For as many affiliate marketing businesses there are, you will also find multiple methods to market each business. Each method may require a certain amount of trial and error, but each trial will tell you how or, better yet, how not to market your affiliate marketing business.

The more you test your market the more your chances are to find the right method that works for your business model. Once found, you can begin to fine tune your method towards market domination of the affiliate product you are promoting. One thing, however, you do not want to do is just focus on one method of marketing your affiliate product.

Testing takes time, and time is money. While you are testing your method, start working on another method while keeping track of the previous one. While this second method is underway, start working on a third method. Continue this process and track your results. In time you will see which result will bring you the most revenue.

Marketing Methods

I’m sure you are probably already familiar with many of the popular Internet marketing methods used in affiliate marketing today but we’ll name a few of them here.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) – is when you, the advertiser pay a certain amount of money every time someone clicks on your ads. Different keywords cost a certain amount of money per click. Marketers can bid on their chosen keywords if they want to run ads to be placed on publishers websites.

Forum Marketing – is an online discussion forum that is dedicated to the niche market you are interested in. Once you join, you are able to post relevant comments as well as ask your own questions. One good way to gain credibility and authority is to answer questions instead. The key here is to get known as an expert in your niche. While you should not openly market your own products here, you are able to include a link in your signature line that leads back to your website or product sales page.

Article Marketing – My favorite method to market products is by writing, distributing and promoting articles. You write articles or outsource them by paying others to write them and submit them to article directories. The best article directory by far is EzineArticles.com . The articles should contain information that is relevant to your niche and depending upon the article directory, you either include links in the body of your article or in the resource box at the end of your article.

There are many things you can do with articles. I usually like to take the longest and best version and put it on my website or blog. I will then make a second version and submit it to EzineArticles.com. I will then make at least two more versions and submit those to some of the other top article directories out there like ArticleCity.com and Isnare.com.

Email Marketing – Email Marketing is not a very viable option unless you have a website, but it can still be done. With email marketing, you collect email addresses from those that are interested in your niche. The most effective means to collect those email addresses is by offering your subscribers something of value and usually for free. You can offer them an ecourse, an ebook, or even a newsletter. Each has is good and bad points.

If the potential subscribers are interested in your offering, they will type in their name and email address. Upon confirming the email they receive from you, they will subsequently receive whatever offer you have promised. Because they have agreed to receive your emails, your are now able to send them periodic emails to advertise your products, services or special promotions. Just beware that you should be sending them a mix of good content as well as your promotions or you will just be declared a spammer by them. If that happens your subscribers will just unsubscribe.

A new method that is becoming popular and has been compared to email marketing is by using a new Web 2.0 site called www.Twitter.com . It is simply a micro-blog where in 140 characters or less, you are able to keep in touch with other people of similar interests. More on this will be discussed in future article, but once you join you can then find people to follow you. If you like I’d love for you to join me at www.Twitter.com/JoeBlue .

Test Your Marketing Methods

As mentioned above, you need to test your marketing methods to determine which one will bring you the best results. Before testing your methods you need to track your methods. You can use tracking scripts from Google Analytics and place their code on each page you want to test.

Once your scripts are in place you can begin testing your sites. One method that many successful marketers use is called “split testing” . An example of split testing is when an affiliate marketer offers the exact same product through two or more marketing methods. It could even be the same method, but maybe using different wording – like two different headlines.

With the tracking script in place, the the marketer can then track where his sales are coming from and have a clearer sense of which method is bringing him/her the best results. Because rules, regulations and competition are constantly changing, you will likely need to continually test your affiliate marketing methods throughout your affiliate marketing career if you want to stay on top of the game.

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