As a Malaysian, I am proud that my country, Malaysia is celebrating 53rd Independence day on 31st August.

Cheers to all

Alwin Chuah

Everything you think you know about building an affiliate business is wrong. The tactics of the past few years just don’t work anymore. If you play by the old rules, you will lose this game.

The promise

Unfortunately, you’ve been led to believe affiliate marketing is easy. This is partially true. It’s far easier that developing, selling and supporting your own product. But “easier” doesn’t mean “easy”.

Here’s the ugly truth

And to make matters worse, you’ve taught to do it the hard way. The first thing you’re taught is to pick some great products. Next to look for easy keywords to target. Then buy some keyword ads that send traffic to the product. And finally get a fat check for all the sales. But it doesn’t work.

Forget keywords

There was a time when this worked. But it’s just too competitive to use keywords now. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

A brand new formula

All is not lost. Follow this method and win again…

• Get into CPA marketing
• Utilize demographics data
• Do image ad marketing

Get into CPA marketing

CPA stands for Cost Per Action. It’s so much easier than promoting products. Because you don’t have to get people to spend money. You get paid when they take an “action”. Entering their email into a form, for example. And it’s much easier to get them to do that.

Instead of researching keywords, research demographics

You’re not even going to use keywords (explained below.) But demographics are highly important. First you select your CPA offer. Next, you go to Quantcast.com. And find your target demographic.

Market on display networks

So you know what your promoting and you know who will be interested. You can advertise directly to them on display networks. Using image ads. And you don’t need to know or buy a single keyword. Plus you’re going to save a ton of money. Display networks charge a fraction for image ad clicks vs. keyword ads.

In closing

This is truly a quick cash concept. Because getting started in CPA is free. It’s much cheaper to do image ads than keyword ads. You can use demographics to target your ideal prospect. And getting them to take an action is much easier than making a sale.

Cheers
Alwin Chuah

Answer this question: What’s the most common reason people get online each and every day? Simple. To get information. Google alone serves up 400 million searches per day! OK, so what’s it to you? This quest for information is an opportunity for you to fill a need. And to earn some cash for doing it!

What is info marketing?

This is by far the simplest business you can start. You take information and turn it into a digital product – like and ebook. And other people buy this product to get the info. Sounds simple enough, right?

But how does it all work?

OK, the concept is simple. In order to be successful there has to be value in the info you’re selling. So you’ll need to find out what info is valuable. How can you find out what people want?

One very simple method is to do a little research. Just go to Yahoo! answers or ask.com and you’ll get a good idea of the kinds of things people need help with. Your goal is to find a common problem. For things that are causing people discomfort. Then just give them the answer in your ebook.

Think about this:

Don’t worry! Info product creation is easy… Consider this: An ebook is just a series of articles. Writing a whole ebook can be overwhelming. Just try to write one or two articles a day. And once you have bunch of good ones, expand and embellish them and combine them into a single ebook.

Why info products? Funny you should ask . . . Here are the seven reasons

1. Ease

As soon as you have the pieces in place, it’s virtually maintenance free. And your customers need very little support. So you can just set it up and let it run. It’s like having an automated cash machine.

You don’t have any inventory. You never have to deal with shipping. It’s digital.

2. Repurposing

Once you have a few info products created. You can combine them together to create new high ticket products. It’s very easy to package multiple ebooks together as one new one. Then you can sell it for a lot more. People will be willing to pay a lot more for one big ebook. As opposed to a bunch of little ones.

3. Resale rights

You can grant other people resell rights to your own products. Recently, resell rights have become extremely popular, because most people simply don’t have the time, money and effort it takes to create their own products. Plus, you get to charge two to three time as much for these rights.

4. Leverage

Leverage your ebook by using the content in different ways. Use part of it to make an autoresponder series. And build your list with it. A list is it’s own reward!

