway? Do you want their email address? Do you want more Facebook Fans? Whatever it may be decide what it is and work it into your plan.
4. Set Your Plan-But Make it Easy: Okay now we’ve got your target market, the product you’ll be giving away, and the goals of the campaign, now it’s time to set up the plan. Let’s say for instance you want to get more email addresses, it’s pretty simple, but just have them sign up for your email newsletter to get the free gift. Or if you want more Facebook Fans make sure they have to become a fan to get the gift. Make it easy, if it takes too many steps, it’ll never work for you.

MOST IMPORTANT PART BELOW:

5. Let them Spread the Word For You: Look I am assuming that most of my readers are pretty intelligent and creative thinkers, judging by the emails you send me. Most people’s plan will fail, if they don’t let other spread the word for you, you are more than likely going to flop, especially if you don’t have a blog with tens of thousands of readers. How do you do that? When they sign up for your email newsletter, have them forward it onto 5 firends. When they become a fan of yours on Facebook, have them automatically update “I just entered to win a free (Blank) JOIN NOW”

If you follow this plan, I am 100% certain that you can and will have great success with giving away your free product. I have seen it work on hundreds of occasions, it’s not spammy, it’s easy to do, and people find real value in it. They will love spreading the word for you especially if they find value in the product you’re giving them for free. So get out there and start giving, that’s the key to a healthy online relationship with your target market.

As we’ve talked about before, in order to be successful with online sales, you have to create an “in store” real life environment on your website. People are still adjusting to this whole ecommerce thing. While the numbers continually increase every year for the amount of people who shop online, it still isn’t as regular of an occurrence for people to shop online, as they would in their local hardware store.

Think of it like this; In a store a customer can get the satisfaction of having their product instantly, but they have to pay a sales tax. Online a customer has to wait a few days or longer to receive the product, and they don’t get the satisfaction of really seeing the product before they decide to buy it. Also online, the consumer doesn’t have to pay a sales tax (in most cases) if they decide to buy online. By adding in the cost of shipping, you are essentially adding a sales tax to your online items and you’re already at a disadvantage because your customers have to wait a few days for their products. If you eliminate the sales tax you are elminating that ugly cost that the consumer already doesn’t want to pay. Your conversion rates are going to go up by a couple percent or even more. As a result you’ll get more sales and higher revenue numbers.

We tested the theory on one of our websites with a 72 hours Free shipping sale on everything except already on sale items. Our average sale dropped a bit (the price of standard shipping), but our conversion rates went up by 1.5% and our total number of sales increased by around 50 extra sales a day. For those of you who don’t think that’s a big deal, do the math for yourself.

Calculate it for yourself

Average Sale Amount x Average number of orders

vs

(Average Sale amount – Cost of shipping) x (Average number of orders + 50 extra orders)

The numbers add up quickly. You’re getting more product out to more people, and creating the chance for a lot more long standing relationships with these customers. You’ve just gotten rid of the biggest roadblock to online sales by dropping your shipping price. Take a look at Zappos they got rid of the cost of shipping for their customers and they were so successful that the online giant Amazon bought them out. If you don’t believe it will work test it with a sale, I promise you you will see these results.

Everyone has to work within their own margins, but for whatever reason people really hate paying the price of shipping. If you can’t just flat out cut the cost of shipping on every sale, consider raising the price of all of your inventory online by 1 or 2 percent. Find margins that work for you and make it happen. It is entirely worth it.

The truth of the matter is that Twitter isn’t even an expert on Twitter. If they were an expert on Twitter, don’t you think they would’ve found a way to monetize it at this point? Every single automated direct message I’ve ever seen come from a “twitter expert” is something that I learned through my own 20 minute Google research. Trust yourself. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t even trust what I say. Seek out the knowledge for yourself. I love to teach everyone whatever I can because it’s what I’m passionate about, but even some of the big dogs that I read screw up from time to time.

