Niche marketing is the fastest way to make money online and one of the quickest ways to get started in niche marketing is by creating affiliate review sites. This is an important technique that shouldn’t be ignored. Finding the right niche takes time, but once it is found, the profits could be endless. Most people who use niche marketing choose to promote affiliate products in their niche and review sites are a key way to promote your niche products.
There are several ways to promote your affiliate products but review sites do tend to work very well, as long as they are done in an informative, clear and detailed way. People are always looking for information to help them make a decision about what to buy. So, the first thing you should do is find a few affiliate products related to your niche and then put up a website that compares those products.
I prefer to actually use the products I review as it makes the review much more authentic, and you will be a step ahead of the competition because you will be giving an added dimension to potential buyers, that others who haven’t directly used the product will just not be able to provide. In fact, many product vendors will provide a review copy if you ask.
When writing the copy for your review site, you should keep the writing short, yet informative. People shy away from reading lengthy paragraphs of unbroken information online. Two to three paragraphs of three to four sentences in length should be sufficient. Make sure you point out the benefits of each product you’re reviewing, but include minor flaws, as well.
Don’t overdo it on the negatives, unless the product is truly awful. People tend to trust reviews more if there are some caveats listed in them.
Highlight the product you deem the best value for the money, and make it clear this is your opinion and that you are an affiliate of the product that you are marketing. My belief is that people are not put off by this, as long as you are upfront about it and that the information you are providing is factual.
Finally, be sure to include links to the merchant pages of each product, and make sure those links are embedded with your affiliate code. There is no point in making a sale and then not being rewarded for it.
These affiliate review sites can be put together on a simple website, but I prefer to use WordPress blogs as they are super simple to set up. As you start to make some income you can consider outsourcing the building of the websites and thus focus more on writing great reviews.
Before you know it you can have several sites in front of potential customers and the beauty is that all the shipping, downloading etc of the product is handled by someone else. A large share of the profits however is yours, and you can’t get much better than that.
I want to thank Alison Wood and Big Sky Marketing for these tips on using review sites.
Download Free How To Build Effective Sales Funnels
Fundamental to the success of most online businesses (particularly information product based companies), is the idea of the sales funnel. Many of the most successful Online Marketers made their name in a particular market segment and took over by developing a very specific sales funnel procedure; guiding prospects via an optimized and tested channel of sales and marketing.
The sales funnel begins by capturing the interest of prospects. A certain percentage of prospects get persuaded to buy and purchase a basic level product, demonstrating they need to have what’s available and are prepared to invest money to resolve their problem.
A sales funnel will then continue to engage with the very best clients, eliminating mismatches and zoning in on the particular target client, offering them more specific services and products, usually at higher prices.
By the finish of this process, the funnel has identified the ultra-responsive clients who buy everything available and obtain the most value and satisfaction out of every purchase made. It’s from these super-responsive customers that almost all profits are created.
In this free eBook, I will introduce you to the sales funnel using simple language. You will learn, exactly, to develop sales funnels, including an assessment of the front end and the back end, and explain why you have to continually trial your funnel procedure thoroughly to make sure of long-term success. I will also examine the various online marketing methods often utilized as a part of a sales funnel’s operation.
In this Beginners Guide to Video Marketing, I’ll share tips and insight to help you get started with video marketing.
I don’t need to tell you on the power of Video Marketing in your digital marketing strategy. The proof is in the numbers:
50% of Internet users are on YouTube – 1 Billion Unique Visitors a month…
75% of people visit a marketer’s website after watching a video…
Website visitors are 64% more likely to buy a product online after watching a video…
Click-thru rates increase 2-3 times when a video is included in an email.
Video Is A Marketer’s Best Friend
Video is the perfect medium to enhance your existing strategies, says columnist Michael Litt, and will help you nurture leads and close deals.
Video Is Engaging
Buyers have a lot of people vying for their attention. They are constantly bombarded with sales pitches, white papers, case studies, product information, and on and on. Those things take time to read, and they’re rarely enjoyable. As marketers, we risk being so eager to push information at buyers that we forget to think about whether they’ll actually like it.
In fact, Cisco predicts that streaming video will make up 79 percent of all Internet traffic by 2018.
Modern marketers need to think like media companies and create their content like we’re giving the audience a gift without necessarily asking for something in return. Video is perfect for that because you can get your point across quickly and express yourself — dare I say even with humor — in ways that are harder with text. You can evoke emotion and establish a connection with your viewers in ways not possible with the written word.
