This subject is something that causes most users of safelists and traffic exchanges to spin their wheels for a long time.

You see the owners will tell you that you must promote your affiliate links so that you can build downlines, these will generate extra traffic for you and everyone who upgrades will mean that you get a commission. Now although technically true what you’re doing here is building up their business and getting yourself stuck in newbie mode.

The true way to build a downline is to think bigger and promote one downline builder in your marketing funnel.

In terms of downline builder I would recommend 3 main sites, but as you can see by looking at the banners and badge I’m using as a lead magnet you should be able to see which one is currently my favourite.

First up is TrafficHoopla or the breakway site ListHoopla

The USP here is testing and results. Each week the list of sites gets updated so you’re always promoting all of the top sites through one single link. The downside is that you get very little self branding and you will need to create your own splash pages, and effectively by promoting it directly you’ve still got the issue that your hard work is building Bill’s business rather than your own.

Second is Affiliate Funnel

I think the motto at the top of the page say’s it all – “Build YOUR Business – Not Someone Else’s”

The reason I love Affiliate Funnel is that it gives you complete control over your affiliate links. It allows you add your own picture for personal branding, and even better you can add your own autoresponder code into the squeezepages.

This really is massive as it’s giving you the leads and allowing you to follow-up with them. Even if they decide not to join Affiliate Funnel you have them on your list and this gives you the chance to form relationships and make sales in the future.

The last cool thing you can do is to put 8 of your favourite sites together and promote them via 1 single link.

Here’s my unique downline builder page – http://www.affiliatefunnel.com/ymp/4/shugster

Last up is ClickTrackProfit

Straight away you will notice that this affiliate link has massive branding as the video is me talking directly to you.

The real power of this downline builder is that it’s actually a training site, so the real massive benefit is that by getting people to take part they will become part of a very unique community where sharing knowledge and trying to focus in on long term self development is key.

I personally find it refreshing that when someone joins and starts pushing affiliate links for crappy triplers and sites that prey on the vunerable that they are told the wrongs of what they are doing. Plenty of people will dislike the TimTech training but personally I find it a refreshing change that will hopefully flourish in 2012.

Summary – How I Build My Downlines…

I promote myself and my own products first, and then include the 3 downline builders above in my marketing funnel. You can see the banners on this blog, they are also on various download pages, and in SafelistSecrets I teach you step by step how to set up Affiliate Funnel.

Hope this helps you

Andrew Stark

 

 

So way back in 2003 I started in my quest to become an internet marketer, yet it wasn’t until 2005 that I was actually able to generate a good monthly profit. This post will help to explain some of the mistakes I made (and some that I am still making) so that you can push forward and start to see success.

Don’t Call Yourself A Newbie

This really is massive, if you call yourself a newbie then you’re prime pickings for the scumbags who rely on people like you who openly admit they know nothing about internet marketing. Also when it comes to doing anything you automatically assume that it will fail due to you being a newbie.

A small change in mindset will make you an intermediate marketer who is learning the skills required to be successful vs a newbie who’s looking for push button solutions.

Stop Being A Sponge

Have a look at the information products you’ve bought in the last 6 months, how many of them have you taken action on? This builds on the newbie mindset, if you bought a product and haven’t taken action then all you’ve done is waste your time and effort. This is similar to the “magic bullet syndrome” or “slot machine marketing” where it’s easier to buy another course than admit to yourself that you failed with the previous one.

Rather than just drawing in the information like a sponge decide to dry out and take action on existing knowledge rather than buying into the next fad.

Start Branding Yourself

The one thing that makes you different from every other affiliate marketer is your personality. People do business with people that they like, know, and trust. When you look at all the super affiliates who are able to make hundreds of sales they all have one thing in common – a connection with the people who buy the products they recommend.

Now to do this you will need to have your own website, if you haven’t done so already register yourname.com or yourbusiness.com immediately. Then get some basic hosting from hostgator and install wordpress in < 5 minutes using fantastico. Immediately you now have some online real estate that you can call your own.

Even better create a free report on the niche that you’re passionate about and now you can start listbuilding and creating the relationships that will lead directly to more affiliate commissions. The other massive benefit of a blog is that it gives you somewhere central to send all your social media traffic to and show visitors how to interact with you.

DUSAP – Don’t Use Standard Affiliate Pages

This is a phrase that I picked up via the users of sweeva – basically it builds on the previous point. Should you wish to promote any sort of affiliate offer you should create a unique page that tells people why you’re promoting “product A” and what the benefits will be. This is really powerful branding for you, and if the owner of the site sees that you’re prepared to put time and effort into your marketing this will only help you in the future.

Now this won’t happen overnight and you will need to keep at it, just remember that if you’re also networking with the people who are also branding themselves that you can drag each other up to achieve success – the individual engine do nothing until you put them together.

Start Building Your Own List

This builds on the previous 2 points. When you are advertising send all of your traffic to pages that you have control over. Once you have a list / social media followers you are able to tell them directly of a new offer via an email broadcast.

If you’ve got branding sorted you should now have a free report so set up a squeeze page and start looking for adswap partners. Think about the people you’ve seen doing similar things to yourself, see if you place links on each others blogs or download pages.

You can also start looking into multiple traffic generation tactics, eg forum marketing, banner advertising, facebook adverts, youtube videos, articles, guest blogging, and many many more methods.

Treat Your Website Like A Business

Realise that having an online business is the same as having an offline business. Just because you’re selling information and don’t have the same overheads it’s still the same concepts. In order for things to happen you have to put in hard work and invest money into the project. If you sit back and do nothing then nothing will happen.

