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Affiliate Classroom Blog Archives

Tip #3: Ride the Coat Tail of Success!

Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 6:41 pm by Kathy Jackson

Have you ever asked yourself “Why the huge upswing in the number of people launching their own Internet businesses today?”

Well guess what - the reason for this upswing doesn’t matter. The fact that it is happening - and that it signals an opportunity - is what should matter to you.

There never seems to be a lack of new Internet entrepreneurs, and all of them need information and instruction on the right way to conduct business online. So in spite of the glut of Internet marketing “stuff” out there, there is still an unbelievable demand for these “how to” products.

Established Internet marketers launch five or six new Internet marketing products every month. These launches are done as “joint ventures.” That means several marketers join together to launch a product, and the launch is done with a lot of fanfare.

Sometimes it’s possible for even a relative unknown to grab onto the coat tails of these major product launches and make a nice profit. You need to find out about the upcoming launches, and the way to do that is to monitor JV networks. One such network is JV Notify, but with a Google search, you can find a great many of them.

When you find a product launch, sign up as an affiliate and then think of creative ways you can piggy-back on the big advertising methods of some of the more established marketers. One of the best methods we’ve seen for this is the “Leeching on a Launch” method from Project Quick Cash. Watch for our review of Project Quick Cash tomorrow.

Quick Cash Tip #2: Follow the Money!

Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 12:05 pm by Kathy Jackson


All of us, even experienced marketers, have to generate cash fast once in a while. When you’re just starting out you may need extra cash to pay the bills, fund some PPC, or build more websites.

And even if you’re working online full time, you might want to generate cash so you can grow your business without taking on debt.

Selling information is an easy way to generate quick cash - if you do it right. The trick is choosing the right information in the right niche.

It may be hard to convince hard-core Internet marketing guru that there is any subject of real value other than Internet marketing (just kidding - most gurus would actually agree with what we’re about to say!).

But the fact is that people (think customers) are interested in all kinds of things: gardening, fishing, dog training, child rearing, and hundreds of other topics, large and small.

And this can work to your advantage when you need to generate cash quickly. These potential customers will buy information on the Internet if it’s highly targeted to their interests - but it’s up to you to find an ebook or other information product that they want, and then take it straight to them. How?

Find a product that is of particular interest to a reasonably large segment of the population who are affluent enough to buy stuff.

Sign up as an affiliate for that product.

Then go promote it directly where the money is!

The money is in the customer’s pockets, and the customers are on forums, blogs and communities on the Internet that are dedicated to the information you are selling.

So if you don’t have time to build a list, or if you don’t have the money to do PPC, keep your marketing simple and cheap. Sell direct to the consumer via communities. Follow the money!

Quick Cash Tip #1 - Paying Attention Can Pay Off!

Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 9:43 am by Kathy Jackson

If you are too poor to pay anything much more than attention, you can still make money in Internet marketing :-) !

Most people think that the very best keywords are the most expensive keywords, but that isn’t necessarily true all the time. It IS true that some keywords are always good, and those keywords will be more competitive and therefore more expensive. But then there are those keywords that suddenly become — hot!

When a new product is launched, for example, a brand new keyword can be born that has absolutely no demand and is therefore cheap…really cheap. Which means that if you’re keeping your eyes open and stay ahead of the trends, you can be the first to bid on those keywords at bargain prices.

How can a keyword suddenly become hot?

When a celebrity does something that the keyword is associated with. Example: A recent Oprah interview sent the keyphrase “pregnant man” into #165 in the worldwide keyword searches. Six months ago that keyphrase wasn’t even on the radar.

When a new toy, gadget, game, or fashion item hits the market but hasn’t gotten “hot” yet. Example: “Webkinz” wasn’t always in the top 20 search terms, but now it is - and will probably stay there for quite some time.

When a major event hits the news - such as when the airlines canceling hundreds of flights for plane maintenance. “Flight departures” became the #10 searched term overnight.

So pay attention to what is happening in the world around you - you may just discover keywords that can be had for pennies, yet will make you a lot of dollars quickly.

Free Pre-Course: Start Your Blog and Get Traffic in 10 Minutes!

Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 5:44 pm by Anik Singal

Ros Gardner and I just launched a FREE Blogging Pre-Course to get everyone ready for the relaunch of our premium Blog Classroom course. If you haven’t signed up for the Pre-Course already, go here right now and watch the video where I explain everything.

Ros and I are doing a whole series of instructional videos on how to set up your blog and get traffic within 10 minutes (yes, just 10 minutes - we guarantee you’ll get traffic fast!). It’s basically a FULL blogging course with us, and it won’t cost you a dime.

Of course you know us, even though the course is free, there are homework assignments :-) ! You can see what some students have already done by going here.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll release even more free video instruction, plus we’ll do 2 webinars. And I’ve lined up some amazing interviews with some of the top bloggers in the world. All this is free, just go here now and sign up for the class.

