The Internet Marketing Road Trip

Affiliate marketing is when you sign up to promote other people's products (or services) for a share of the sale in the form of commissions. As an affiliate marketer, you usually don't need any special training or start-up funding.

Your tasks as an affiliate marketer will be to drum up traffic to the product owner's pitch page, allowing them to convert the prospect into a buyer. The more targeted you are with your traffic promotions, the higher your conversion rate will be.

There are many things you can promote as an affiliate. On Amazon, for instance, you can promote anything tangible (and a few digital download to boot). If you want to be in the paintball niche, you can include links using your Amazon associate (affiliate) ID to sell specific paintball guns, paintballs, and attire.

You can go to sites like ClickBank or PayDotCom and get a unique affiliate ID to promote an endless supply of information products. They house everything from acne to organic gardening.

You can even become an affiliate promoting actions. There are many Internet marketers who focus their business on getting a steady stream of traffic to take an action, such as filling out a survey online.

With affiliate marketing, you don't have to worry about developing ideas and creating products. You don't have to deal with customer service follow-ups or continually process more products for the marketplace.

Your job is often made easier by product owners who care so much about their own success, that they provide a toolbox to help you with yours! The toolbox usually includes readymade emails, web reviews, and banner ads you can use with your own link embedded in them for instant plug-n-play success.

Most Internet marketers will eventually blur the lines of product owner and affiliate marketer. Product owners continually use their list of buyers to promote affiliate items, and affiliates often build such a good reputation in a niche that they're urged to come out with a product of their own.

How much can an affiliate marketer earn? There are no limits. You can market multiple niches and work as much or as little as you want to generate targeted traffic through your links. Super affiliates earn six figures or more, but even a beginner affiliate can earn enough to pay the bills each month - with some change to spare!

Before you get started in this industry, you have to analyze your own mindset to see if you have what it takes to be an online entrepreneur from conception to fully-functional success operation. It's not enough to say you want to make money or be your own boss.

Everyone wants those things, but not everyone can achieve those goals. It takes a special person. You don't have to be a workaholic or be willing to engage in questionable marketing tactics. You just need to have a few characteristics that are common to most successful Internet marketers.

This industry requires deep commitment. If you're the type to change jobs with your moods, then stick to a 9-5 gig. You're building a business and it takes time, effort, and tweaking to make it work.

Perseverance and a positive attitude can make or break an entrepreneur. You're going to have down times. Every marketer does. Something will go wrong - whether it's a freelancer who didn't deliver on time and threw off your launch date or a JV partnership that fell through. If you panic and shut down, you'll tarnish your reputation as a true professional.

The great Internet marketers don't fly by the seat of their pants. They believe in being meticulous planners. They make schedules and plans for their day, week, month, year, and even further down the road.

They plan every step of a launch before the product development even begins. They plan every single detail they can think of. The more meticulous you are with your plans, the fewer things there are that might go wrong.

To become an authority in your niche, you need to exude confidence. Even if you're worried, anxious, or unsure of yourself, what you project must be that you have it all together - you can't be paralyzed by fear.

Are you willing to be a student for life? No successful marketer gets to the top and stops learning this industry. That only means you'll eventually become the prey of another hungry marketer who's stayed on the ball with up-to-the-minute solutions and practices in your niche so that they can become king of the mountain when you let your guard down.

You have to know how to get from point A to point B on your journey to achieving financial independence. Do you know what you'll say when your in-laws or spouse questions your "career?" If you're a fearless marketer, the inquisition won't bother you a bit.

If you aren't sure how to develop a blueprint for your success, don't know how to set and achieve goals, or have a mindset that's not in sync with that of victory, then work on those things before you quit your day job and set off on this voyage. You want to be mentally prepared for the ups and downs along the way.

Joint ventures (also known as JVs) are partnerships between two or more people, usually with the purpose of cross-promoting products. There are various types of JVs, and what you offer your JV partners will depend on what you have to bring to the table, and what you're looking for in return.

Most JVs are really affiliate relationships. You have a product - your JV partner has a forum, website, or email list. Your JV partner sends an email to his list about your product, or puts an ad on their website, blog, forum, etc.

Then you pay that JV partner a commission for the sales he generates. Although this type of relationship probably shouldn't be called a "JV," a lot of people do refer to it as such - probably because the product owner approached the JV partner to ask for a promotion instead of the product owner just deciding on his own to become an affiliate.

The most common form of true JV is when two parties with email lists or websites exchange ads. Usually, both parties have lists of comparable sizes in the same general niche, and each person agrees to send a mailing out to their list on the other person's behalf. You send their message to your list, and they send your ad out to theirs.

Joint ventures are great, because they allow you to go far beyond what you could accomplish by simply promoting to your own list, or on your own site. If you have a list of 10,000 people, and 200 people buy the product you're advertising, you have a 2% conversion rate.

If you could find ten other people with lists of 10,000 people to send out your ad, and you also experience a 2% conversion, you could make ten times the money you'd have made by sending out a message only to your list of subscribers.

Of course, in many niches, lists will often have duplicates. In the Internet marketing niche, many webmasters are on dozens of different lists. When a major launch goes out, you might get five or ten messages about the exact same product on the same day.

But no two mailing lists will be exact duplicates. Even in the same niche, people can attract different audiences. JVs are a great way of reaching more people than you'd otherwise be able to reach on your own.

If you're interested in doing a JV with someone, you should be well prepared before you write to him or her with your proposal. You must bring something to the table that is of value to the other person. A JV can be a cross promotion or a bartering situation, where each of you offers up a service or skill to jointly create and launch a co-branded product.

Don't expect to write to a well-known marketer with a huge list and get an instant JV when you don't have a list and aren't offering anything special. It could happen, just don't expect it.
You can entice a JV partner with a very generous commission.

Be prepared to pay 70% or more in order to get JV partners unless you're already very well known in the niche or have a very large list of your own (or an amazing, mouth-water product that will blow everything else away).

You'll also probably have to JV with people who have lists that are similar to yours in size. Most people won't be willing to JV with you if their list is over 10,000 people and yours is only 200.

Once you build up a large list of your own, you can start getting bigger JVs. Just don't forget about what it was like when you were new and your list was smaller. You shouldn't automatically pass over someone because his or her list is currently small.

If they're offering you a good commission on a very high-quality product, it might be something you should consider. Plus, you'll be developing a relationship that might be very valuable in the future!