Affiliate programs are one of the best ways to get some serious coinage rattlin’ around in your pockets, instead of just pocket lint! Listen, being an affiliate is SMART … Wanna know why?

Because when you sell someone else’s product, the owner has already spent loads of money creating or paying to have the product created for them, they’ve spent another small fortune creating the website, salesletter, graphics, domain name, hosting, customer support, merchant accounts, email systems, and all the marketing materials .…

And then you come along, place a tiny little classified ad, or write and submit a measly little article directing people to click on your affiliate link, and get this … You get half the money!! That’s fantastic, isn’t it?

Ok, let’s get on with the 5 strategies that’ll keep a steel cage around you in this pool of sharks!

Tip #1. DO NOT Promote a product that’s been kicked from one end of the internet to the other … lookin’ like something the cat dragged in!

Trying to sell a product that’s been around the block so many times, and ending up on eBay in a kazillion different listings, is a sure way for you to go broke and end up on food stamps! The best thing to do is, once you locate a product you think would do good, all you gotta do is run a google search for the exact name of the product you’re wanting to sell.

If it shows up on a handful of sites … and I mean only a handful, then it’s lookin’ like it may be a good possibility it’ll do well. Just for the heck of it, do the same thing on eBay. If you find that there’s a hundred bus loads of knuckleheads beatin’ the crap outta your product all over the place, then you better be lookin’ for a different thing to sell!!

Tip #2. Make sure the product owner has the “right kind of bait” included in their affiliate marketers tool box. Here’s the first thing you must do … you’ve gotta crawl into your potential customers minds, and think like they do.

You’ve gotta think about their wants and needs with regard to how the product is gonna address them. You’ve gotta make absolutely sure that all of the marketing materials specifically address the number one most important thing that’s in your customers mind … “WIIFM!” This stands for “what’s in it for me?”

In other words, when you read the salesletter, does it make you see yourself in it? Does it address your wants and needs? Does it gently and persuasively guide you to the realization that you can’t live without the product? Does it hit all of your emotional hot buttons, and end up makin’ you tear off your pockets tryin’ to the get money out fast enough?

Listen up: The salesletter and the supporting materials damn well better have that impact on you ‘cause if they don’t … they won’t have any impact on your customers either, and you’re gonna crash and burn!
Now that you know that the marketing materials should be presented and worded in a way that grabs your customer by the eyeballs, and never lets go … until they buy, that is!

Here’s a list of the most important marketing support and materials your product owner WILL have.
Remember, if the following things are not given to you, then you’d better just take all of your money, throw it in a pile, and burn it!

With that being said, take a look at Tip #3, and try to find most of these resources.

Tip #3. What to look for in your affiliate marketers support system:

• Brandable ebooks to give away or sell for a small fee with your own affiliate ID links to generate leads … and sales.
• Sales letters-the kind that make you want to spend your money … not the dull, boring crap you see all over the internet!
• Templates of the emails to send to your list. Pre-written email sequences are what you want … and they better be written in the same eyeball grabbin’ style that the salesletter is!
• Free promotional tips provided on how to make money, without you spending a fortune tryin’ to figure it out yourself … this is a must!
• Advice on how to use paid advertising to “target market” the product, and other tactics that’ll make you a boatload of money.
• Redirect links through your own website. For example: www.yoursite.com/theaffiliatesite/
• Banners

Tip #4. Good Tracking software.

If you can’t keep track of all the visitors that click on your links, and how many actually buy the product, how on earth are you gonna know if you’re being paid for every sale you generate?

It’s very important to be able to monitor almost everything in your resources section:

• You must be able to track your sales.
• How many visitors came to your site / link and to the merchant site.
• Which page they enter on the merchant site … this is where redirect links are critical!
• You must be able to view your payment history.
• View conversion rates — this is how you can tell how effective the advertising is … by looking at how many people visited your links and how many actually bought the product.

Tip #5. Cookies and IP addresses.

Today it’s common for Internet users to clear their cookies daily or weekly, which in turn wipes your affiliate links off their computers as well! So if you spend money on PPC or any other paid advertising to get a customer, you do not want to see another affiliate get the commission you should have gotten it.

So choose an affiliate program with tracking software that records the IP address of your future customer, because if your potential customer decides to go around you by going directly to your affiliate product without using your link … and believe me they will, or if they wipe out all cookies on their computer, your affiliate product owners tracking system will already have their IP and you’ll still get the credit, whether they use your link or not!

As a final note — always be sure that your affiliate commissions are at minimum, 50% — that’s fifty percent or more of the total purchase price on every order.

With these 5 tips, you should be able to start selling someone’s product through affiliate marketing, without doing any work, or spending lots of money!

However, if you’re still not sure what steps you should take and in what order you should be taking them, then you owe it to yourself to check out this “Second Grade Simple,” “take you by the hand” system, that’ll have you up and running in as little as 24 hours Guaranteed!