Decide how much time and money you are prepared to put into your business to make it a success. If you can’t find the time then perhaps you’ve chosen the wrong niche, if you can’t get passionate about your business then it’s time to go find a job. Bit of a tough love message, but some people just aren’t suited to being their own boss.

Stop Doing Everything Yourself

This is something that I’m very guilty of doing. I should really be outsourcing most of my traffic generation to a virtual assisstant, but trusting someone else to do this is something that I find very difficult.

The only thing I’ve really learned how to outsource successfully is graphic design. When I read about all the people I want to be like you get to realise that they all have staff doing the mundane jobs. The same is true when I look at all of the senior managers, they don’t arrange their own meetings, book travel, or fill in expenses. The company pays for them to have a secretary.

I think my aim for 2012 is start including a virtual assistant in my monthly expenses, and treat the expense in the same way that I treat autoresponder and hosting costs – an essential overhead of my online business.

The 7 things that will stop you being a newbie

Take action on the information you already know. Make sure that you own a little corner of the internet and use it to sell yourself first, and when people stop and listen to you tell them about products and services that will earn you commissions. Write a 500 word article on a topic your passionate about, give an ecover for it, and start giving it away to build your list. Lastly learn to treat the internet like a business and spend money to make money.

Andrew

p.s. It’s great to know your thoughts, and I’d love to visit your site, so leave a comment.

As you know I do like buying real books, and the last book I actually read cover to cover was by Gary Vaynerchuk

What you will pick up from Gary is the real passion in the way that he wants to help you achieve your goals. Rather than work a dead end job for someone you hate and doing something you don’t like he explains how to make money by following your passion. 

You see I’m actually lucky as one of the things I’m passionate about is science, and I get paid to experiment in world class chemistry labs and make molecules that could one day become a medical drug. Now I’m also wise enough to realise that you can’t rely on a job for life anymore, so I would take my passion for setting up marketing funnels and set myself up as a freelancer doing lead generation for the thousands of small companies in the Manchester area who have no existing websites.

So if you’re looking to “crush it” in 2012 here’s my top 3 tips…

Outcare Your Competition

This is mainly aimed at those of you who already have a website or business. Given the choice people will do business with people that they like, care, and trust. Sadly many companies don’t understand this, here’s an example of my dealings with 2 different websites selling clothes.

Last week I ordered some new action trousers from the bear grylls store as they half price, I had to pay an extra £4.95 for delivery and the only contact I’ve had from the company was the orignal email to tell me I’d placed an order. Call me old fashioned but if I’m paying extra for delivery I expect next day delivery to be the very minimum.

Compare this to seven clothing who I bought a shirt from last year. The price and delivery was excellent, and the people who run the shop are obviously passionate about the clothes that they well. I follow the shop on twitter and the company actually want me to do business with them, I have received a physical postcard with an exclusive promotional code to get money off.

If you thing about the traffic exchange industry the guys over at TimTech as obviously obvious readers of “The Thank You Ecomony” and when you know that customers are well looked after you don’t think twice about working with them and promoting their products.

Create quality online content

This should be fairly obvious, but writing about something you’re passionate about is so much easier than trying to write an article for a specific keyword that some software you bought for a small fortune told you would make $5 per adsense click if you ranked #1 in google for it.

It’s super simple to create a wordpress blog and just by keeping a diary about your passion it’s amazing how people with the same passion for a subject will find you. Just think if were to add a signature line with a link to your blog at the forum that you spend too much time on how much you could be making with simple monetization widgets for sites such as amazon that will sell items relating to whatever niche it is that you’re passionate about.

Even better would be to take the best posts from your blog and create an ebook on the subject so that you have a lead magnet to use for listbuilding. 

Have An Opinion

With all the social media available it’s amazing how interconnected the world is, and if you want to get noticed then tweeting and liking articles relating to your passion is a great way to get noticed. Even better is to blog about news items and give reviews of things that you have bought.

In the world of internet marketing it’s almost impossible to get an imparial review as splogs everywhere will be trying to presell you the latest course that will make you millions with no effort on your part apart from a one off payment.

But when people read an honest review and realise you have actually bought and read the information it helps to make you become seen as an authority figure in the niche. As I said earlier people will buy from people they like, care, and trust.

The simple act of posting your opinions rather than affiliate links will help you become a leader in your chosen niche.

Just remember, if you’re passionate the buyers will find you

Thanks for reading

Andrew

If you want to succeed as an affiliate marketer then I hope by now that you realise just promoting the same affiliate page as everyone else is just not good enough in 2012. For example if I just promoted the standard ClickTrackProfit affiliate link in rotation then I would just be yet another newbie wasting my time and effort.

So in case you don’t know what a marketing funnel is then here’s a graphic I borrowed from the internet.

The whole point of this is not to sell, but generate leads who are interested in the niche that you have selected.

For example I would use a service use as AdKreator to  generate the eye catching graphics and headline. If you can’t think of a good headline then use google to find templates for examples. In fact the headline of this post is one of 52 I’m working through!

Now that you’ve caught someone’s attention through a clever and effective splash page this is where the Zen feeling will occur.

You see the traffic now reaching your desired “action” page is now ready and waiting to do exactly what you want. As you’ve already seen in my best converting squuezepage I make it clear that I’m an expert when it comes to safelist marketing and the people who enter their email will see an example of the content included in the report and if they warm to my style of marketing then the sale is so much easier to make than had I just send all my traffic to the main salespage.

Checking your stats and finding that someone went into the top of your marketing funnel and came out the bottom as a customer really is one of the best feelings you can expericence online. If you’re looking for a resolution in 2012 I suggest you make it creating a marketing funnel.

Andrew

p.s. If you create a marketing funnel for an affiliate site then it will get you noticed by the product owner and good things should happen to you for your hard work.