Online Marketing Partnerships

The Power of Partnerships

So you’ve heard about online and affiliate marketing and have learned that they are a great way to make money online, but are you new to the process and don’t know where to begin?

If so it’s time to objectively take stock of your skills and learn what you need to in order to succeed.

At its most basic, online marketing breaks down into two principle parts:  search engine optimization (SEO) and sales copy.  The SEO will drive traffic to your sites, and good sales copy will convince those visitors to buy the product from you.  When you begin to get traffic and sales, you will have the basis of your own ‘list’ of clients. But what if you don’t know a lot about either?

Focus on one or the other to start with and once you have something to bring to the table, you can look for someone to partner with for a campaign.

Sales copy will likely prove to be the valuable skill, and as such is a great place to start.  Look for online resources, books from the local library about copywriting, anything you can get your hands on.  Also, read through the websites that other online marketers have produced.

For every person that wants to be an online marketer and has good sales copy skills, there is another person who is good at SEO but has problems stringing together words into compelling sentences.  Check with forums devoted to online marketing, and you can probably find somebody who is willing to team up with you.

Especially in your early stages of internet marketing, it is better to split all the profit generated than not make any profit at all.  Once you gain some experience, you can strike out on your own, or you may find that you like the partnership and continue with it.

Either way, by combining your skills and somebody else’s at the beginning of your online marketing career, you can start making sales faster.

Where To Find People

For Viralurl, Frank and I teamed up as we had skills that complimented eachother. Viralurl has been a big hit and we have plans to take it to the next level as well. I met Frank a while before we partnered through networking. A great new business social network that you can use to meet people to partner with is ViralNetworks! I am on ViralNetworks as well as 18,000 other marketers, so come join us and get networking! 🙂

Author:
Colin Klinkert
Home Business – Affiliate Marketing

The Intro Video To This Post Can Be Found: http://viralnetworks.com/view/e533m

You’ve probably seen the ads and the listings on job sites:  “Make Great Income From Home!  All You Need Is A Computer!”  Is there truth to these ads?  Yes and no.

If these people are paying for an advertisement, then they are expecting to make some sort of profit on the deal, so they may just be trying to sell you something.  Make sure to research these offers before committing to anything.  But, even though they may be trying to sell you something, these ads are truthful:  you can make money on the internet, and all you need is a computer (and a good work ethic).  The easiest way to start is with a home business using affiliate marketing.

What is affiliate marketing?

Essentially, it is selling someone else’s stuff.  A person will produce a product and register it with an online affiliate management site like Clickbank.  Affiliate marketers (you) will register with that site and promote the product online.  When somebody buys the product through you, they click a special link and part of the sale price goes to the person who developed the product, and part of it goes to you.  Depending on the affiliate offer this can be anything from 30% to 90% to the affiliate.

(Often the reason the product owner offers a huge commission is that the main reason they are selling the product is to build a client list for future marketing purposes.)

The beauty of this system is that once you have developed the marketing strategy to sell this product, it is there for as long as you keep the website active, so you can earn passive income for months after beginning a campaign.  Even after you’ve forgotten about it entirely and have already done three or four other projects, your bank account will keep growing.

Affiliate marketing requires you to be able to write good sales copy (or pay somebody else to do it), and drive web traffic to a website that features that sales copy (or pay somebody else to do it).  Depending on the profit margin, you may be able to subcontract some elements, but it is a good idea to learn every facet in the beginning.  This maximizes your profit and gives you a good grounding on all aspects of affiiliate marketing.

If you don’t have your own product to sell (yet!!), then affiiliate marketing is a great way to start making money online.