I hope all of you are reading daily, not just blogs, or forums, grab this thing called a book, read it, take notes, and formulate your own ideas reflecting upon what you’ve just read. It’s weird how they say everything you need to learn you learn in Kindergarten, well here is another such example. I’ll be here in the meantime trying to get you the best knowledge to the best of my abilities, as quickly as is humanly possible. I have a great following and I can’t thank all of you enough. You make my day that much more special. Thanks for reading. Now take a tip from your high school principle and hit the books.

What is your main motivation for starting a Twitter account anyway? Is it direct sales? For some of you it might be, but I would say for the majority of you, you want the opportunity to create opportunities for viral marketing and get the chance to be more connected to your customer base. Quantity might get you more direct sales, but with so many people in your feed at all times, it’s nearly impossible to pick out which of your twitter followers is actually a fan of yours, and actually cares about your product. If you have a refined list of people who truly care about your business, you will get the chance to really connect with these people, and turn them from a one time customer, into a lifetime customer.

What else can you get from a quality twitter following? As you’re connecting with these true fans you’ll get a chance to hear some of their stories, some of them will probably even let you know why they love your business so well. It’s the word of mouth marketing that you are really looking for right? There is nothing like it. Think about it, when you want to try a new restaurant in town, who do you go to? Generally, you ask your friends right? Well that’s what these quality twitter followers will give you, they will recommend you to their friends, and even better they will do it on a large social network in front of millions of users for everyone to see. Recommendations from other people are so valuable. Don’t you want to to get as much of it as you can for your business?

Like I said before I’ve seen great success with both types of Twitter marketing. It is really up to you to decide what you want. I will tell you that in my experience the quality followers will give your business a much more intimate relationship with your customers and that will help you tremendously. Test both theories for yourself though. If you start with one and find that you want to go another direction you can always change paths by refining your list later, or trying to go out and get as many people to follow you as possible.

Now I do believe that this is the 21st century; am I right? I guess maybe it was wrong of me to assume that a big company as large as Canon would have the common sense to send out cross compatible software, as not to pigeon hole a large portion of their potential buyers. I use Final Cut Pro for all of my video editing needs, as do hundreds of thousands of other users, large marketing firms, and big businesses alike. Let me tell you what I have to do in order to actually even begin to edit the hours of footage I’ve shot in the past days.

WARNING: If their are children in the room you might want to read this later, the anger level could cause you to want to swear loudly

Step 1
After searching for two hours to see if Canon had gotten with the times and posted any sort of software to fix their compatability nightmare, I found only one feasable solution, import the live footage into iMovie then export it to Final Cut. Now that does sound like a pretty easy solution right? WRONG!

Step 2
After you have waited for 1.5 hours for your video footage to actually import to iMovie, the next step is to spend another hour or so “pre-editing” the video footage to be exported to final cut. This is an HD camera, if you don’t have the money to spend on a supercomputer like the big dogs have, this process will take FOREVER to do.

Step 3
FINALLY you are ready to export the pre-edited video from iMovie to send for the final editing in Final Cut. The next step is to wait 5 hours for your footage to export from iMovie into a compatible version you will be able to actually edit in Final Cut. I suggest going to the bar and getting a beer or two while you wait, maybe run some errands, by the time you get back your video might actually be ready to be imported to Final Cut for final editing. (NOT SURE HOW LONG THAT TAKES. I’m still waiting for this step to complete as I’m writing this article. It’s been 2.5 hours and iMovie still says I have 235 more minutes until I can edit the video.

Step 4
Go to Canon support once more just to double check that you didn’t miss something and there actually might be a better solution for the millions upon millions of Mac users. Fail miserably. Call Canon support to realize that they aren’t open again until Monday. Go get more beer or run more errands to settle your nerves.

Step 5
Tell all of your friends about this article and possibly even link to it. Post it on all of the major social networking and social media devices you can find.

Step 6
After you have finally spent however long you have spent finishing the final product, go back to where you bought the camera and return it. Purchase a Sony, they have better cameras, with better features, and have the common sense to have cross compatible software included with most of their cameras.

