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Do you need to have your own product to “make it” in the world of internet marketing and online business? This is one of the age old questions among internet marketers and has been asked and answered many many times since internet marketing’s inception. I have heard so many different opinions on this. There are those that say you absolutely need to have your own product to succeed in internet marketing and there are those that say no way, it’s not necessary at all. So who’s right, who’s wrong?

I really think that everybody is right. What?! Yes, having your own product is wonderful but certainly not necessary. You can take your product, build a site around the product, create an affiliate program and have others sell it for you, etc… and that works. However, if you don’t have your own product, you can certainly become successful as an affiliate marketer, selling other people’s products. I know internet marketers that have become hugely successful by creating and selling their own product, but on the other hand, I also know some extremely successful affiliate marketers and that’s all they do.

I think a better point is what do a successful internet marketer with his/her own product and an successful affiliate marketer have in common? Motivation and Passion! It takes motivation, passion, drive and ambition to succeed at any endeavor you choose and internet marketing is no different. You need to have passion and love for what you are doing to keep you drive and ambition alive!

Whether you are marketing your own product or someone else’s as an affiliate marketer, your success is definitely related to how passionate you are, how focused you are, how much you believe in the product and how effective your marketing techniques are.

What do you think?

Right now, your blueprint for your new life is completely free. Yes, it’s true and let me explain…

Two of the internet’s most successful affiliate marketers, who make hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions every year and are regularly featured in the top ten lists of super affiliates, are spilling the beans on how they do it.

And – once their secrets are YOUR secrets – it’s no exaggeration to say this could empower you to step up to a whole new life where the old limits of money and time don’t apply.

One of the major techniques they are going to reveal is how to keep getting paid for sales you made ages ago. Do you know what that means?

You can position yourself to receive an increasing and reliable monthly income, while you get to work setting up ever increasing amounts of affiliate commissions – or simply relax and enjoy your new found wealth.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because if you’ve tried affiliate marketing and couldn’t quite get it off the ground or are making a reasonable income, but want to take it to the next level then this program will definitely help you. What’s more … it won’t cost you a single red cent. Now or in the future.

You can just click here and gain immediate access to the whole program and there’s no immediate payment … no payment in seven days … in fact, nothing at all to pay – ever.

It’s simply that Jeremy and Simon find making vast affiliate commissions so effortless now, they want you to short circuit some of the problems they experienced getting to where they are now.

Then – only if you choose to – you can become an affiliate for this program, yourself. That means you’ll be able to start your staple of top quality products with a soought-after program from two of the most respected and effective marketers online today.

So here’s just a tiny teaser of what you’ll find inside this eye-opening program…

* The three fatal mistakes most affiliates make without even knowing they can murder their chances of success.

* The lightening-fast way to decide if a product will be worth your time and trouble promoting for maximum profits.

* The closely guarded secrets to pre-selling your affiliate product BEFORE you send the prospect to the vendor’s site.

* How to locate poorly promoted, yet red-hot, products that will fill your bank account, while everyone else wonders what happened.

* Squeeze page mastery and how to build a super responsive list for future effort-free promotions.

… plus much more.

Right now, this program is available totally free of charge, but to be honest this information is so good that I can almost bet they may be charging for it soon. This is an amazing bargain, especially when you consider the life-changing secrets inside. Be smart…grab it right now – Affiliate Profit Plan.

As you may know, every so often I write a review of what I believe to be a quality product. Well, today’s post is just that – a product review of Ray Johnson’s brand new course, Clickbank Stealth. Ray is an awesome internet marketer whom I respect very much. Infact, you have probably heard me talk about some of his other products as well.

So, what is Clickbank Stealth? Well, it’s a brand new, step by step 100+ page ebook and 14 video training course that teaches you never before seen secrets of Clickbank gurus – secrets they use to create Top Ten Clickbank websites every time…

The course is web based and is made up of 14 training modules plus a KILLER eBook which walks you through the entire system and leads you to each video so you are always in total control and have 100% confidence at every single step.

I’ve got to say – You simply CAN’T get this system wrong!

Ray even follows up what he teaches you with step by step screen capture videos so you can learn how to actually apply what you’ve learned from the eBook.

Here’s what’s inside the Clickbank Stealth course:

**Why the domain name you choose has a DRAMATIC effect on your profits

**Why poor copy will KILL your website, and how to write Clickbank “Cash-Cow” copy that will force top marketers to promote you

**Why NOT just any old graphics for your product/site will do, and why you may as well quit before you’ve begun if you fail to use this method

**The #1 secret of product creation that is CRITICAL for your long term success online that could bank you a fortune

**Why download pages are CRITICAL to your success online (yes, DOWNLOAD PAGES!)

**How to get a TON of JV partners/affiliates to promote your site, even if you have no contacts, no list and all in just minutes!

