Associate Programs Newsletter #122

CONTENTS:

1. How to target an overlooked niche
2. Five-step plan for creating a niche website
3. How your niche website numbers add up
4. Mini-website pros and cons
5. Isn't it time you created your OWN product?
6. Marlon works for us while we sleep
7. iWant increases its bounties
8. How good - or bad - is Stamps.com?
9. You can earn $1 per newsletter subscriber
10. Top 10 best-selling associate programs
11. Thought for today: Be narrow-minded

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1. How to target an overlooked niche
====================================

Every now again people write to me and say something like:

"Can you give me an idea for a niche website?"

Here's an idea you can use and a five-step plan for creating a niche mini-website.

The affiliate program is for a high quality product, a book which has impeccable endorsements and pays an $8 commission.

Better still, you have very little competition in a field which has enormous potential.

I reckon it's a useful topic for anyone wanting to buy a domain name and create a mini-website or a page on an existing site.

What's the catch? The bad news is that you'll need to do a little research. However, you'll enjoy doing the research because there's a delightful, thought-provoking, instructive book on the subject - and the book is the product you'll be selling.

The book is one I've praised before, "The Revenge of Brand X: How to build a Big Time Brand on the Web or anywhere else" by Rob Frankel - http://www.robfrankel.com/ .

It gives your company an action plan, showing you how to do the things that will make people want to choose your company and your products - which increases your sales and profits.

Rob, as you probably already know, has been dubbed "Mr Branding". Jaclyn Easton calls him "the best branding expert on the planet". John Audette says Rob is "the branding king".

He's also funny. You'll thoroughly enjoy his book and you'll feel comfortable recommending it.

When you think about it, the market for this book is HUGE - although many companies don't realize that they need it. Many companies make the mistake of thinking that branding simply means getting a good logo or designing great ads.

EVERY company has an image, good or bad - and every company out there needs Rob's advice on how to improve that image so that it can improve it sales and improve its profits.

Fortunately for you, hardly any affiliates are working on this.

Rob told his FrankelBiz mailing list that of his 100-plus affiliates, only FOUR of them have generated income through their affiliate links. A fifth is promoting the book via Amazon.com.

Rob says:

"The raw numbers on affiliates suggest that most of them are slapping up logo links on web pages that never get promoted or seen, let alone clicked. The result is that out of any given army of affiliates, you can expect - if you're lucky - maybe a few to produce any results at all . . .

"My point isn't that affiliate programs don't work; it's that many affiliates don't like to."

So here's your opportunity. Show Rob you're prepared to do a little work so that he can pay you.

Here's one way...

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2. Five-step plan for creating a niche website
==============================================

STEP 1:

Choose a great product you're proud to promote, and which pays well. I'll assume you've chosen "The Revenge of Brand X" by Rob Frankel.

STEP 2:

Register your own domain name, specially for this one product. If you do it right, this will help give you a professional image and increase your sales.

You're in luck! "MrBranding.com" isn't available, but many good domain names are.

To hunt for available domain names, I started by investigating http://www.NameBoy.com . Here are just a few of the possibilities I found:

BrandingTown.com
BrandingMagic.com
BrandingPixie.com
Brandingology.com
BrandingSpark.com
MagicBranding.com
BrandingReport.com
BrandingPlatoon.com

They were all available when I looked this week.

Next, I looked at recently unregistered domain names at Whois.net. Usually, a search there yields useful results, but I didn't like any of the 57 names which included "branding".

Perhaps the best of that motley assortment were:

BrandingRoom.com
21stCenturyBranding.com

So I went to Homepagenames.com and tested the Name:Creator. [UPDATE: This tool has vanished.]

It's a wonderful tool which lets you search in all sorts of different ways, combining words and themes. For example, if you match "branding" with a "Sports" theme you'll find names such as BaseballBranding.com.

If you match "branding" with a "Person" theme you'll find:

BrandingBuddy.com
BrandingButler.com
BrandingLady.com
BrandingGal.com
BrandingBoy.com
BrandingDoctor.com
BrandingDude.com
BrandingHero.com
BrandingKing.com
BrandingQueen.com
BrandingPirate.com
BrandingTeacher.com

. . . and many more.

In the "News" theme you have many options, including:

BrandingTimes.com
BrandingUpdate.com
BrandingBulletin.com
BrandingReport.com
BrandingReview.com
BrandingBeacon.com
BrandingWatch.com
BrandingWire.com

If you explore the "E-Commerce" and "Cyber" themes you'll find:

BrandingBytes.com
BrandingPlan.com
BrandingTek.com
SpeedyBranding.com
QuickBranding.com
BrandingZing.com

STEP 2:

Register the domain name.

