Do You Really Need Your Own Website To Promote Affiliate
Products?
One of the best ways to earn a substantial monthly income is to
promote other people's products and services for a portion of
the profit from their sales. This is commonly referred to as
affiliate marketing. Many product owners have their own
affiliate programs and affiliates can simply promote a URL or
website address that's got their affiliate ID in it.
Is this the best method to promote affiliate sites? Or should an
affiliate have his or her own website? Here are a few things to
think about regarding having your own website.
1) Unique web presence
Having your own website means that you also have your own unique
web presence. You can basically create your own identity and
stand out from the rest. This lets you create a unique website
that's not one of millions of the same old template. People like
change and it helps to be different. Create your own web
identity and it will help you catch your prospect's eye.
2) Can help build your own list
Simply sending visitors to your affiliate websites through your
affiliate URL is not good marketing. At the least you simply
MUST get the visitor's name and email address and build your own
list. Having your own list means that you get to contact them at
regular intervals and promote your products to them on more than
one occasion. Also this gives you a chance to create a repot
between the visitor and yourself. This leads to increased
credibility on your part and will help you close the sale in the
end. You simply MUST have your own website to build your own
list.
3) Can easily add and subtract products
You might start out by promoting 1 affiliate product at first.
But eventually you'll branch out and expand into multiple
products. Many of them can be related. If you don't have your
own website you'll end up having a bunch of affiliate URLs to
promote. And guess what? You will be alienating one product
promotion from the other. The smart thing to do is create a
website with a common theme and promote multiple products along
that same theme. This way any promotion or advertising you do
will funnel prospective buyers to any of your affiliate
products. This will greatly improve your chances of making a
sale. Plus if you feel that some products aren't working out,
you can simply take them off your website easily.
4) Can pr-sell
Have you ever tried to bake a cake? If you haven't, ask your mom
or grand ma if she shoved the cake into a cold oven. She'll tell
you that you first have to pre-heat the oven before you bake the
cake. Promoting affiliate products is similar. You have to first
"pre-heat" or pre-sell the IDEA of the product and get the
prospect into a buying mood before you send them to the main
sites. Once you pre sell them, the main website can help close
the sale. Writing you own product reviews is one way of pre
selling. You can't pre-sell without having your own website.
5) Easy URL makes for easy remembering.
Which of the following URLs will you remember is a month's time?
http://www.KrazeCar4U.com/cgi-bin/?aff=123321&pid=53325&tk=ffsg
or
http://www.CoolCars.com
If you picked the first, then you need to get out more. Because
99% of the time, people will remember the second one. Why?
Because it's short and easy to remember. Many affiliate URLs
take the form of the first one. Too complicated. Hard to
remember. And this means that people will rather type in
www.sKrazeCar4U.com rather than the whole URL. This means that
YOU don't get paid because they didn't visit the website using
the full URL.
Now consider the second URL to be your own website. The URL is
simple and catchy and people will remember it. And you can
promote many car related products from it. See the advantage of
having your own website?
6) Get personal with them and introduce yourself
If you saw me on the street one day and have never met me
before, what's the first thing you'll say?
"I can refinance your house with a low interest rate blah blah
blah"
or
"Hello. How are you. I'm ( your name ) "
Now if you used the second method, which is what any sane person
would do, and you turned out to be a banker, I just might have
come to you for advice and maybe even hire you to be my personal
banker some day.
If you used the first method I would have totally ignored you.
And that means NO sale for you.
You simply must create a personal welcome "aura" around yourself
before you can promote something to a total stranger. You first
have to introduce yourself to them before you can pitch your
offers to them. Having your own website will let you do this and
in the end, help you close many more sales that would have been
pitched to deaf ears.
7) Can do backend sales
The best money comes from backend sales. Backend sales means
that you first sell a low cost product and then follow up with a
more expensive yet related item later on. Many people will buy
from you a second time, much more easily, than the first. So you
can easily sell them more expensive items and increase your
profits. You can't do this unless you had your own website AND
your own list. If you aren't doing back end sales, you are
missing out on 80% of the profits.
So the bottom line is YES in order to successfully become an
affiliate marketer and promote affiliate products, you simply
must have your own website. I hope you realize the importance of
it by now and cash in on it right now.