I don’t know that I have ever been so dissatisfied by a $1300 investment in my entire life. I expected to be able to use my brand new camera efficiently and with no problems. I WAS WRONG! DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA MAC USERS! That is all. Have a better day than Canon or this camera are allowing me to have.

Step 1:
Build you network of caring followers. Post about things only related to your topic. Follow only people who are interested in your topic, and engage with people who are interested in your topic. The ability to create your own little niche of sorts on twitter is one of it’s greatest features. Using search.twitter.com you can find people who are talking about topics that are related to your field and engage with them.

Step 2:
Engage these followers in some way. Whether that just be general comments, contests, or by posting news updates about your product you need to engage these people and let them know that they are important to you from the start. My favorite thing to do is a contest. They work EVERY time because there is always going to be a small niche of people who are just looking for free stuff.

Step 3:
Determine your Twitter sales approach. Twitter is a great tool for a lot of things. It can be used for customer service, blogging, or sales. If you are looking to make your Twitter account drive more sales for you you have to be sales oriented. Use it to post your sales and deals but also use it to help your customers out with any problems they might be having with your site.

Step 4:
Give people incentive to follow you on Twitter. This should be done whenever you are trying to get more of your customer or user base to engage with you on social media. Give them a discount code just for following you. It’ll make them feel like they are a part of something exclusive and special.

Step 5:
Announce that you are on Twitter. Put a twitter icon on your front page and link it to your twitter page. Blog about your Twitter account. Let people know that they can find you on Twitter and let them know that just for following you you’ll give them an exclusive discount code.

The best way to sell things online is to test new and creative ideas. I challenge all of you to try and push the boundaries of normal practices and put your own spin on them. These are more of guidelines to help you get started selling on Twitter than anything else. Take my ideas and give them your own creative boost. That is when you’ll be able to really take off with Twitter and your other social media campaigns.

Are length, brevity and personalization the keys to good subject lines? I have found that it’s not this magic combination, but the constant testing and versioning of your subject lines. Good subject lines are not simply conjured by a copywriter and often can’t be repurposed time and time again. Good subject lines are ones that are in constant state of flux and improvement.

 
The Elements of a good subject line are:
1. Clear
2. Actionable
3. Relevant
4. Short

 
If you can follow these above four items you are on the right path.
Tactics for improving email open rates with subject lines:

 
1. Timing – look at what times your subscriber base not only opens once but when they come back again. These subsequent opens will help you to chart your course.
2. When do they buy/convert or hit a goal page? By tracking web behavior and combining those metrics with email behavior, specifically opens and clicks, you will start to identify patterns which will help determine hot spots to drive the open.
3. Subject line testing. Are you testing dynamic subject lines driven by profile data or by past behavioral data? The secret is not always in using the name but using what’s important to them. What relevant brands or benefits tied to your campaign? Not shoes, but Nike. Not batteries included, but ready to use. Using specific and relevant brands you might sell, and a benefit-focused offer will give relevance and credibility, setting you apart in the inbox.

What you believe should be avoided in subject lines for best results.

 
1. Avoid being “salesy.” Always pushing your sales agenda will reduce the open rate and conversion rate.
2. Avoid ALL CAPS in subject lines. They feel like you are shouting for attention and not being respectful of your subscribers’ time.
3. Don’t be overly creative with your subject lines. Now this might sound odd, but if it is not simple, understood and gives a clear action or value then it will be passed over.

Tips:
Look at the check out line newsstand on your next visit to the grocery store. Notice all of the tabloids that are meant to be quickly scanned, understood and drive you to want to open and buy them to read more. They work.

 
Step 1: Keep it simple and informative
Step 2: Write to audience, not at the audience
Step 3: Keep the customer lifecycle in mind – think long term
Step 4: Personalize messages based on profile or behavioral data
Step 5: Insight a sense of action – Use a verb
Step 6. Test Twice, Send Once!

“And that’s how the proverbial E mail-Cookie Crumbles”