To register the domain, I recommend http://www.000Domains.com which charges only $13.50 a year and offers a good service. It makes the whole process very simple.

You can type in a whole lot of names and check their availability simultaneously.

STEP 3:

Create your mini-website

You don't have to sell Rob's book, just PRE-SELL it. Your aim is to get your visitor warmed up and in the mood for buying.

The best way to do that is with a genuine, honest endorsement. "The best branding expert on the planet" has written a great book, so you'll have no trouble writing a glowing endorsement.

One way to increase your click-throughs is to create a dead-end site giving people only two choices: To click where you want them to click or leave.

If you want your mini-website to have more than one page, you can create an index containing several links, all of which take visitors to articles on branding, and from there to Rob's site.

For advice on web page creation, see:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/225/1/Tips-for-affiliate-beginners

STEP 4:

Find a web host.

I use Rob Marlbrough's web hosting http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/hosting . Rob is friendly and helpful and provides a good service.
 
If you're looking for a place to host several, dozens or hundreds of mini-websites, you can probably reduce your costs by talking Rob into giving you a special deal.

STEP 5:

Promote your site.

I'll assume your aim is to create an almost maintenance-free mini-website - one you want to build and leave alone.

For a commission of $8, you'll want to aim for mainly free traffic, and some VERY cheap traffic.

The good news is that because you don't have many competitors in the "branding" niche, you have a good chance of being found in search engines.

On one of the major search engines, GoTo.com (now Yahoo! Search Marketing) , 1523 searches were made last month for "branding".

Rob is paying 10 cents per click for 16th position at GoTo.com for the term "branding".

However, the "king of branding" has made only a rudimentary attempt to secure his own brand on GoTo.com. If you do a search for "branding consultant", you'll see that Dan Janal has captured the top spot, WITHOUT PAYING A CENT.

If Rob paid only ONE CENT he could kick Dan off top spot. Lucky Dan is getting the "branding consultant" top spot free, thanks to being ranked well in GoTo.com's default search engine, Inktomi.

That's a clear indication of how little competition you'll have in this niche.

At GoTo.com, you can buy the search term "branding strategy" for 1 cent and you'll be in fourth spot in the search results. You can have the top spot for only 4 cents or be No.2 for only 3 cents.

Here are the number of searches made at GoTo.com last month for "branding" search terms, and what you would have to pay to get various rankings:

1523 branding
232 branding irons
104 corporate branding (TOP SPOT 3 cents)
94 what i branding
74 branding iron
74 succesful company branding
66 internet branding (TOP 7 cents, 4th spot 3 cents)
59 master card branding
44 branding consultant (TOP 1 cent)
35 branding strategy (TOP 4 cents, 5th spot 1 cent)
31 online branding (TOP 36 cents, 3rd spot 3 cents)
30 global branding (TOP 2 cents)
24 branding corporate identity (TOP 3 cents, 3rd spot 1 cent)
23 product branding (TOP 3 cents, 3rd spot 1 cent)
18 company branding (TOP SPOT 1 cent)
14 marketing branding (TOP SPOT 31 cents, 3rd spot 2 cents)
13 branding agency (TOP SPOT 1 cent)
12 branding marketing (TOP SPOT 1 cent)
0 successful company branding (TOP SPOT 1 cent)

Don't place too much reliance on these figures. It's weird that the wrong spelling "succesful company branding" scored 74 searches and yet NO ONE apparently searched for the correct spelling "succesful company branding". Also, why anyone would search for "what i branding" 94 times, I have no idea. Perhaps some computer-generated oddities are included.

At Sprinks.com, you can buy top spot for the search term "branding" for only 2 cents or get fourth spot by bidding only 1 cent.

If your site is too blatantly set up to deliver traffic to one affiliate merchant, your site won't be accepted by the best pay- per-click search engines.

You can find 32 pay-per-click search engines here: http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com

If you want to be more active in promoting your new site, you have lot of options. For more web traffic-creating ideas, see:

67 ways to boost your web traffic http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/320/1/67-ways-to-get-traffic

[UPDATE: For up-to-date traffic tips, see my report, "77 Ways to Get Traffic", which is free to everyone who signs up for the Associate Programs Newsletter. The sign-up form is on this page.]