**How to craft the perfect page to maximise the number of affiliates who ACTUALLY promote your site come launch day

**How to test, without the boredom, what could quadruple your earnings within minutes

**PLUS A TON MORE! I could go on and on…but there’s just way to much to mention here.

This is certainly no outdated, worn out course – it’s really cutting edge stuff and Ray makes it possible for anyome to bag a Clickbank Top 10 spot with zero experience.

Aside from all the fresh stuff, I think my favorite part is just KNOWING that by following Ray’s advice, I’ll be able to enjoy even greater success online!

Kudos to Ray!! Another fine product!

Click here to check out CLICKBANK STEALTH now

Here’s to your awesome success and as always, thanks for reading! Oh, and if you have been through this course already, please feel free to leave your comments. I love a good success story!

5 Questions I Recently Asked Myself…

So, yes…it has almost been a month since I have posted here! :0 And yes, I was somewhat surprised myself that it has been that long because we all know that consistent blogging is key to a successful blog. However, that being said, let’s just say I took a minor “break” from affiliate marketing and concentrated on all aspects of my ebay business, product creation (both of which will really take off in2010!), and social media.

Affiliate marketing is a passion for me, always has been. But recently, a site/program that I promoted and am earning monthly recurring commissions from still has not paid out. Going on 5 months now and to date I haven’t received a dime. I did get in touch (finally) with the owner and was told that I’d be paid in 1-2 days… hmmm, that was last month.

This plus some other things I had going on really got me thinking… should I take a complete break from affiliate marketing? is all the hard work really worth it? should I concentrate 100% on creating my own products? And you know, when all was said and done… I love affiliate marketing! I know that having my own product is even better and I’m working on that, and I do have other income streams in place, but affiliate marketing just rocks for me. So no, I won’t be putting affiliate marketing on the back burner anytime soon.

During the week between Christmas and New Years, I did a lot of thinking and reflecting, and asked myself these questions, came up with a plan of action, and now I’m going to take on 2010 like there’s no tomorrow!

What is it that I really want?

Am I happy doing what I’m doing now?

What changes do I need to make (if any) to get to what I really want?

What motivates me?

What makes me tick?

Answering these questions helped me formulate a plan of action for my online businesses and gave me some new personal insight as well. Take the time, really think about things and come up with your plan for success in 2010!

PriviledgedMemberships.com is my secret weapon!

With Thanksgiving over, thoughts are now turning to Christmas – and the New Year.  I want to help jumpstart your success in 2010 and here’s how…

I stumbled across the most amazing site recently. I had a hard time believing is was all for real… but… after the shock wore off, this was something I knew shouldn’t be overlooked!

This is a sizzling opportunity, a take-it-to-the-bank package to make sure 2010 can be your best year yet. Listen up because this is a limited time offer (you’ll understand why when you see it) and for me was a complete no-brainer. Why? Because you have the opportunity to gain a lifetime’s top level access to ten top 5 star membership sites…Yes you read that right – Top level access to not just one or two, but to TEN 5 star membership sites! I know, I know…I found it hard to believe too, but it’s true.

AND, it gets even better…you can take a full 30 days to actually test drive it all at no cost. This gives you a great advantage because you’re getting a boatload of Master Reseller and other licenses on red hot products, such as books, courses, videos and software (and other items too hot to mention in an public blog), which you can use to pour cash straight into your PayPal account.

That way, when the 30 days trial is up, you’ll not only have enough to cover the amazingly tiny payment for all this, you’ll have enough left over for the best ever New Year’s party. Woo hoo!

I do have to warn you: this is such a lucrative deal that it is going to be severely limited as to who gets on board so you may not want to waste another minute… Click here for all the juicy details!

Oh, oops, I’m so excited about being able to offer you this, I almost forgot to mention the name: PriviledgedMemberships.com – perfect!

Viral Marketing: Choosing a Topic For Your Report

A viral report will only do well if it’s on a subject people want to read about. There’s no point researching and writing (or outsourcing) a report only to find your market isn’t interested in it and I also think it’s important to select a topic that you are really interested in and something which is related to what you want to promote. Of course all this goes almost without saying, but then…how do you actually go about selecting a hot topic for your report?

You should first consider what sites/products you want to promote…

Let’s say I want to promote an eBook on “how to make money from blogging”. In this case a good viral report might be ‘How to Set Up a Blog’ or ‘30 Important Blogging Tips’. These titles aren’t the best as I’m just throwing them out there and I’m sure that you can think of really great titles, but you get the idea…

What if there’s no obvious topic for your report? A great place to start is getting involved in forums. Browsing forums related to the topic of the product/site that you want to promote are a wonderful place to get information, see what people are discussing, and get to know what’s hot.