Good Affiliate Programs:

Good affiliate programs are programs that sell themselves because the service offered is of high quality, the sales pages have been split tested and proven to convert and there is a lot of social proof (testimonials from other happy customers)

My Suggestion:

Viralurl is the program I would suggest, as we have thousands of positive feedbacks and our offers are proven to convert at well over 5% from free to paid & we also often pay you just for getting free signups. I know that it is my program so you will be thinking, “of course you will suggest your stuff” and whilst I don’t claim that statement to be wrong, Viralurl meets all the criteria of a winning affiliate program and our top promoters have earned over $20,000 in affiliate commissions (And these commissions are recurring, either monthly or yearly). If you are not a member of Viralurl yet, it is worth a look 😉

Author:
Colin Klinkert
Is The Warrior Forum An Internet Marketers Best Friend?

Video Intro To This Post: http://viralnetworks.com/view/jhD5L

The WarriorForum would have to be one of the best free resources for internet marketers anywhere. The forum is frequented by marketers from newbies to gurus, all with the common aim of making money online. It has been around for 10 years, and has over 100,000 members, some more active than the vast majority.

Sure, there is the occasional rant, the quick-to-be-squashed blatant advertiser, but these small annoyances aside, the amount of knowledge and advice available here is priceless. The fact that membership is free means there is no reason for any aspiring IMer to leech as much information from forum members as they can handle.

For newcomers, I would caution you to always use the Search feature before posting a question, and be specific. Questions like “How can I make money online?” will be either ignored or ridiculed. The members will not do the work for you, but show them that you have done your research and are giving it your all, and they will fall over themselves to help.

Aside from the different free “Rooms” there is a “War Room” which attracts a once-only charge for membership, and this is where the serious dudes hang out. There is also a “Warriors Special Offer” (WSO) section where you can pick up some useful tools at below regular price, or for free. Understand though that most free products will require you to ‘opt in’ to a members’ site. It is a not-quite-sneaky way for them to build their lists. And there is nothing to stop you from doing the same.

When you do have a product of your own to sell (i.e. not an affiliate product), for the princely sum of $20 you can list it as a WSO (read the rules first).

The Warrior Forum is an ideal place to get feedback on landing pages and sales copy, and a fantastic locale for finding JV partners, and outsourcing providers – writers, designers etc. Watching the popular threads and questions from members can also provide insight into what this niche might be looking for in the way of ‘how-to’ products.

So whether you are new to internet marketing or someone more experienced who wants to be sure to stay in the loop, the Warrior Forum is a cool place to hang out.

Some of our members say our forum is cooler then the WarriorForum, We leave that up to you: http://viralnetworks.com/view/Cww3Q I say, The More The Better. Come join me at ViralNetworks!

Author:
Colin Klinkert
Lead Generation Business – Dr Mike and Koz

48 second Video Intro to this post can be seen here: http://viralnetworks.com/view/KdPLl

Dr Mike Woo-Ming and Brian “Koz” Kosobucki have together developed an interesting lead generation software package, that they unveiled at the World Internet Summit in Australia this month.

Dr Mike has for years now been teaching people about the power of lead generation for internet marketing. There are thousands of businesses both online and offline who will pay for new leads, and some will pay thousands (think ‘real estate agents’).

Koz has made a living with niche sites and coupon marketing and has used some unconventional methods of traffic and lead generation. In fact he had developed a system of lead generation that didn’t even require you to have a website. When Dr Mike heard about this, he got on board and together have developed some (expensive – around $USD3,500) software that will generate leads in just about every niche.

By entering in keywords (e.g. baby strollers) and city (e.g. San Francisco), the software delivers the user a list of people who have entered search queries for the keyword. But that’s not all it delivers. It also gives you a transcription of their inquiry and their email address. The premise is that by ‘replying’ to their query with a product for sale you are not spamming. I think the jury will be out on this for a while though.

For big ticket items, like real estate sales, the potential is huge. Being able to provide a Realtor in Santa Monica with a list of everyone who has recently searched for a home in that town, could be worth a LOT of money.

On investigation, it seems that much of the data the system gathers comes from sites like Craigslist, though I’m not sure whether it is with the site’s permission or not. Also, the areas that the software covers is still limited, although the US seems to be very well catered for.

