If you are trying to sell a product or service on the
Internet, then you are probably doing so through an
affiliate program. You signed up as an affiliate (usually
for free) and they gave you an affiliate ID (user name or
number).

They may have even given you a basic marketing package
which includes text ads, banner ads, and solo ads with a
link to your affiliate sales page. All you have to do is
use these tools to get traffic to your affiliate sales page.

Well that sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? This process
actually works too, except that your probability of
converting your traffic into sales is very, very, very low.

In other words, you may have to have thousands of people
to visit your affiliate sales page before you ever see your
first sell. Now those aren’t very good odds, are they?

Unfortunately, that is what most people do. They spend a
lot of time, effort, and money getting all of those people
to that affiliate sales page and then they finally make a
sale and earn a referral fee or commission.

But wait, it can get even worse. Let’s say that you made
one sale and earned a $10 commission. That’s great, right?

Well not really, because in the terms and conditions of
your affiliate program, you don’t actually get paid until
you have accumulated at least $20 of commissions. So get
back to it and get another sale and finally get paid. Good
grief!

Don’t quit! Internet marketing is a great way to make
extra money, but you have to know some of the secrets.
Here’s one. “Don’t advertise your affiliate program
directly.” You must use a four step process.

Four Step Process…

1. First, you must provide something of value. The easiest
valuable thing that you can give away is information. An
informative email course, special report, or ebook are all
great ways to give away free information.

2. This step goes along with the initial step above. Don’t
give away your free information until you get an email
address. You must capture the name and email address of
your prospective sale in order to be able to implement the
next step.

3. If the information that you are providing is good and
helps people, then you will earn some trust.

If someone gives you some information that saves you time,
money, or effort; then you are going to closely read
anything that they send you - as long as the information is
still valuable.

This is why it is so important that you get that name and
email address before you start giving away your
information. Now you can keep the information flowing
through an occasional email to your prospect.

4. Finally, if you have been providing valuable
information and earning trust from people, it is much more
likely that they will buy something that you recommend.

This is especially true if you can convince them that what
you are recommending will help them and that it is worth
their money.

The easiest way to do this is to recommend something that
you have actually purchased and use yourself. Just tell
them how it helped you and why you think that it was worth
what you paid for it!

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Just a quick heads-up about a free report called “The
Easy Way To Calculate Your Performance Metrics”.

If you don’t know what your site metrics are, you’re
wasting huge sums of money. But don’t worry - we’ve all
been there - however if you’re serious about growing your
business in 2006, this report is essential reading…

Go grab your copy at:
www.megastep.com/reports/metrics.pdf

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For your enjoyment (and information), here is this week’s
quick trivia question…

What is a blogosphere?

As usual the answer can be found later in the newsletter.

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Featured Article
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Find Your Niche and Follow It!

By Rob Taylor - (c) 2005 Megastep International
www.megastep.com

Mark Twain once said: “Find out where the people are going
and get there first”.

With the advent of the internet you can certainly find out
what folks are wanting. Being the first at the front of the
line to bill them might not be quite so easy.

But there are ways to find out if there’s an existing
hungry crowd for your information product, and more
importantly a crowd with pockets bulging with cash to give
you.

In this article I’m going to share some tips that will
save you much heartache from chasing after the wrong market.

Firstly I believe that it is very important that what you
sell interests you, otherwise you sign up for a life of
struggle and worse… Boredom!

Motivating yourself to sell something you have no interest
or belief in is soul-destroying at the best of times, so
don’t do it.

Just because *rubber cat suits* is your thing doesn’t mean
the rest of the planet digs them at all. I mean that’s a
pretty small niche with less than 560 searches performed a
month. Yes I did actually go and check out the stats for it.

One of things I’ve found in this marketing-malarkey is
that I am able to explore interests that I simply don’t
have the time or inclination to actively get involved in.

Take archery, I can twang a bow as well as the next man,
and have done for the past couple of years. But the idea of
traipsing off to all those shows every weekend,
predominantly talking a load of rubbish just doesn’t do it
for me.

BUT sell this bunch of Robin Hood wannabees an infoprod,
and I’m game. Seriously though, I love archery, it’s one of
the few sports the British government hasn’t actually tried
to ban… yet!

And that brings me to my point…

What do you have an interest in that also has a large
number of people willing to do what I call *the wallet
flip*. You need to be looking for markets where the folk
won’t even blink at spending $100 a year on the products
you will be selling.

OK time to take some action:

=> Draw up an initial list of 10 of your interests.

=> Scan your bookshelves to see what reference books
you’ve bought in the past, and on what subjects or hobbies.

=> Pay attention when folk you meet start talking about
their hobbies, their passions.

=> Pop down to your local magazine store and see what
interests are being catered to.

=> Can’t be bothered to pad down to your local store, then
click over to www.mediafinder.com and do some
searches.

=> Buy a stack of these magazines and go through the
classified ads with a highlighter. Call up the ones you’ve
circled and ask for their information packs. Make a note of
which ones you’ve called and see how soon the information
arrives.

How are they selling? Good, bad, OK? Could you improve on
the quality of what they are offering? Over five to six
issues how many of the adverts are repeated? Make a note
and watch that market like a hawk. If they weren’t making
money the ads wouldn’t be running.