Let’s say you’re operating in the internet marketing niche. I regularly browse through internet marketing forums, and from that I know that the following are pretty hot topics:

Blogging
Twitter
Social Network Marketing
Viral Marketing
Product Creation
Article Writing

Each of these could easily form the basis for a good report.

You can use a viral report as a complete money making system in it’s own right. I’m not currently involved in the gardening niche, but I could start making money from it today. All I’d need to do is find some gardening related products which I could promote as an affiliate, insert some links to those products into my report, and begin distributing the report.

So, you might already know what’s hot in the niche you’re operating in, but if you don’t it’s very easy to find out.

Go to Google and type in “your niche + forum” and “your niche + blog.”

This will locate forums and blogs in your niche. Make yourself a coffee, and spend an hour or two browsing through the forum discussions and blog posts looking for what people are talking about. It usually becomes pretty apparent what might make a good report topic.

I’ve never gotten into the dog training niche, but two minutes spent browsing one of the forums in the screen shot above gave me several ideas for a free viral report – ‘training an older dog’, and ‘preventing dog travel sickness.’

Look for the problems or questions that people seem to be having in that niche. If a particular topic or issue seems to crop up regularly then it’s a good sign, or if you find a particular thread has five pages of posts then that’s a great sign too!

Next post we’ll get into researching and creating your report…

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Here’s Your Article Marketing Traffic Formula
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Is Viral Marketing that Important?

I’m going to be posting a couple part series on viral marketing and just how important creating your own report is in your internet marketing efforts, no matter what your niche. So let’s get started…

I personally think that viral marketing is one of the best tools in anyone’s internet marketing endeavors. I’m going to show you how to create a short report or eBook (don’t worry, it’s not going to be difficult, and you don’t even have to write any of it yourself if you don’t want to), let it loose on the net, and watch as it generates highly targeted traffic to your websites for years to come.

Just give away your report for free, with resell rights, and it will then be picked up by other marketers in the same niche, passed on, sold, and generally distributed and read by people all around the internet. Inside your report will be links, perhaps affiliate links or links to your websites, and everyone that reads your report will see them.

This is how it’s possible to make money directly from your report. You can use it to send traffic to your own products, affiliate products, your newsletter, membership site, or any site you wish!

In the past I’ve generated enough traffic from a single viral report to build a mailing list of a couple hundred subscribers in about a week and a half. It’s not difficult, but it does require a bit of effort.

This sounds good, right?

You may be thinking “why not sell the report instead?” And, yes, you could, but the whole point of viral marketing is the links which will be in your report. Yes some people will come along, take your free report, and sell it themselves, but that’s fine. That’s what you want. Sure, you could probably make some money by just selling the report yourself, but it’s not the best way to do it. You want the report to be seen by as many people as possible in order to gain maximum exposure, and that’s why the report should be free. Make sense?

But there’s another issue to consider first…

Why Being Free Isn’t Enough…

Many people believe that just because you’re giving away your report for free then it will become viral on it’s own. I believe this is a mistake, and here’s why: When we unleash our free report on the internet we’re looking for as many people as possible to resell it, give it away as a bonus, etc. As we just discussed, this is how the viral effect is created. But many free reports are very low quality. They contain poorly written, outdated or just plain wrong information, and they are stuffed full of links.

Think about it from another internet marketer’s point of view. Someone comes along and offers you a new report for free, and tells you that you’re free to resell it and distribute it as you please. Great. If you’re anything like a lot of internet marketers then you’ll be delighted that someone wants to give you a new product for free. But then you check it out and find that the book is only 6 pages long, contains 26 links, and is full of irrelevant or incorrect information. Would you be happy to sell that or pass it on to your subscribers? Me neither.

Which is why as well as being free, your report needs to contain high-quality, useful content that you’d be happy to give to a member of your own family. Your report doesn’t need to be particularly long, but it does need to be high quality. This is essential if you want your report to go viral. It isn’t difficult to do though, and we’re going to get to that in another post.

One other thing to consider is that people are essentially lazy, including other internet marketers Maybe lazy isn’t the right word, but I see many reports being given away which are very high quality and could do really well virally, but they don’t come with a sales letter. If someone wants to grab your report and resell it themselves (or give it away in return for opting into their mailing list, etc) then they would have to write their own squeeze or sales page. And while some people do this, the vast majority can’t be bothered. If you give them a ready-made sales page you’ll vastly increase the number of people who will want to resell or give away your report. You need to give them everything they need, and make it as easy for them as possible. The more people that distribute your report the better.

Next time we’ll get into choosing a topic for your report.

In the meantime, feel free to check out this Niche Marketing report.