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3. How your niche website numbers add up
========================================

Let's assume you've decided to promote "The Revenge of Brand X".

Can you make money with a niche website promoting a product which pays $8 commission?

First, you've created search engine-friendly pages and are attracting FREE traffic. That's an excellent start.

Next, for your bids at the two best pay-per-click search engines, GoTo.com and Sprinks, you've worded your titles and descriptions precisely so that you're attracting only QUALIFIED traffic - people interested in Rob's book.

You've gone to http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com and read the articles on how to get the most out of pay-per-click search engines, so you've bid for a large number of search terms.

If you pay 1 cent per click, you'll receive 1,000 highly targeted click-throughs for only $10.

Let's assume that of those 1,000 who reach your site, 10% or 100 visitors click on a link on your dead-end site and go to Rob's site.

Of those 100 highly targeted visitors, tingling with anticipation after reading your glowing endorsement, 2 of them actually buy the book.

You'll earn $16 from Rob for those two sales.

If that's all you earn, and you pay 2 cents per click, you're losing money. You'll need to make up for that by generating sales from free traffic.

How good are you with words? Can you increase your click-through to, say 30% on that dead-end site? Can you pre-sell better, so that 10% of them buy once they reach Rob's site?

If so, for no extra cost, you've suddenly increased your sales from $16 to $240.

Do you like participating in mailing lists and on message boards? Can you entice people to click through to your brand new BrandingDude.com or BrandingReport.com? If so, you've just increased your traffic - and sales - a bit more.

A niche site like this is ideal for a busy person who doesn't have much time to spend on the Net. You'll have almost zero maintenance and you can work on promoting it in the odd hour you can spare now and again.

It's also ideal for an experienced affiliate who is capable of cranking out dozens of mini-sites and is seeking one more idea.

There are no guarantees with this stuff. Your success depends very much on your own skills and your own work.

Some affiliates have dozens or even hundreds of mini-websites. The more sites they own, the more opportunity they have to test techniques and learn what works best.

If you promote Rob's book, you'll enjoy telling people how to cut costs, increase profits and become famous.

Start here:

http://www.robfrankel.com

[UPDATE: The book is still superb but this program has closed.]

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you earn a commission on EVERY subsequent sale.
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=============================
4. Mini-website pros and cons
=============================

Before you rush to tell me what's wrong with my five-step plan for creating a niche website promoting Rob Frankel's book, let's look at some of the advantages and disadvantages.

ADVANTAGES:

Delightful, useful product.

Very high-quality endorsements.

Little competition - you could quickly make BrandingDude.com or BrandingWatch.com well known on prominent mailing lists and message boards.

Huge potential for sales.

Good price - only $36.95 plus shipping.

DISADVANTAGES:

There's only one product - no follow-up sales.

$8 is a useful commission for a book promoted on an existing site - but is it high enough to warrant a mini-website? (Probably, if you're good at attracting free traffic and good at pre-selling.)

Rob's coaching of affiliates is fairly minimal. You'll need to know what you're doing - or find coaching elsewhere, such as "The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy" - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/amazing .

You may have to teach companies that they actually NEED this book.

Your results depend hugely on your skills and your willingness to work. Hang on! That's an advantage, not a disadvantage.

Over all, I reckon the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. If you agree, rush on over to...

http://www.robfrankel.com

... and grab Rob's book. I promise you'll enjoy it. It will tease and tickle your gray matter. It may even increase your profits and make you famous.

==============================================
5. Isn't it time you created your OWN product?
==============================================

Instead of selling other people's products, you can create your own product - quickly.

Marlon Sanders, author of "The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy" - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/amazing - has developed an incredibly fast system for creating your own product and selling it on a two-page website.

This isn't vague theory. Marlon and his friends use this method to create and promote fast-selling products.

"Forget just about everything you've heard or read about creating and selling products on the Net," Marlon says.

"Most of it is old news and doesn't work any more. Some of it never worked to begin with."

Write an ebook? No. That takes too long, says Marlon. Worry about search engines? No, not to start with. That also takes too long. Add content to your site? No. That's too much hard work. His technique is much simpler.

He tells you, step-by-step, how to:

Select your target market.

Produce 12 ideas for a product.

Test to find out which product is likely to sell best.

Create your product fast.

Build a good website. "My idea of a good website is one with an attractive banner at the top, a simple layout and a sales letter. That's it!" he says. It works for him.

Sell your product without buying advertising.

