6 Steps To Starting Affiliate Business

12 Reasons to use Postcards for your advertisement

(1) Post Cards Work for Any Business

They can produce all kinds of sales activity for all types of businesses. For example, they can produce web site traffic for online marketers, floor traffic for retail stores, sales leads for direct marketers ...and just about any other type of sales activity a business wants.

(2) Designing them is Simple and Uncomplicated

Designing an effective card is not complicated. It can be as simple as printing your best small ad on a 4 x 6 card and sending it to a list of potential prospects. They usually work best when the message is brief, and the card looks, at first glance, like a message from a friend.

(3) Printing them is Easy and Inexpensive

You can print cards with your own computer for about 1 or 2 cents each ...or have them printed professionally for about 4 to 8 cents each.

(4) There's a Special Low Postage Rate

You can send any quantity by First Class Mail in the US for about 23 cents each. The only requirement is that they must be at least 3 1/2 x 5 inches, but no larger than 4 1/4 x 6 inches.

(5) They are Delivered Ready-to-Read

These cards are delivered "ready to read", almost everybody will read it. Even people who usually throw away other kinds of direct mails without opening them, will first read this one.

(6) They Produce Fast Results

They are simple and easy to use - they produce results pretty quickly. You can mail postcards within a few days of deciding to use them ...and you'll start getting sales activity 2 or 3 days later.

(7) They are effective for Generating Web site Traffic

One of the most effective postcard formats simply lists a few benefits of a product or service on the card,and tells the reader where they can get more information. This makes them ideal for generating traffic to a web site.

(8) They Multiply Themselves

They are like small billboards - and they are easy to handle. They are often retained by recipients, or passed on to others ...providing additional exposure for your advertising message.

(9) Markets Can Be Precisely Targeted

You can accurately target your best markets by sending postcards only to prospects likely to be interested in what you're offering ...and who also have a history of acting on offers that interest them.

(10) Their Marketing Results Are Easy To Measure

These cards normally generate over 90 percent of their total response within 7 to 10 days. This enables you to quickly and accurately evaluate the results of a postcard campaign.

(11) They Put You in Control of Your Sales Activity

You can quickly boost (or reduce) your sales activity any time you want, by simply regulating the number you mail and how often you mail them.

(12) They Conceal Your Marketing from Competitors

Most advertizers use the mass media, where their competitors hear or see what they are doing - and copy it. Postcard marketing is personal. Only you and your prospects are aware of what you are doing.

Postcards may be one of the best kept secrets of modern marketing. They're highly effective, very low-cost, simple to use ...and they work for any business. You're overlooking a profitable marketing tool if you don't use them.

6 Steps To Starting Affiliate Business

1. Pick a Market: Why pick a market and not pick a product? Because you will eventually want to add additional products into your pipeline. You should pick a market that interests you, and maybe something you already know something about. Don't forget that you are starting affiliate-business for the long term.

2. Pick a Product: Once you have your market chosen, you should pick just one product to begin with. It will be very tempting to try to add all kinds of related products at first, but don't. Having just one product will help you focus on the important tasks.

You will want to pick a product that converts well. What this means is that the product should sell to a high percentage of visitors. This will help keep your cost per visitor down and increase your profits. Starting affiliate-business with the right product means all the world to your ultimate success.

3. Build a follow-up series: Also called an auto-responder series, you should build one based on the topic and the contents of the product you are promoting. If it is a physical product you are promoting, you will have to create or locate content that is directly related to the product.

As an example, if you are selling golf clubs, you could create a series about how to buy golf clubs that fit, or the benefits of custom clubs, or even something about the club preferences of famous professional golfers.

Be as creative as you can, and do not stray off topic. It has been said that most sales are not made in the initial contact, they are made on the seventh. If you are not following up with your prospects, the bottom line is you are losing sales.

4. Build an email capture page: This is where you will capture information about your prospects so you can send your follow-up series. If you are building a business, having your own web site is a necessity, if only because you will control the content, and be able to capture email addresses for yourself. You might be able to get by for a while without this, but it just isn't worth it, if your aim for starting affiliate-business is income-generation.

5. Drive traffic to your squeeze page: Until you are finished with step four, you shouldn't even think about traffic techniques. If you don't have anywhere to send the traffic, why worry about how to generate it in the first place.

Depending on the traffic generation techniques you choose, it may take some time for you to start seeing sales in your program. You should spend this time developing one or two streams of traffic, and refining these techniques to help you drive more traffic with less effort.

6. Find additional related products: Once your business is making some money, it is time to start adding to your list of products. I don't mean you should go out and sign up for every affiliate program that is even remotely related. What I do mean is that you should carefully choose an additional product or two, and add them to your pipeline.

Since you have been building a list of qualified prospects, you will be able to market these new products to them. This is the really long-term money-maker for your business. As long as you continue to recommend good products to your customer list, you can continue to make money off of them, even the ones who have already bought your last product recommendation.

Finally, to the ultimate question: where do you start from? The 5 Pillar Affiliate can be your starting point. As a 5 Pillar Affiliate, you promote the most sought-after e-business-building products in the world - and earn fabulous affiliate commissions while doing so!

With your sign-up to such a high-profile affiliate opportunity, and following the six steps outlined above for starting an affiliate-business, you can go from nothing to having a profitable business, selling other peoples products.