Ideas To Boost Your Affiliate Commissions

Affiliate marketing is one of the simplest ways to start making money online. You don’t need your own website when starting out and you don’t have to deal with anything related to the product, including refunds. Simply join an affiliate program, promote the product, and earn your commissions

Let’s say for the sake of this post that you are already involved in an affiliate program. What would be the next thing you would want to do? Earn bigger commissions, right? So… how do you do that?

Here are some powerful tips on boosting your affiliate commissions…

Know the best program and products to promote. Obviously, you would want to promote a program that will enable you to achieve the greatest profits in the shortest possible time.  In my last post, I discussed choosing the right affiliate program as there are several factors to consider. Choose the ones that have a generous commission structure, have products that fit in with your target audience and that has a solid track record of paying their affiliate easily and on time. If you cannot seem to increase your investments, dump that program and keep looking for better ones. You can be picky.

Write free reports or short ebooks to distribute from your site or blog. You will be competing with other affiliates that are promoting the same program so if you write a short report related to the product you are promoting, you will stand out from other affiliates. In your report, provide valuable information for free and if possible, add some recommendations about the products. You will establish credibility and your potential customers will see that.

Build your list! Get an autoresponder service and collect the email addresses of those who download your free ebooks. They have opted in to receive more emails from you and it is a known fact that people do not make a purchase the first time. You may have to send out your message more than just one time to make a sale – the follow up.

Also, set up a squeeze page. Get the contact information of a prospect before sending them to the vendor’s website. Redirect them to the sales page after they give you their email address in exchange for your free report/ebook. Keep in mind, you are basically providing free advertisement for the product owners because you get paid only when you make a sale. If you send prospects directly to the vendor site, chances are, you will lose them.

Publish an online newsletter or ezine. It is always best to recommend a product to someone you know (your list) than to sell to a stranger. This is the purpose behind publishing your own newsletter. It also allows you to develop a relationship based on trust with your subscribers since you will be providing them with quality information.

This strategy is a delicate balance between providing useful information with a sales pitch. If you continue to write informative articles, you will be able to build a sense of reciprocity in your readers that may lead them to support you by buying your products.

Write strong pay per click ads. PPC marketing is one of the most effective means of advertising online. As an affiliate, you can make a small income just by managing PPC campaigns, i.e. Google AdWords. Always monitor and test to see which ads are more effective and which ones to get rid. You can get some really great training at PPCClassroom.com.

Give these strategies a try…and watch the difference they will make to your commissions.

LOOK What’s Coming Next Week!!

So Many Affiliate Programs! Which One Do I Choose?

I love affiliate marketing! It’s one of the best ways to get started in online marketing because you don’t need to create your own product. You can join an affiliate program, promote, and earn commissions which can certainly be a steady source of income.

The biggest question is “Which affiliate program should I choose?” There are so many different affiliate programs out there, that this can sometimes be a daunting task. I know in my case, I receive tons of emails everyday asking me to join this affiliate program, that affiliate program and promote their product. It certainly depends on what niche you are in, what you are passionate about, but once you’ve determined that, you should do your research before joining any affiliate program.

Ask questions first before you join an affiliate program. Get some answers because they will be the deciding point of what you will be achieving later on. Below are some ideas of what types of questions you should be asking.

Will it cost you anything to join? Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. So why settle for those that charge you some dollars before joining.

When do they issue the commission checks? Every program is different. Some issue their checks once a month, every quarter, etc. Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. Many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet or exceed in order for their checks to be issued. Many affiliate programs are also done through Clickbank.com and they pay out every two weeks like clockwork.

What is the hit per sale ratio? This is the average number of hits to a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. This factor is extremely important because this will tell you how much traffic you must generate before you can earn a commission from the sale.

How are referrals from an affiliate’s site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system? You need to be confident on the program enough to track those people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. The period of time that those people stay in the system is also important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. You want to know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.

What are the kinds of affiliate stats available? Your choice of affiliate program should be capable of offering detailed stats. They should be available online anytime you decide to check them out. Constantly checking your individual stats is important to know how many impressions, hits and sales are already generated from your site.

Does the affiliate program also pay for the hits and impressions or leads besides the commissions on sales? This will, of course, add to the earnings you get from the sales commission.

Who is the online retailer, company, or individual? Find out whom you are doing business with to know if it is really a solid opportunity. Know the products they are selling and the average amount they are achieving. The more you know about the retailer or individual offering you the affiliate program, the easier it will be for you to know if that program is really for you and your site.

Is the affiliate a one tier or two tier program? A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two-tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor. More like a recruitment fee.

Lastly, what is the amount of commission paid? Take a look at all figures and you’ll understand why the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is important.

These are just some of the questions that needed answering first before you enter into an affiliate program. You should be familiar with the many important aspects that your chosen program should have before incorporating them into your website and internet marketing portfolio.