Marlon's ebook, "Gimme My Money Now", is online. It's just the meat - 50 pages of specific, step-by-step instructions, told simply.

You won't waste time poring through padding. You can devour the instructions quickly and get started producing your own product immediately.

Discover how here:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/fast-products

=====================================
6. Marlon works for us while we sleep
=====================================

John Vorwerk http://www.4OfficeAutomation.com was surprised to receive two "You've got a sale!" messages a few days ago for a product which he didn't even know existed.

John promotes "How to Create The Ultimate, Automated Web Business" - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/automate - by Marlon Sanders.

However, he was surprised to see that he was also achieving sales for something called "Gimme My Money Now".

I checked my own stats. Sure enough, I'd sold EIGHT copies of "Gimme My Money Now" in one day. Thanks, Marlon!

"It's cookies," Marlon explains. "When someone buys one product from you we set a cookie. If they buy another one, you get the commission because we read the cookie from the first sale.

"I e-mailed my customer list and you made sales based on people who originally bought 'The Amazing Formula' from you.

"In other words, you didn't have to do anything to make these sales. You already did it by selling them 'The Amazing Formula' - http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/amazing - in the past."

That's the kind of associate program I like - one which rewards me for follow-up sales AND pays a 50% commission.

Does your favorite program do that?

However, this is NOT a "customer for life" arrangement.

"In my system, we go by the last cookie," Marlon says. "Let's say one of your customers bought 'The Amazing Formula' from another reseller. Then you endorse my new 'Gimme My Money Now' product. If they buy, you get the commission.

"In other 'permanent cookie' systems, if you endorse a product to your customers, and they buy it, you lose out on part or all of the commission because that customer originally bought a product from someone else.

"In my system, if you make the sale, you get the commission. But you also make commissions by default when one of your customers buys one product from me ... then another one, as long as your cookie hasn't been overwritten by a click on another reseller's link."

Some associates will have noticed a glitch in their online stats. This was caused when Marlon upgraded his tracking software from AssocTrac 1.0 to 2.0.

"AssocTrac 2.0 ( http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/assoctrac ) provides additional advantages to resellers so it's worth the minor inconveniences of the upgrade," he says.

Marlon encourages his associates to buy the products they're selling. If they've bought the product they can genuinely review it - and increase their chance of achieving sales.

Associates will receive commissions on all sales of the new product if they buy it before the end of the month. Otherwise, they'll receive commissions beginning with the fourth sale.

"We are working extremely hard to not only provide immediate and high quality customer service via Human Click and ICQ . . . This is something that even Corey (Rudl), Ken (Evoy) and Mark (Joyner) are not currently doing."

Marlon says "Gimme My Money Now" is "selling like crazy".

Discover how to create your own product fast:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/fast-products

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7. iWant increases its bounties
===============================

Reverse auction site iWant.com, where the buyer is in control, is paying higher bounties this month.

Buyers or Wanters post a want for something they want or need and then iWant finds merchants to fulfill these wants.

"We normally pay a $2 bounty for a unique registered user who posts a want or replies to a want," says Affiliate Marketing Manager Cindy Hottelmann. "We are increasing the bounty to $3 until the end of August ($4 for super affiliates)."

iWant.com/affiliate

[UPDATE: This site has vanished.]

=====================================
8. How good - or bad - is Stamps.com?
=====================================

With a lot of help from Stefanie Puetz-Lehmann of http://www.partnerprogramme.com , I plan to write an article on the service which Stamps.com provides to affiliates.

Have you received good or bad service from Stamps.com? Do you have a complaint or praise?

I'd love to hear from you.

Please let me know at
allan AT AssociatePrograms.com.

============================================
9. You can earn $1 per newsletter subscriber
============================================

The Internet Business Forum has raised its commission again, for existing and new affiliates.

"This time, we're leaping from $0.60 to $1 per new subscriber," says Edwin Hayward. "After this, we don't anticipate any further price increases as I believe this puts us firmly in the topmost tier of newsletter affiliate programs."

The newsletters are free.

ibizhome.com/affiliate.htm

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10. Top 10 best-selling associate programs
==========================================

Here are my top 10 best-sellers - the associate programs which
are earning the most income for AssociatePrograms.com:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/160/1/Best-affiliate-programs

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11. Thought for today: Be narrow-minded
=======================================

"The more you niche, the better you do. The Web is the first medium in the history of the known universe that actually rewards you for being narrow-minded." - Rob Frankel.

 

All the best

Allan Gardyne