Need Expert Guidance at 30,000 Feet
Trying to get started with affiliate marketing. In the last week, I've got my new domain, hosting service, WordPress, squeeze/sales pages plug in, affiliate marketing sources and freebies. I'm still working to firm up my funnel/campaigns and gather or advertise for subscribers so I can start making money. There's a couple of pieces of this puzzle I don't completely understand. Need some guidance from you experts:
1. With regard to autoresponders, I see you can use Aweber or Mail Chimp, but there is also RapidMailer which has no recurring fee. I like that, but then how are your emails sent? Would they go through my host company? Is that usually a separate paid service? I'm on Host Gator. Would my emails go through my host company anyway if I used Aweber or Mail Chimp with a monthly fee?
2. When you have this mailing list, maybe have it segmented into different groups for different offers, I think you're supposed to set up a campaign with additional offers that go out in some kind of schedule you set up. Maybe it's once or twice a week. I imagine your offer list would change over time as products are phased out and new ones come in, and you address the changing needs of your target market. Do you just make up a long list of additional offers that you email to your lists until they opt out? Do you just keep trying to get new subscribers to start from the top of your list of offers?
3. I can see planning a repeating campaign, for instance, where you want to resend an offer to your list to try for people who didn't buy the first time, or second time they see the offer, but maybe would buy the third time. But you wouldn't want to continue to send the offer to people who bought that product already because they may be unhappy seeing the same offer and opt out of your list. You could want to further segment the list by sending certain offers to people who bought certain products and other products to others. Is there some part of the workflow that tells you who bought what product? Does the affiliate source tell you who bought, or does the autoresponder capture that information?
Can you share your wisdom with a newbie?
Thanks for your help!
1. With regard to autoresponders, I see you can use Aweber or Mail Chimp, but there is also RapidMailer which has no recurring fee. I like that, but then how are your emails sent? Would they go through my host company? Is that usually a separate paid service? I'm on Host Gator. Would my emails go through my host company anyway if I used Aweber or Mail Chimp with a monthly fee?
2. When you have this mailing list, maybe have it segmented into different groups for different offers, I think you're supposed to set up a campaign with additional offers that go out in some kind of schedule you set up. Maybe it's once or twice a week. I imagine your offer list would change over time as products are phased out and new ones come in, and you address the changing needs of your target market. Do you just make up a long list of additional offers that you email to your lists until they opt out? Do you just keep trying to get new subscribers to start from the top of your list of offers?
3. I can see planning a repeating campaign, for instance, where you want to resend an offer to your list to try for people who didn't buy the first time, or second time they see the offer, but maybe would buy the third time. But you wouldn't want to continue to send the offer to people who bought that product already because they may be unhappy seeing the same offer and opt out of your list. You could want to further segment the list by sending certain offers to people who bought certain products and other products to others. Is there some part of the workflow that tells you who bought what product? Does the affiliate source tell you who bought, or does the autoresponder capture that information?
Can you share your wisdom with a newbie?
Thanks for your help!