=> Hop over to eBay to research all the different sub-
categories. Which ones are active? Which ones are
commanding high prices?

=> Are there any discussion forums related to your potential
market? Buzz over to www.forumfind.com and
do a search.

This is just the beginning. I want you to start paying
attention to what people are interested in. This can simply
be as easy as listening to folk banter when they’re in the
checkout line.

Scan the news, open your eyes and mind to opportunities.
You’ll be amazed at how your brain kicks into “selective
perception”.

Don’t know what that is? Ever bought a car and then
suddenly you notice the whole planet is driving the exact
same model. It’s like everyone decided to buy the car YOU
just bought. Well that’s “selective perception” at work.

Same thing happens when you actively go hunting down niche
markets… actually it can work great for an awful lot of
other things… building keyword lists is another example,
and another story.

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This Week’s Trivia Answer
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Here’s the answer to the trivia question I asked earlier…

What is a blogosphere?

A blogosphere is the collection of all bloggers, blog
sites, blog readers and blog text.

The blogosphere has a number of aliases, including
blogland, blogistan and the blogiverse.

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Healthy Body… Healthy Mind
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Motivation Magic - 5 Time Management Tips to Complete your
Goals!

Reaching a goal is easy to say, but in real life can be
harder to do. That’s why staying motivated during the times
that you just don’t feel like it, or when you don’t even
want to try is so important. There are keys as to why you
might not feel you’re at full potential. It could be you -
a not very self confident you.

If you think you can just fake it and you’ll be
successful, then think again. It won’t work. So what can
you do?

Start by looking your self confidence issue square in the
face and then change it! No one else can, and to be honest
no one else cares as much as you should.

Write down why you feel the way you do and make a list of
the areas you would like to improve or change totally about
yourself. Be honest and know what is really important to
improve on, and what can be changed.

Develop a plan for your spiritual life too. If you don’t
have grounding in a spiritual or religious life, take the
time to find one. It will change how you handle life, and
any curve balls it throws at you.

You only have one life to live, so live it to your
fullest, and to the best of your capabilities. Without
addressing your self confidence issue - no time management
skills matter, but don’t be to hard on yourself change
takes time, but begin today changing your future.

Here are 5 tips that you can use to stay motivated, and to
achieve whatever goals that you’ve set out for yourself in
your life.

1. Make a plan to stay motivated.

Write it down. Look at the different ways that keep you
motivated and write those down too. There are endless
possibilities for motivation that you can use, and there
will be new ones that you might discover along the way.

Take some time to read some books from inspirational power
leaders such as Tony Robbins, or use spirituality to
inspire you and give you hope.

2. Take the time to write down every morning, or even the
night before, short term lists for goals that you want to
achieve that day or the next. By focusing on a few short
term goals your long term ones will become closer and well
defined. Take your long term goals and shorten them into
easier to accomplish steps.

3. Walk from room to room and post some brightly colored
post-it notes listing all of the positive things that will
happen in your life by achieving your goals.

Taking a look at the goals you will accomplish will
inspire you to reach for the goal and not to give up.

4. Use time wisely by taking care of your body.

Regular exercise and a healthy diet in conjunction with a
steady sleep routine will keep you alert and focused on the
goals ahead.

5. Reward yourself when you reach a milestone toward your
goal.

Do this by taking some time for you, in other words take
the time to smell the roses. Soak a little longer in the
tub, buy a new outfit, and take a day off to spend with a
loved one, or just nap the afternoon away. Do whatever it
takes to make you feel good about what reaching out for
your goal.

As you go along with your plans always recognize that when
the bad days hit, there will always be a tomorrow. However,
if you notice that you just can’t get out of the
unmotivated mood you’re in, then it could be signs of a
physical problem that could be causing you experience
depression.

Imbalances in the body can really play havoc on your
goals, and delay the time for you reaching your goals.

By reaching for the stars and succeeding you’ll find
things out about yourself that you never knew. The most
important thing to remember is that you should never quit,
even when the chips are down. Why?

Because you understood and put into practice your own
version of the 5 time management tips and beat the odds!
The best thing is if you did it once you can do it all over
again.

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Have You Got Any Comments?
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This is your chance to speak out.

Comment on articles I’ve run in the newsletter, give me
your thoughts on changes or your ad testing results or
questions relating to your business, etc.

In other words, just talk to me about what you think I
need to do to improve the newsletter.

Be sure to include your website address too, because if
I use your comments in a future issue of the newsletter,
I’ll thank you by posting your address so that you can get
additional free traffic to your site!

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That’s a Wrap for this Week
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That wraps up another week’s newsletter and I hope you
enjoyed this issue.

Don’t forget to send me any comments or questions you
may have to the Feedback Loop. I would be only too happy to
help you in any way that I can.

From time to time I’ll send you important updates
that will provide information that has the potential to
greatly improve your online business… and of course
your profits!

However, you can rest assured that I will only ever
recommend products that are considered to be of HIGH value
and will provide indisputably benefits to help you grow
your business… that’s my guarantee!

Your friend,

Gilles Rais

Categories: Newsletter Issues