Affiliate Marketing Review – The Mailing List Makes All The Difference

As an affiliate marketer, your job is to promote a merchant's product through a number of advertising mediums, all in the attempt to convert visitors into paying customers.

You claim a commission for every person who purchases the offer because of your referral. Most merchants are offering between 60 and 75% for every successful transaction. That's a nice bonus, considering you're clearing about two thirds of the price of a product that you had no part in creating!

If your promotion sells for 60$ a pop, you've just made yourself 40$ with very little time or effort invested.

Affiliates have a number of ways that they can draw traffic to a merchant's site, but the method that's gained critical acclaim is:

A Landing Page and an Opt-In List

The more experienced affiliate marketers will tell you – having a landing page with an opt-in list is essential to earning the coveted 'super affiliate' status (and the money that goes along with it).

Your landing page should be kept very simple and contain an eye-catching headline, followed by a call to action expressing

• a limited time offer, creating urgency for the customer to make a purchase

• a special technique or system which lures the customer in by peaking their curiosity

• a convenience that you can offer the prospective customer, by way of information or a service

• a solution to a problem or need that exists within a certain niche market

Now you're ready to copy your autoresponder code and paste it into your website. Most people are more than happy to part with their name and email address in exchange for a solution to their problems or a convenience that promises to make their lives simpler in some dimension.

Be sure to emphasize that their personal information will be secure and kept completely confidential, never sold to any third-party organisms or spammers. By doing this, you're establishing trust between you and the visitor, reassuring them that it's safe for them to submit their personal info.

Once they've made their way onto your mailing list, you can periodically advertise to your list by promoting a number of your affiliate products in short and targeted email compositions.

The possibilities here are really endless.

As a general rule, you'll want to have 3 products ready to promote to your prospective list:

1. Front End Product

This will be the initial product or service that you promote. It's usually sold for a low fee which makes it easier to entice people to sign up when they're starting out as your subscribers.

2. Back End Product

This will be your second offer, usually sold for a much higher commission than the initial offer. Affiliate marketers make their bread an butter off of these more expensive products.

3. Recurring Commission Offer

This will be your third promotion – a sign up commission that you claim for every month a customer remains registered for a service. Membership sites are ideal for this type of offer and are the key to developing a long-lasting online income.

I have no doubt that if you employ this method into your affiliate marketing scheme, you'll see your commissions skyrocket in a very short amount of time.