building a list and affiliate marketing? How does the process work?

Well let's reverse engineer it, shall we?

The final action you have with a customer is either 1) they purchase your product and you can sell them products in the future, 2) they purchase your product and you don'tsell them any more products, 3) they don't purchase the product and they may purchase in the future or 4) they don't purchase and they never will purchase.

From this we can accept a simple premise - you will have customers that do and don't purchase, and you will have potential customers who do and don't purchase. What you want to do then is (a) focus on selling now to the customers that do want to purchase now and (b) focus later on selling to the customers that will buy later. These are the only two options that are fruitful and conductive to business.

I think the problem here is that you need to clarify the big picture (and you may even already know this). You can go about this a number of complicated ways (again, as you may already have figured out) but I would say you need to consolidate all your efforts behind one goal.

To clarify I would say that you should be making all your efforts point one direction: you can either focus on selling a product to the customer now or making a list and selling one to them later. Your email capture page with freebie offer should only be used to either qualify buyers as potential interest in the niche you are reaching out to or as stage one of a directed marketing process, which is followed up by email marketing.

Here, read this article: EMAIL MARKETING AND SALES FUNNEL CREATION.

I will keep it very simple

1. Send traffic to a landing page where you give something away free for their email.
2. If the user tries to leave without submitting an email address use an exit pop.
3. If they did submit an email address take them to a sales video for an affiliate product that matches the free giveaway.
4. Create a 30 day auto responder series where you email them everyday. Remember if they signed up to your list they are most likely on others and you need to fight for the inbox. Email everyday to maximize profit.

A great way to grow your list is to do what you're doing... post on forums, ask questions, and give help and info whenever you can! Also, don't forget about posting comments on blogs you like to follow. Utilize Pinterest, Reddit, Facebook, and StumbleUpon. Good luck!

Big thing I think your missing here is you won't have a buyers list until you actually sell something. When your promoting affiliate programs, the affiliate program is the one that will get the buyers email address because the visitor bought from the affiliate program.

Once you send some one to an affiliate program, you have to look at them as "gone". Either they buy or they don't. But your connection with them is gone, unless they come back to your site, or you have them on a list.

The affiliate program is not gong to give you the buyers email address, least none that I've never seen. Only way you could get buyers names is if you offer them a bonus for buying through your affiliate link, if they send you their receipt. But even then you'll have to have them opt-in for your list, or mark them as a buyer if they are on your list. Might be able to do that with automation, but I couldn't tell you how.

You don't want to send people to sign up for a list every time they click an affiliate links, you'll lose sales all over the place. With links, they click, go to the program and buy or don't buy. That's it.

As for getting them on your list, that is the job for your squeeze page, or opt-in box. Not going through links.

For someone who is already subscribed, you don't have to ask them to sign up again and again. You just need to set up followup emails. In the followup emails you can reveal some content that the list is looking for and in the end promote your product for the complete solution. If you have multiple products, then create multiple followup emails promoting those products. If you have a discount coupon on a special day, then send a broadcast email.

There is so much more that you can do with a list.


Hope it helps...
Dr.Spencer Jones

Ah, you understand the web marketing dilemma. On one hand I want to build a list, and on the other want to sell things on my web site.

There is no iron tight way to get every visitor onto your list, but you don't want every visitor, only buyers on your list, only people who are hungry for the information you are sharing.

There is nothing that says you have to sell anything on your site either. You could only sell to those on your mailing list.

Send your traffic to a blog / other content rich site where people can find epic content and lots of value to make them want to hear more from you.

Have an opt in form (you'll need an autoresponder account, I recommend Aweber) on your site in various places (side bar, below post, headline bar, within content etc) enticing people to sign up for more of the same epic content you've got on your site or some email exclusives.

Send out emails packed full of valuable and actionable information, link back to your blog posts, offer useful advice to people and mix in some promotions too where you plug affiliate offers that solve problems they have.

When they buy the affiliate product the person is still on your list.

If you're wanting to create seperate lists for people who have bought individual products then it's tricky with affiliate products (easy when creating your own) but you can encourage them to sign up to an exclusive list for buyers of 'X' product to get bonuses that they otherwise wouldn't get.