If setting up a lead generation business appeals to you, then this Lead Evolution product could be worth investigating. As the jury is still out on this software in terms of it’s ethical situation, you will see I am not using an affiliate link to the site, it is a direct link for your informational purpose only.

If you are promoting a product in the Internet Marketing niche, a site that allows you to market to 100% double optin, hungry buyers is Frank and My membership site: Viralurl Dot Com

Come Network with me at the Newest, Hottest Business Social Network… See You There!

Author:
Colin Klinkert
The Importance of Customer Service?

I have a few sites in the ‘internet marketing’ niche as you know. One is a year old in 2 weeks, Viralurl and we (Frank and I) do have a VA that works on the support desk but we are still logged in there all the time we are online and answer tickets very fast.

I mention that because it is not a small site, and we are both very busy, but we have taken a conscious decision that one of the things that will differ us from other sites is our customer service. Well now I am in the process of launching ViralNetworks! and am coming across the same situation. I also have a personal VA and she too will man the ViralNetworks! helpdesk once we launch, but I will also be about to handle all the questions she can’t in a very timely manor.

I get many positive feedbacks as a result of this and I am certain it leads people to feel more comfortable doing business with me and spreading the word of my site (The ever important Viral aspect).

Here is one that just came in then and inspired this post:

Colin,
Thank you for your quick response. I was easily able to set up the
email add and send it. I have been in sales and sales management for many
years and have always insisted that getting back to customers be a number
one priority.
I am hoping that using your service will be the start of much sucess
in my online efforts. There is much to learn , but if the response level
stays this high, I’m sure it won’t be long before the campagins are
working on all cylinders.
Once again, I would like to thank you for your quick response. I
can’t wait to start recommending your software at every opportunity. Call
on me any time for a testimonial.
Sincerely yours,
Bruce ********

That’s not to toot my horn, but would Bruce, (in this instance, there are MANY others like this) say that he is very happy and can’t wait to recommend my service to everyone if I had taken 3 or more days to get back to him and address is concern… my guess is not.

Two Part Question For You:

* How Much Importance Do You Place On Customer Service In Your Business? &
* At What Point Does Your Business Get Simply Too Big To Maintain The Personal Touch?
Author:
Colin Klinkert
Is Outsourcing Right For Your Business?

Let’s Talk About Outsourcing…

One of the biggest blessings to SEO is the ability to Outsource from doing everything yourself. You may be a one person business or a small company, either way, you can greatly increase the growth of your business. You can obtain many of these services through specialized websites. Some of the tasks you may want to outsource are;

  1. Directory submission
  2. Link building
  3. Search engine Optimization
  4. Writing content for websites
  5. Article writing
  6. Keyword analysis
  7. Competitive research
  8. Website analysis

You will find that outsourcing will provide many benefits, leaving you more time to work on the things you enjoy and do best. Also, outsourcing allows you to put your focus on the business end of things rather than the many little things that take up so much of your time.

As you know, Time is something that seems to slip away from us so quickly. We as Internet Marketers have had to learn how to budget our time wisely since we are working on our own schedules without having to punch in a time clock.

There are many Internet Marketers who have been able to build great success by focusing on the important tasks of generating income. You will outsource different tasks, hopefully having them completed in a timely manner, making your business run smoothly.

When using SEO Outsourcing, you need to make sure you do it correctly, and there are some limitations, as there are with anything. You will find that you will have certain expectations, but in the real world, not everyone will meet those expectations. Plan for the bumps in the road, give yourself some time for ‘corrections’ or ‘do-overs’.

You will notice that SEO Outsourcing in on the rise which is due to the ongoing growth of Internet Marketing. More and more marketers and companies are outsourcing different jobs, and therefore, there are more specialty companies or persons who are offering their services online.

Once you find a great Outsourcing help, hang on to them, they will help your business grow and let you put your time where it’s really needed.

Someone I use for outsourcing and highly recommend is: Annette Jensen

Other options are: Guru, Elance and oDesk

Author:
Colin Klinkert