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Alternative Affiliate Marketing Methods w/out adwords, articles, blogging, or SEO
By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog | March 27, 2007
A reader asks:
Can you share with us what is the fastest way to earn money through affiliate marketing without going into google adwords, article writing, blogging and search engine optimization?
Hmmm, this could be a long post. 
Before I answer that, let me list the pluses and minuses I see with the methods you said you weren’t interested in, so we can build some groundwork.
First, you said you want to make money as an affiliate (ie, not creating and selling your own product). While that’s a good way to start, for me personally it makes sense to work at creating your own products you can eventually sell in that niche, but even if you don’t my strong advice is to:
TREAT Your Affiliate Business As If It Were Your Own Business
In other words, if you attract a visitor through whatever method you’re using (paid ads, reciprocal links, natural search engine results, etc), don’t just send them off through your affiliate link never to be heard from again. You may make that one sale, but you’re not building anything over time.
Instead, try having them opt-in for a special report they can’t pass up, then you can pass them through to your affiliate recommendation. But if they don’t buy, you can send them a followup email the next week recommending something else they might want to buy, etc.
By doing this, you’re building up an asset (your subscriber list) that builds value over time, so that you’re building your own business as well and not just the business of the companies you’re recommending. (Just as if you were selling your own products to them instead of recommending affiliate products.)
Now, onto the methods you downplayed:
1) Google Adwords - When you say you’re not interested in Google Adwords, I assume you’re saying you’re not interested in paid advertising of any sort. I personally like paid advertising because it’s quick (I can get traffic to an offer overnight)… In fact, I’ve spent an enormous amount of money in online paid advertising successfully (that’s the
Upside: Quick results. You can get traffic to an offer overnight, and if it’s profitable, you can increase your advertising and rollout for even better fast results. I’ve spent an enormous amount of money in online advertising and have profited handsomely from it.
In addition, Google Adwords allows you to run tests very inexpensively in relation to other online advertising media.
Downside: Obviously there’s risk, and when paid advertising fails online, it FAILS. I once spent $2,000 on a banner ad campaign that brought in a total of 3 sales for $120 total. I’ve got the ad budget to test and be able to absorb the cost of failed campaigns, but it’s expensive if you’re not already profitable.
It’s not like Google Adwords is a secret or anything… The competition keeps getting tougher, keywords are getting bid higher, and profit margins are getting slimmer. Just like most things online, the competition’s getting tougher.
Important Tip: To make any type of online paid advertising work, it’s unrealistic to expect to make a good profit on the first sale. That’s why I stressed in the beginning of this post that it’s important to build your own subscriber list to promote multiple products.
If you’ve tried an online advertising method that only broke even on the initial sale and you gave up on it, you gave up on a potential goldmine. Because if you’re able to sell a first product (whether your own or an affiliate product) and break even, you’re building your subscriber list for free, the first sale is acting as your “loss leader” and now you’ve got a free list of prospects to market to.
To be continued in the next post… (Told you this’d be a long one )
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