5. More leverage

Utilize your content in as many ways as you can – like creating a few reports from parts of the ebook. Then use these to generate leads for the main product. You can give them away or even charge a small amount for them. And you’re creating targeted leads for your main product all along. Taking this technique to the max, you can let your affiliate give the reports away for you. Affiliate, you say? Yes!

6. Affiliates

This is one of the biggest reasons of all. When you own your own products. Other people can become your affiliates. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bunch of other people doing your marketing for you? You’ve got to have your own products to have affiliates.

7. JVs

OK, this is by far the biggest reason why. Setting up joint ventures is the fastest way to gain success. Period. And this is probably the number one reason to create your own product. No products of your own = no way to do joint ventures.

Summary

If you’re not convinced to start selling information products, then you’ve probably been sleeping. With your own info product you can write your own ticket. Because you’re 100% in control. So, don’t waste any more time:

• Go to answers.yahoo.com
• Find out what people need to know
• Start providing information

Information product development really is that simple. Before you know it, you’ll have your own info product.

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

It’s undeniable that if you add audio to websites it will increase your results. If you’re not using audio on your sites, you’re making a mistake. Audio increases opt-ins. It boosts sales, too.

Why does it work?

It’s simple. Most of the web is cold and impersonal. It adds a human touch to your site. And makes people feel they’re dealing with a real person. Basically, audio brings your site to life. And people like to interact with things that are alive!

The benefits of audio

You’ll receive two immediate benefits to your bottom line when you employ the use of audio. You’ll convert more visitors into buyers. And second you’ll save money on the sales letter. You see, you’ll be able to skip the expensive copywriter. You can just add your own audio. Your visitors will respond better to a heart-felt message from you than some fancy copywriting.

And you will increase your subscriber opt-in rate. Most people need to be led by the hand. So you just add a simple audio that says: Enter your email address in the form. That alone can increase opt-in rates up to 310%!

Some ways to use audio

Add a welcome to my site message on your main page. Most people abandon a website within just a few seconds. This could be all it takes to get your visitor to decide to stay.

Lead them by the had. It’s the same as when you use audio to increase your subscribers. You can use audio to tell your visitors exactly what to do. That includes filling in your order form!

Product testimonials are great. A written testimonial is good. But audio testimonials are great! It’s pretty easy to fake a written testimonial. So audio adds real believability. And will definitely increase your results.

Power tip

Did you ever think of making a product just by recording some audio? This is by far the easiest content to produce. Plus people love audio products. The great thing about audio products is people can take them with them on the go. And you can get someone to transcribe them for very little money. This is the easiest way to “write” an eBook!

Is adding audio hard?

It’s not hard at all. There are quite a few audio streaming software programs out there. There’s no knowledge required on your part. The software records the audio, creates the button code, etc. You just copy and paste into your website. You don’t need to even consider this part.

Summary

Let’s take another look at the benefits. Using website audio will increase your conversion rates. No doubt your sales will go up. You will also increase your subscriber opt-ins. And you can use it to create products and sales letters quickly. No many people are doing this. But audio is a really big time and money saver. Get started right now and realize instant results.

Hope you like this article!

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

It is extremely difficult to get started in affiliate marketing. This is because there are already a lot of people doing it. The challenge is to try and outdo other affiliates and think of ways to do a better job promoting. It’s also hard to figure out what to do because there’s a lot of information out there. Here’s one trick that almost no one else is using.

Affiliate videos

The power of video is undeniable. Video online is everywhere because people love it. Keeping people’s attention is so much easier using videos. So using it in your affiliate promotions is a no-brainer!

Examples of how to use video for affiliate marketing:

• Do a testimonial video
• Walk-throughs
• Do an ordering video
• Record a preview of the members area

Testimonials

It doesn’t get any easier than this. Just turn on your web cam and talk. Don’t worry about quality. Seeing a real person on the other end helps your viewers make a buying decision. And honestly, if you mess up it just makes it seem more authentic. You really can just click record and start talking. If you don’t want to be in front of the camera use one of the other methods.