Sixty-five percent of viewers watch more than three-fourths of a given video, according to Invodo. Any content marketer would be thrilled with that kind of readership for a piece of text.
Video Drives Lead Generation And Qualification
Compelling video content helps lure your audience and can also be a great way to bring new prospects into your story. Effective video content is much more likely to be shared by your audience than a traditional e-book or white paper, giving you the opportunity to expand your reach and build new relationships through the power of engaging content.
Video can also be easily syndicated across various distribution channels including your own website, your email marketing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and more. While “going viral” isn’t likely your goal, video marketing offers a unique opportunity to get your messages out to a wider audience and drive higher click-through-rates and shares than traditional content.
In addition to driving engagement, video content offers a number of ways to bring people into your sales funnel and qualify them as potential buyers. Adding an email gate to the start of your video, or a lead collection form to the end allows marketers to capture new leads, capitalizing on the time when they are most engaged with your brand and messaging.
With the right tools in place, this information can be tied directly to a marketing automation platform, providing a qualified lead that can be tied back to video efforts.
Adding video viewing activities to lead scoring can add another qualification channel to the funnel. If you only score a prospect based on e-book downloads or email views, you’ll miss out on other hints they’ve been dropping you.
Add in video viewing behavior, and you’ll collect data on your prospects from every interaction. More touchpointss means more detailed qualifications, which makes for much warmer sales calls.
Looking at video engagement data lets you see how viewers interact with content from start to finish, and see where they’re dropping off, or re-watching. (Hint: You can’t do this with any other medium!)
It’s A Natural For Nurturing Leads
Now that you’ve expanded your reach and brought more prospects into your funnel, tap video to help nudge them through the buying journey.
Start at the top of the funnel and help them see how brilliant you are, but also that your company is just plain fun to work with. Create playful content that features company culture.
Showcase your expertise with how-to videos and thought leadership interviews. One-on-one interviews with the CEO, execs, or support staff demonstrate not only that they know what they’re talking about, but also that they are real people eager to help their customers succeed.
After you’ve gotten their attention, help move them through the funnel with detailed product demos, customer testimonials, and video case studies. Share videos that show how your solution works with other products and services they’re already using.
To help seal the deal, get more specific, and keep in touch without pushing the hard sell. Know your lead is going to be at an event you’re attending? Send a personalized message to offer a meeting. Show them instructional videos to let them know that you’ll continue to offer support even after the deal is done.
You’ll Whether Your Video Marketing Is Working
So far, I’ve been focusing more on the art than the science of video marketing, but it’s the science that is really exciting. Not to mention, it makes the art more effective. Like everyone else in business, marketers are increasingly expected to show results, preferably in quantitative form.
Wouldn’t it be great to know whether that prospective customer read the white paper you sent him? You might be able to see whether he opened it, but you cannot see whether he actually read it. Odds are pretty good he skimmed the first couple of paragraphs, set it aside to get back to later, and then never did.
With video, you can see exactly how a buyer interacted with it. You can tell how much of the content she watched. Maybe she loved it and re-watched it. Maybe she watched the first few seconds and hated it. Maybe she watched it to the end and clicked on a call-to-action that took her to another video.
“Maybe” is the key word here because, with video, you can make “maybe” a non-factor. With that white paper, you’re left guessing. With video, you can know to the second how much she consumed. As a marketer or sales rep, that is powerful because you’ll follow up with the person differently based on that data.
To make it even more powerful, you can integrate your video viewing data with your CRM or marketing automation platform, so you have the information in the context of every other contact you’ve had with the buyer.
We all need friends, and we all have criteria to help decide whether we want to be friends with someone. It just so happens that video meets the same criteria for marketers. It gives more than it takes. It’s natural and doesn’t feel forced. It’s fun. It gets along well with the friends you already have. And most importantly, it makes you better than you were without it.
Trying to deny the rising popularity of video marketing on YouTube is about as easy as denying the rising sun in the morning. You can close your eyes and ignore it – but billions are still seeing it. And that ‘billions’ comment …
We hold one AMA (Ask Me Anything) each month in the Wistia Community. During each AMA, experts from the video marketing industry (and beyond!) answer member questions via live-streamed video. We’re always looking …
http://www.avactis.com/Fri, 26 Jun 2015 02:34:21 -0700
Video marketing is nothing but using videos instead of text or just images to market your product online. A lot of e-commerce websites now use videos to display and/or demo their products. The most obvious advantages are -.
