List Building
The idea with this online marketing method is that you build up a list of emails from people interested in a certain topic. Once you have the email list you send out regular newsletters, product reviews, tips or other useful information. In these emails you endorse a product and use your affiliate link, every time someone on your list buys from one of your emails you make a commission on the sale.
This is one of the most consistently successful online marketing methods. I put off trying this method for ages as it seemed to complicated to set up. Once you get started though it is not too difficult, you just need to use the best strategy and the correct tools.
Building Your List
The best way to build a list is to offer something of value to people in exchange for their email addresses. Giving away a free guide or piece of software relevant to the topic of your site is probably the best option but a newsletter can work too. If you include this offer above the fold on your website or blog with a clear call to action you will see the best results.
You can use pay-per-click adverts or other forms of advertising to send visitors to your sign up page. This can speed up the process significantly but be careful, you should not spend too much here until you start to make sales and generate income.
Marketing To Your List
The only viable way to manage and market to your list is by using an auto responder. This software will automatically send out emails to those who sign up to your list. You can program them to send out multiple emails, perhaps once a week, with different information and product recommendations.
There are some free auto responders available but I use Aweber and would strongly recommend that you do the same. Your list is potentially very valuable, you do not want to lose out on sales. The cost of the service is relatively low, currently $19 per month for the first 500 subscribers. This includes access to many other marketing tools as well as the very reliable auto responder.
Treat Your List With Care
It is important to treat the people on your list with care, they can easily unsubscribe. If you send out well-written emails with useful content, your subscribers may start looking forward to receiving them. These people could stay on your list for years and buy numerous products thorough your affiliate links.
If you send out weak emails with little or no value you will lose subscribers and miss out on sales. It is just that simple. A good option is to sign up to your own email list, this way you will read each mail as your subscribers do. If you read any emails that you think are too sales focussed or uninteresting you should either re-write them or delete them from your auto responder series.
There is no strict rule as to how often you can email your list, really it depends on how good your emails are. If you have some great information you could send them out every day, but no more than twice a week is probably safer, at least to begin with.
At the beginning of your auto responder series you may want to send out a few mails with no products or affiliate links, just top information. This is a good way of building up trust with your subscribers.