Record a walk-through

This one is a little more subtle. You’re taking the role of teacher and showing how to use the product. And while they watch you use it, they think, “I should buy that.” If the product is useful, watching the tutorial makes them want to buy it. So just make sure you’re demoing a good product.

Do an ordering video

This one is killer! Record a video of yourself actually buying the product. There is nothing more motivating than watching someone buy something live. First of all it’s what’s called “social proof”. Once they see you doing it, they feel more secure. Second, it builds trust. Your advice is easier to trust if they can see you’re doing what you tell them to do. And finally, it creates envy. It’s simple – you have it. Now they want it. To really cap this one off, end your video with: You’re gonna have to place your own order if you want to see the members area.

Sneak peak

Here’s an easy way to show the value of the product. In this case you record a screen share of the inside of the product. You show them the entire contents of what they get. It also reduces the reservations of skeptics. It’s much easier to trust they’re getting something if they actually seen it.

Anyone can do it!

No special skills are required. Some very easy to use programs make the videos for you. The software really does all the work So there’s no need to even think about the technical side. Keep focused on the rewards:

• Make more money Using videos in your affiliate marketing will dramatically increase your sales. People love video, so please use them.
• Reduce refunds Less of your commissions will be clawed back, too. Thanks to you people know what’s inside before buying. So less of them will ask for refunds.
• Outdo your competitors! Adding video is so simple. But only a very small percentage do it. This puts you out in front of the rest.

Get started right now and take your affiliate marketing to the next level. It’s your profit that’s affected by not taking action.

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

Now you now why. Here’s how:

Here’s what you need to build your list:

• Your Opt-in Page
• The Bribe
• Your Confirmation Page

Your Opt-in Page – The squeeze page is the first thing your visitor is going to see. This is where they will enter their email address. That’s why it needs to look like a professionally designed page. And have an easy to understand opt-in form. You’ve also got to make a strong “close”.

If you fail to make a strong close, you’re wasting your efforts. Your call to action tells the visitor what to do. And if you don’t include it, they won’t opt in. Oddly, if you don’t make it clear, people will be confused and end up doing nothing.

One way to really spice up your squeeze page is to add a video to it. Adding video will help keep your visitors attention. It also allows you to tell them what to do several times. Then at the end of the video you can print “sign up now” on the video.

If you don’t know how to make video, don’t worry. Hiring out-sourced help to do it for you only costs $150 – $250. You can also find ready-made list building tools that have everything pre-built for you.

Your Bribe – Next, you’ve got to figure out what your bribe is. You have to give people a compelling reason to give your their email. Email privacy is very important to most people. So make your “bribe” a good one!

The only way to make this work is to provide real value. It has to be something that people actually want. And will be able to actually benefit from it. This can be:

• An eBook
• Software
• Videos
• A multi-part email series

Basically, you just need some content. It’s got to be something helpful for your new subscribers. And nothing sells like “free”. Bottom line is it’s got to be worth more to them than their email address.

Once again, don’t worry if you don’t know how to create the freebie. Here again, you can hire freelancers to create this for you. You just pick the topic and they create the training. For example, you could have them write a 5-part email course. Each email will cost between $20 and $25. So, you’ll get the whole series written for under $150.

You can also get email list building tools that include the premium. Two things to keep in mind when writing (or buying) and email training series. The first thing is that it delivers value to your subscribers. And second, it needs to make you money. The easiest way to do this is to market affiliate products in the emails. This is such a simple solution because you don’t have to create the product. And it enables you to generate cash right away from your new list.

Your Confirmation Page – The last bit is the thank you page. This is the page your subscriber sees after they opt in. It’s a great idea to give them some valuable information right on the thank you page. That way, they feel glad that they gave you their email address. It also helps to build the relationship. It also makes them more likely to open your emails.

This is another case where you can get a complete marketing package. Or you can go the DIY route. You can either write the content pages on your own. Or hire ghost writers to write them for you.