Hi

To add my 2 penneth worth to the discussion, I think most points have been made bt posters already, but hopefully to bring it all together, this is how I see the process:

1. Have your squeeze/landing page offering your free gift (they opt in here and are added to your list).
2. Have an offer as part of the subscription process sending them to an affiliate offer (if they buy you get a cut/commission)
3. Have a number of emails pre set up in your autoresponder promoting your products or affiliate programs.

Only if they decide to buy one of the affiliate products will they go through another subscription process, but this is not yours as you will already have them on your list.

So it is really a very simple and yet flexible model.

The keys to a good sales funnel are:
1. Have a gift of perceived high value up front.
2. A simple squeeze page with a clear call to action.
3. Email messages that are informative/fun/useful.
4. Promote affiliate products that are in some way related to the original gift you gave away.

I hope this helps and all the best with your affiliate marketing.

Don't worry about people having to sign up again and again. If you have an autoresponder for your email marketing you have the ability to set up multiple lists, each list can be connected to completely different offers.

Many affiliate marketers will have the same person on multiple lists, its just the way it is. When you send out emails they should only get one email, but if they get duplicate they can always unsubscribe.

Heres a article I wrote awhile back. Hope it helps!

Internet marketer, new and veteran alike know that money is in the list. That's why Internet marketers spend much of their Internet marketing effort on list building. Some of them build a list segregating the subscribers according to their niche. The number in a list is significant. The greater number represents greater marketing success.

So what is a list. List represents the particulars of email subscribers of newsletters or similar informative content. The particular need not to be a detailed one. The name of the subscribes and their email addresses are enough for the purpose. The name and email provider agrees to have further information from a particular information provider. All the similar subscriber particular is saved in a special format to create a list.

Benefit of having a list is significant. The subscriber shows interest to have more information in a particular area. That means he is highly targeted recipient of information in the area of his interest. It is easier to close a deal if the deal is in the area of the subscribers' interest. Percentage of an offer converted to sales is much higher with the subscribers list that any other type of traffic.

You need a special software called the auto-responder to build and manage an email list. There are quite few services in the Internet market. You can install the auto-responder software plugin if your site is hosted with Word Press platform. These plugins could be free, or you can buy it with one-time payment. Other types of the auto-responder in the market can be used paying a monthly subscription fee. However, you can create as many campaigns as you want with one subscription.

Auto-responder allows you to set a special email capturing software called opt-in box in your landing page or any webpage you want. Opt-ins collect particulars, i.e. the names and email addresses and keep in an organized database. You can manually examine and sort the database if it is required by you. Auto-responders allow you to set pre-written emails and newsletters and send in a preset date and time. You can also send a special email containing your offer in between pre-written emails if you want.

Capturing as many interested subscribers as possible is the basic of list building. You can create high converting landing pages and insert your opt-in to capture interested subscribers. You can lure the subscriber with highly interesting content. You can offer a free deal in exchange of their email address. You also can place the advertisement at different high visited sites paying money. There are different methods and different tricks to display your opt-in throughout the Internet.

You have to take an important issue if you're using an auto-responder to manage your email list. Auto-responder is a software that sends information automatically. No human like to have an automated response. They want interaction with a live person, an expert person in the respective field. You should maintain a personalized relationship with your subscribers interacting with them. This would make you a highly successful list builder.

First thing to do: Read everything on the WF and outside related to what you're asking. It's all been asked before.

There you go:

Put a Sign up page (Squeeze page) --> Drive Targeted traffic --> Get people to sign up in return of a free gift--> Build relationship with your list by offering free content and stories --> Make money by recommending affiliate products --> survey your subs about their biggest problem--> Create an inexpensive report (this will help you build a buyers list)--> Create a premium priced coaching program about solving their biggest problem--> Offer it to your buyer's list at a discounted price --> Collect testimonials --> Plan to Relaunch the coaching at increased price since you have social proof --> Get in touch with players in your niche and ask them if they would promote your offer for a generous commission --> Relaunch the high ticket product to your list together with your affiliates.

Rinse and repeat...

Hope that helps you get the bigger picture.