On April 29th Ros and I will be launching the full version of Blog Classroom. If you take the Pre-Course, you will be well ahead of the game with an active blog that’s getting traffic (in fact, in the free course we show you how to get traffic within 10 minutes of your first blog post!).

Also don’t forget to tell your friends about our free blogging course - just send them to the video here. After all, blogs are about sharing - sharing ideas, information, and traffic.

So hey, if you and a friend both started a blog tonight, you could both be sharing traffic (even building a community) by tomorrow morning! Sound like fun? Just click here to start our Blog Classroom Pre-Course now!

Video Marketing for Affiliates - Made Easy!

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 9:25 am by AC Staff

Once in a while a new service comes along that makes life so much easier for affiliates, we slap our foreheads and say “Why didn’t somebody think of this sooner?” We all know that video reviews of affiliate products can generate a lot of traffic and sales, but getting your video review online and in front of the right eyeballs can be a real challenge.

Now thanks to Customer Review Videos, both affiliates and consumers have a central place to post honest reviews of products and services.

And for affiliates, Customer Review Videos not only makes it easy to build video review web sites in just about any niche you want - you can also start making money with those videos in multiple ways.

Three members of our staff tested Customer Review Videos out. Let’s look at their findings…

Multiple Ways to Make Money

Membership to Customer Review Videos includes the ability to create squeeze pages AND build your own niche websites. You can easily embed brand new videos, or simply use videos that have already been placed on YouTube.

If that wasn’t enough, what really grabbed the attention of our reviewers were the many ways affiliates can make additional money. The system allows you to add all the proven components of a high conversion page such as “Get It Now” links, and eBay and Amazon links - all automatically coded with your affiliate URL.

But it isn’t just about making money from the video itself - which is pretty good on its own. Customer Review Videos adds in additional viral marketing benefits. For example, your referral ID gets embedded in the video, and you earn all additional commissions if someone adds a social bookmark (like with Digg), if someone embeds the video into their blog, or even they email the video to a friend.

Using the Site

Basic membership in Customer Review Videos is free, so you can sign up and look around with no risk. We were delighted to find that the interface was extremely easy to use (unlike some sites we’ve tried to figure out). Everything you might want to do is all laid out in a simple format.

What if you’re new to the whole video marketing game, or new to affiliate marketing? Detailed instructions are provided on how to select a niche, how to find a product and sign up as an affiliate, and how and where to search for appropriate videos.

The Platinum account is $69 a month, and completely worth it. You’ll need a Platinum account to do a few of the more advanced things, but it’s really a small price to pay for saving you so much time and money in building sites from scratch.

With the Platinum account you can:

  • Build Squeeze Pages
    It doesn’t matter whether you have ever built a squeeze page before in your life. You are taken by the hand and guided through the process.
  • Build Niche Websites
    We tested this out by inputting a video for our new Article Marketing site. This took all of 5 minutes to complete (of course, we did have the video already created on YouTube). But just being able to click a few times and build an actual site saved hours and hours, and we didn’t have to pay a web designer to do it.

To sum up Customer Review Videos:

Very easy to use.

With the Platinum account, you can quickly build video squeeze pages and niche websites.

Plenty of high quality videos to choose from, so you’re likely to find something that suits your niche.

Easy plug-ins to add multiple ways to make money (Amazon, eBay, etc.)

You can make a lot of additional money through viral video marketing - much more than simply embedding a video into your own site.

We give Customer Review Videos 5 stars - click here to check it out now!

IMPORTANT UPDATE - GET $20 OFF YOUR SUBSCRIPTION UNTIL APRIL 30!

Use coupon code april2008 when you checkout to get $20 off your monthly subscription for life.

The Week’s Top Affiliate Marketing News Stories (April 16, 2008)

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 12:04 am by Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer

Here are some of the interesting things that have been in the news lately:

Affiliate Summit Session Videos, Transcripts, Audio and Presentation Slides - If you’ve always wondered what type of information is delivered at the Affiliate Summit, you can now watch the videos, even if you didn’t register or go to the show. Here’s the password to get into the videos.

Free SEO Optimized WordPress Themes – Where to find search engine optimized WordPress themes that are SEO ready. This means they have been checked for hidden links, and errors, and are modified to be more efficient with Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.

How Will Mobile Browsing Change Web Marketing? - Here are 5 tips to make sure your web site is ready for the mobile future. Get your share of the 1.5 Billion future users!

New LinkConnector Affilate Widgets - Give your site more graphics and MORE affiliate income opportunities with Widgets. Find out more here.

Video Marketing Tip #3: Fish in All the Income Streams!