Read more …
Extending Your Companies Reach With Video Marketing …
http://videomarketing4life.info/Fri, 26 Jun 2015 23:08:18 -0700
You know how important promotion is to the success of your business. You might have tried newspaper ads, billboards, or radio. In the modern world, however,
Read more …
You know how important promotion is to the success of your business. You might have tried newspaper ads, billboards, or radio. In the modern world, however, video marketing has become the most cost-effective method for promoting your business. Continue onward and you will learn a new approach for reaching your target audience and keeping them interested after the dust has settled.
Conquering The Fear Of Video Marketing | It’s As Easy As …
Adding video to your marketing is not as hard as you think and is more important than ever. According to iStock, 88% of internet users are now spending more time on sites that have videos on them. That’s a huge percentage …
In this article, I’m going to discuss ways you can generate free website traffic.
Despite the plethora of 1-click software programs we’re constantly pitched, most do not live up to their claims; at least for the long haul.
I’ve found that these 10 traffic getting methods when implemented, will drive loads of traffic to your website or blog for zero cost.
You’ll have to roll up your sleeves and do some work. I didn’t say it was easy, but if you’re a newbie with little or no budget, these methods will get you traffic – which ultimately translates into profits. Then you can either outsource the methods or use your profits to”buy” traffic.
10 Methods For Driving FREE Traffic
1. YouTube and Other Video Sites
YouTube is my first choice because YouTube videos get ranked super fast. And thanks to software (free and paid), there are lots of ways to create great videos. Here are a few suggestions:
Smartphone Camera. Got an iPhone or Android smartphone? Then you’re in business. With a little practice, you can be pumping out quality videos advertising your product or service in no time.
Animoto. Animoto used to be free. Now they charge $8.99/month for a basic membership. You can create real videos using images. You can add a limited amount of text and they even provide soundtracks to boot. Animoto is super-simple to learn and there are plenty of tutorials. Go to Animoto.com and sign up for a free 7-day trial.
Jing. Think of Jing as Camtasia’s little brother. Both are produced by TechSmith. Camtasia will cost you over $300, while Jing is FREE. The tradeoff is that you are limited to a 5-minute video, which by the way is plenty of time to produce a cool screen capture video. Find out more about Jing here.
Windows MovieMaker. My least favorite choice is Windows Moviemaker. However, in a pinch, it too works and there is no limitation on the length of the video.
A video is a powerful traffic method… if you take action!
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2. Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is another proven way to get targeted relevant traffic to your website. While there are software programs that can help with the heavy lifting, the most effective way to drive traffic with blog comments is to post them manually. This increases your chances of getting your blog comments approved by the blog owner.
The method is straightforward. Find blogs related to your niche. Read through the content and leave a comment that is relevant to the article and the adds value for the reader. Make sure you enter your information where requested and the URL to your site or the post/page of the article you’re promoting. When possible you can live a link within your comment recommending the reader visit your page for more information. DO NOT SPAM! It will only get your comment deleted.
There are only a couple of automated blog commenting software programs that I recommend.
ScrapeBox. ScrapeBox is a monster program that can create tens-of-thousands of blog comments. It is used by affiliate/online marketers (considered ‘BlackHat’) and it does have a steep learning curve. The software sells for $97 and it has many specialized uses. To address what Scrapebox can do will require a post devoted solely to Scrapebox. Maybe I’ll do one in the near future.
Comment Kahuna is another blog commenting software program that I’ve used for years and it is what I’d recommend starting with. It is not a ‘blackhat’ software, but it will save you loads of time identifying blogs in your niche where you can leave a relevant comment, add your link and drive targeted traffic to your blog or offer.
3. Forum Posting
Forum Posting is another popular method. In many ways, forums are the precursors to modern-day Social Media sites like Facebook. People join forums because of shared interests. Dog lovers join forums about dogs to get tips, share stories and learn more about their breed, etc.
The process is simple. Find forums in your niche and join them. Set up your profile, remember to add a link to your website in the profile and then become active in the forum. Leave comments, tips, etc. when appropriate. Avoid trying to sell anything; at least in the beginning. As you become known in the forum, and if you’ve been sharing good stuff you’ll gain the respect of forum members. Then over time, you can begin to share links to relevant content on your site, products, etc. with the forum members. The trick here is to join multiple forums and to engage consistently.
