How to Start Affiliate Marketing – Your First Week

This is a guest post entry into the Inspired Affiliate Marketing Secrets Contest written by Sam Van Der Wall of SamVDW.com.  If you would like a chance to win some great prizes including a Flip Mino HD or an iPod Nano , please see full contest details. If you enjoy this post, please take the time to leave a comment and leave your feedback.

You know about it. You have even read about it. But finally you have decided to enter the world of affiliate marketing. But with all of this information on how to be a successful affiliate marketer, what can you really expect to experience your first week? And, what do you need to do to get your affiliate marketing career off the ground?

The first thing you should do is find three separate affiliate marketing network websites and send in your application.  An example of an affiliate marketing network is Market_Leverage.  The majority of affiliate marketing websites require you to initially fill out information about yourself using an online form. From there, they will approve, deny, or contact you by phone or e-mail regarding your acceptance into their program. Be aware that this process can take several business days for some affiliate marketing programs. Don’t be disheartened in the beginning if you are denied by an affiliate marketing program, just pick another and continue forward. Persistence is a vital key to success in this field.

Next, while you are waiting to be approved into the affiliate marketing programs that you applied for, start studying as much as you can about affiliate marketing and keyword research. Do not spend any money on your first lessons in affiliate marketing! There is plenty of free, quality information available out there to get you started. Later on you may want to take your instruction to the next level, but for now stick to reading the great available free resources that are out there.

Become part of the affiliate marketing blogging and forum community. Start reading affiliate marketing blogs and forums. You’ll get some great information on what is going on in the affiliate marketing field. You’ll also be able to start networking with other affiliate marketers. You’d be surprised that even though affiliate marketing can be a very competitive field, there are a lot of helpful affiliate marketers out there willing to assist a novice marketer. Also, if you have created a content-based website, participating in these blogs and forums is a way to get the word out about your site.

Another thing to do while you are waiting to be approved into affiliate marketing programs is to look for ad coupons if you plan on doing pay-per-click marketing. Google, Yahoo, and MSN all frequently offer free advertising coupons of up to $50. If you can search around and find one of these free advertising coupons, it will give you a monetary head start with your affiliate marketing advertising.

If you have not already done so, you may want to consider building a content-based website. This will serve several purposes. First, it will give you valuable skills in using HTML and learning how traffic and advertising works on the internet. Second, although not every program requires it, some affiliate marketing programs do require that you have a website in order to join their programs. By having a website, this opens you up to the possibility of working with those affiliate marketers. Third, it will give you another avenue to offer up some of your affiliate marketing campaigns once you do begin marketing. For example, if you built a website about dieting and nutrition, you could offer products from your affiliate marketing program to users on your website.

Create goals for yourself in your affiliate marketing career. You need to establish this early so you have a goal to shoot for and some way to measure your progress. You might establish a simple goal of making one sale your first week. Then after that it might be $250 in revenue your first month. Give yourself short-term and long-term goals that are achievable but ambitious.

Hopefully, by the time you’ve applied to affiliate marketing programs, began your research, joined the affiliate marketing blog and forum community, searched for ad coupons, looked into creating a website, and set some goals, you should have finally been accepted into a few affiliate marketing programs. Keep an open line of communication via phone or e-mail with your affiliate manager (if you have one). If there is anyone that wants to see you succeed in this field, besides yourself, it is this person. They are there to answer any questions you have about their company’s affiliate marketing program. Ask them to send you a list of their top converting offers, ranked by EPC (Earnings Per Click). That is what you are primarily going to be concerned about. Using that list, you will be able to see what other affiliate marketers are having success with.

Once you’ve decided on a particular offer for your first campaign, you can begin your market research phase. Go to the search engines and type in key words for that campaign. See what other people are doing to market that product. Take a survey of everything that everyone is doing. Now is not the time to get creative. As this point, you just want to learn the ropes from what other people are doing. At some point you are going to have to jump in head first. So once you feel comfortable with the research you’ve done, you can begin promoting your first affiliate marketing campaign.

So, we’ll recap what you should do, and will experience, your first week of affiliate marketing:

· Apply to affiliate marketing programs.

· Study affiliate marketing and keyword research.

· Become part of the affiliate marketing blogging and forum community.

· Look for advertising coupons.

· Consider building a content-based website.

· Create goals for your affiliate marketing career.

· Contact your affiliate manager.

· Decide on a campaign offer, research it, and promote it!

These are just the basics in what you should expect to do and experience for affiliate marketing during your first week of work. Obviously there is a lot to learn, a lot of mistakes to be made, and a lot of successful opportunities awaiting you!

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