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 11:24 pm by Kathy Jackson

Now it’s time to distribute your review video, so make sure you post it on as many video sharing sites as possible. After all, why fish with just one hook and in only one stream, when you can reach more potential viewers and video syndication sites?

Once you’ve got a great video, you’ll want to create as many income streams from it as you possibly can — and in one fell swoop. Remember that every single viewer of your video is a potential customer, so don’t miss any opportunity to put your video to work pre-selling for you.

While it’s great to upload to YouTube or Google Video, if your video is only fishing in one stream, it could get dammed up - and that stops traffic or sales from flowing! So it never hurts to distribute as widely as possible. It’s simple math really….more possibilities to sell = more sales = more money for you…and all with the same video. That’s why it’s important to cast a wide net, and make your video viral.

How do you evaluate a video distribution site?

  • Check the Alexa Rank of the video site, which gives you a good idea of the site’s traffic and popularity. Don’t worry if you can’t find the Alexa Rank of a site like Yahoo Video or AOL Uncut - their parent sites drive tons of traffic to them.
  • What length of video does the site accept? Some sites limit the length of a video to 7 minutes, 10 minutes, etc. If you plan to distribute to a lot of video sites, do your research ahead of time so you don’t have to make several versions of your video.
  • Make sure the site accepts “commercial” videos. Some sites don’t.
  • What’s the demographic of the site’s visitors? If the site appeals to mostly twenty-somethings, maybe it’s not the best place to post a review of an ebook on retirement planning (well, maybe!).

Anatomy of a Pre-Sales Article – April AC Magazine

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 5:28 pm by Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer

The April issue of the Affiliate Classroom Magazine has just been released and it’s all about Content Creation and Article Writing. Here’s what you’ll find this month:

The Anatomy Of A Pre-Sales Article - Kathy Jackson explains how to create an article so it functions like you want it to (i.e. gets opened, read, and passed around). It’s interesting to see how an article can be compared to the human body. You’ll definitely want to be sure you get the “backbone” of your article right the first time!

How to Be Understood by Your Affiliate Manager AND Increase Your Profits - Debra Rabin gives the inside scoop on what affiliate managers look for before deciding to give special attention to an affiliate. Take this short survey and you could quickly go from misunderstood to OUTSTANDING.

Free Content From The Public Domain - Roxanne McHenry gives you a full list of public domain sites. Use these sites to get free articles, music, audio sounds and more!

Quick And Easy Content Creation – Mark Thompson shows you the easiest way to quickly write content. You’ll also find two very secret sites that allow you to create unique content on the fly. We’d appreciate it if you don’t share these with too many people.

Duplicate Content: Play Nice But Stay Out Of The Sandbox! - Evelyn Grazini shares information from Google on what is considered duplicate content. There are a lot of misconceptions about duplicate content, but knowing the rules will make it easier for you to get articles listed in the top search results.

Read these articles carefully and fully, then start using the resources supplied to save time and money in your article marketing efforts.

Download your copy today!

Video Marketing Tip #2: Bait the Hook!

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm by Kathy Jackson

Affiliate video review marketing is a new concept, and while it can prove to be very lucrative, it won’t generate sales if nobody watches your video. In order to get people to watch, you have to use your video title as “bait.” So be creative!

Remember the principles of writing good headlines, such as grabbing the reader’s attention with a benefit. Then apply good headline writing techniques to creating a “killer” title for your video. Remember, those few words in your title or headline are the only shot that you’ve got to entice, intrigue, or tease others to watch your video.

Try to avoid the same old titles everyone else uses - unless, of course, you know that they work!

There’s nothing wrong with modeling your title on the most popular videos in your niche. Just don’t copy a title exactly — add your own twist.

Look at newspaper and magazine headlines for ideas. If the few words across the top of an article make you want to read the rest of the story, you will. But if the words in the headline don’t capture your imagination, tickle your fancy, or intrigue you in some way, you don’t keep reading. The same is true of videos.

Be concise, but try to be inventive and clever with the use of vivid language. “Review of Acme Brand Dog Food” is an okay title, but “Look How My Dog Scooby Sings For Acme Dog Food!” is a lot more fun (don’t you want to see that doggy sing for his supper?).

Anik Gets Rejected!

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 1:13 pm by Anik Singal

A Competition Anik Got Rejected From…

I’m a BIG believer in doing competitions to help motivate everyone as a group and help everyone excel. I just heard of a great competition that Russell Brunson is running… but I got rejected!

He said I didn’t qualify…

He’s running a 90 day competition where you submit a BEFORE and AFTER picture of yourself. An example would be you make enough money to trade in your broken down car for a new Mercedes - or maybe you retire your mom, etc…

The one with the best change/story will win a 2-year lease to a brand new CORVETTE!

I can’t personally participate, but hey, he didn’t say YOU couldn’t…

Check it out… click here!

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