Let me ask you a question — “Is your refrigerator full of dents … you know, because you keep bangin’ your head against it tryin’ to figure out why you’re not making much money on the internet?”

There must be some reason why some internet marketers are making fistfuls of money and the rest of us are scramblin’ around like a pack of half-crazed lunatics, tryin’ to grab what lousy little morsels are left!

There’s gotta be a reason ….

Actually there is a reason, and that reason is: All truly successful online money makers have “Funnelvision!”
No, I’m not talkin’ about when we see a beautiful person and the only thing our sleep deprived, red eyed stare sees is that person, and everything else is blurred out … that’s called “Tunnelvision!”

Simply put, you’ve got to model your sales process after the one’s that the successful guys are using!
And that model is … an upside down funnel!

Here, let me give you the long, drawn out version of what I’m yappin’ about ….

Most of us that’re set up for failure, go about tryin’ to make money, do so by getting the customer to buy our product. The problem is … we’ve only got one product to sell! Which means that after you make that one sale to your customer, you’ll never see them again … because you got nothin’ else to sell ‘em! How are you gonna make a life-time customer that’s gonna be giving you residual income time after time out only having one product? You can’t!

Enter the upside down funnel.

In a nutshell, the funnel is a triangle, with the bottom of the triangle representing the base of your sales process — in other words, that is going to be where you cast the widest net to capture EVERYONE that gets within the reach of your diabolical clutches ….

You see, you need to have a product that is cheap (appeals to the masses) and must be top-notch quality information that keeps your customers clamoring for more!

Once your customer is thrilled with what you’ve given them, you can then gently guide them into purchasing your next product, which should be slightly more expensive.

Then, after you’ve completely knocked your customers socks off by delivering still another outstanding product that is superior to all the other “garbage” out there, you’ll have a customer that trusts you, and is even more willing to purchase more products from you (at an even higher price).

You can and should have at minimum, 7-10 levels of products in your “upside down” funnel!

You’re not gonna make a great deal off that first “cheap” (cheap in price…not quality) product. But it’s ok, you need to go slow. You’re gonna get the chance to make a killin’!

Once you build rapport with your new client, you’ll be able to move them “up” your funnel to more expensive products and suck out the big bucks like a Hoover! This process is known in the business as … the “up-sell.”

That is where the upside down funnel comes in.

The Profit Funnel is your pathway to building a relationship with your customer that begins with the purchase of initial goods or services. Once that initial relationship is established, you build on that relationship by evaluating the needs of your client and identify other goods or services that will also benefit your customer.

As you are able to acquaint, interest, and finally sell additional and higher priced items to your customer, your profit margin will increase. The upside down funnel model works very well whether you are working with a brick and mortar business or going strictly with an online presence.

In both instances, the task involves winning the confidence of the prospect, identifying entry level products or services that will be of interest to the prospect, selling the prospect, and then continuing to offer additional products or enhancements that will make life even easier for that former prospect that is now your customer.

Lowest Ticket, lower ticket, and low ticket products

When it comes to winning the confidence of a prospect, nothing speaks louder than a good deal.

It makes ‘em feel good about themselves and about you! Remember … no one wants to end up with a low cost product that ends up being used as a doorstop!

Your job is to match low cost quality product with your prospect. Once you demonstrate how one of your low cost offerings will consistently outperform the competition and save money, you’re gonna have to buy a dump truck in order to make deposits at your bank!

Low-Mid, Mid, and High Mid Ticket

Once you’ve built trust with your customer, you can start “up-selling” them by offering a much more enhanced version of the “low end” product they purchased, with a much higher price.

With your low cost items working just fine for your client, you will easily be able to gain attention for these mid priced offerings.

High Ticket – Extremely High Ticket

The dream of selling high ticket good or services is often the goal of the salesperson. After all, who would not love to be able to sell five thousand dollar items in one afternoon, rather than spend the entire week selling hundred dollar items in order to make the same commission?

Of course, you want to be on the alert for any chance to introduce and sell a high ticket item.

You have a couple of things going for you at this point in your relationship with your client.

First, you’ve proven that your low ticket and mid ticket products…that they already bought and liked, are exactly how you described, thereby creating the number one element that’ll have your customers stickin’ to you like “white on rice!” And that is TRUST! Nothing beats that kind of relationship when it comes to marketing!

Second, you’re not jammin’ everything down their throats at one time! You’re gently guiding your customers to the realization that you have exactly what they need in order to satisfy their wants and desires! You are someone who does the legwork, by identifying their “problem” and then giving them the solution!

The Profit Funnel helps you understand that your relationship with your client works on several levels and in several phases.

Building upon the sterling reputation you establish with low ticket sales and rolling it into the sale of more profitable sales will not only ensure you a great commission, but also will provide you with a working relationship that will last for many years.

But most importantly … it’ll make you filthy, stinkin’ rich!!! Say Amen, brothers and sisters!