As of late, lots of marketers simple join forums to get the back-link from the profile. While it’s a tactic that works when used correctly, just putting a link your profile will not get you traffic. You have to engage with others in the forum, establish credibility and contribute useful content when appropriate.
I also use forum profile links as a component of ‘Tiered Linking’ in SEO campaigns as well as participating in niche specialized forums regularly.
If you choose the ‘forum’ route, just know that it is not a quick fix to getting traffic.
4. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to drive traffic to your site, especially if you can create great content. Bloggers are always in search of relevant content as everyone grows weary of writing articles. The idea here is to contact the blog owner and offer to contribute content on their site. Nothing is guaranteed. You will more than likely have to send them content and wait for them to approve it. However, if what you send is high quality they will use it. As a guest blogger, you will be able to add a link back to your website. Guest blogging helps to establish you as an authority in your niche. Definitely drives traffic and it’s worth doing.
Matt Cutts (Google as a software engineer) recently posted an article on his blog, The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO about Google’s concerns that Guest Blogging is being used as a method to game the Google algorithm for backlinks. It’s worth reading, especially if you are using Guest Bloggers on your personal blog.
Watch this video made by Matt Cutts on Guest Blogging. As long as you’re not trying to game the system, you will not incur the wrath of the Google gods!
5. Article Marketing
No, article marketing is not dead. Although the power article marketing once had has diminished, it’s still a method I use even now. Millions of people still use Article Directories as sources of content. Your goal if you should decide to use this method is to rise above your competition by creating quality content and optimizing it to outrank your competitors. The next most important, but often overlooked aspect of article marketing is the ‘Authors/Resource’ box. This is where you get to put in your link (often 2x) and refer the reader to your site for more information.
Tip– use the resource box to build your email list. Instead of sending readers to your blog/website home page, create a squeeze page and collect their name and email address. This is a far better way to use article marketing. You will get traffic and a lead. umkyseo can help you get the most out of your Amazon marketing efforts by looking at all aspects of your Amazon presence. They optimize your ad campaign using proven strategies that work to increase brand awareness and drive sales over the top.
6. Free Classifieds
Classified sites have been around forever. It kind of old school, but will still get you traffic if done correctly. In order to get clicks with classifieds, it all comes down to your copywriting skills. Classified ads are “tiny” and you’ve got to get your point across quickly and ‘sensationally’. Give people a reason to want to click your link. Examples of sites that offer classified ads are below.
Craigslists.com
Backpage.com
Ebay.com
Facebook.com
7. Social Media Sites
Social Media sites are more popular than ever. An added benefit is your content can go VIRAL, exploding traffic to your website. Popular Social Media sites include Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, MySpace, Tagged, MeetUp, etc.
Each platform has its own rules – but they are easy enough to comprehend and there are plenty of guides that can help you learn how to master them.
8. Press Releases
The Press Release is a useful way to generate traffic. (1) They can rank quickly and rank high in the search engines, (2) they establish your brand and (3) they establish your authority in your niche.
In addition, having a well-designed data governance program is important for businesses to avoid inconsistent data silos in different departments and business units.
9. Social Bookmarking
You should submit your content to as many social bookmarking sites as possible. Again, people are always in search of information. Social bookmarking sites make it easy for searchers to find relevant content that has already been codified for them. By bookmarking your content on multiple sites, you increase the chances of it being found getting traffic as the result. Sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, etc. have huge audiences. With Social Bookmarking, as with Classified Ads, it comes down to your copywriting. Your title and description have to be compelling to entice readers to click through.
I have to admit, I do use software to handle my social bookmarking chores. When I first started it was easy because there were only a handful of these sites. Today there are thousands. Automation makes this chore simple and efficient.
10. Offline Traffic
Put your website URL on business cards, flyers, postcards, coffee mugs, t-shirts… anywhere you can think of.
To maximize your traffic efforts, use the above methods together. Never rely on just one method of getting traffic.
If you found this post helpful, consider sharing it below. If you have specific questions about a particular method leave a comment and I’ll be sure to respond ASAP!
Recommended: Check out Joshua Zamora’s Syndlab Application for Content Syndication