Summary

It doesn’t matter if you do all of this yourself. Or if you hire people to do this for you. Or if sign up for a “complete package” solution. It’s just important that you start today building your opt-in list. Because once its built… You can basically write your own meal ticket.

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

How, then do you get traffic to your site?

These are the best and fastest ways to get free visitors coming to your site:

• Web 2.0 Methods
• Article Websites
• Video Sites

OK, so how do they work?

Web 2.0 Sites

A Web 2.0 site gives its users the ability to interact with each other and create the site’s content together. The exciting thing about Web 2.0 sites is that you get to add your own content and it becomes part of these sites. The other interesting thing about these sites is that all the search engines (including Google) treat them as “authority sites”. Which means the content on them gets “indexed” faster and with more weight. So, if you place links to your own site inside your content, you get a search engine ranking benefit from those links. That’s the real benefit of adding content to this sites – search engine ranking means ongoing free traffic. There are many more web 2.0 traffic tactics we don’t have time to get into here, but this will get you started.

Articles Sites

The next thing we want to talk about is article marketing. Article sites are in essence web 2.0 websites. Article directories are sites where users (including you) can upload articles they have written. And just like other web 2.0 sites, you get all the SEO benefits from having your content on them. And in addition to this, other users can take your article and place it on their own website. And in return for getting to use your content, these other users include links back to your website that gives you further search engine ranking and more free traffic. If you want to generate traffic from articles follow these steps:

• Figure out what keywords you want to go after
• Write your article for the keywords you’ve chosen
• Hyperlink these keywords to your website – both in the content of the article and in your author’s info section.

Video Marketing

And finally, we need to talk about getting traffic from videos. Here to we’re really looking at a web 2.0 sub-category. And it carries all the same benefits of article marketing. And if all that wasn’t enough, you also stand a much stronger chance of getting a high search engine ranking for the keywords you want with video than you do with text-based content.

Here are just a few video marketing tips:

• Sign up for YouTube
• When people view your videos, you want them to visit your site, so turn all the other modules in your profile off
• Put relevant “tags” in your profile
• Make sure to include in your profile a link to your site
• Add at least one video to your profile
• For each video use your keywords in the tags, the descriptions and the title

In closing…

This is a great overview to get your started generating massive traffic to your site.

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

Step 1 – Find a Fanatical Market

If you want your membership business to be profitable, you have to find a marketing with fanatics in it. Fanatic is defined as someone with an irrational enthusiasm. These are the people you’re looking for because they are so enthusiastic they’re willing to spend money on their topic of fanaticism. Now that we know what we’re looking for, let’s talk about how to find them…

• Here’s something you may not have considered – magazines! We’re so internet-based these days, it’s easy to forget about them. In today’s economy, running a magazine is tougher than ever – some of the best ones are going out of business. So if it’s on the shelves, it’s making money, which means there is a big market interested in this topic. That doesn’t mean definitely that it will make a good membership business, but it’s a good starting point.
• You’ve got lots of opportunities every day to see what people are interested in. Just pay attention to what people talk about on the radio, at social gatherings, at the store or restaurants and anywhere in public. If people are talking about it, they are interested in it. And that may also mean they’re willing to pay money to learn more about it.
• Again, looking in the physical world for clues you can tell there are lots of people interested in something if there are clubs and organizations around the topic. Likewise, if there are enough people to hold a convention, there are definitely enough people to fill your membership website.
• What about your interests and hobbies? Chances are that if you like a certain topic or hobby, other people do, too. Making money is fun and it’s even more fun if you can do it in a niche you’re excited about.
• Google Trends. This is a great way to figure out what people are interested in. This service shows you the current most popular search terms. These are the things people are actively searching for in Google. They’re searching because they want information. Hot topics that people are excited about make great niches for your membership website.

Next – Figure out if there’s money in it

OK, so you’ve got a great idea for your niche membership business with lots of fanatics. But will they actually spend money? One way to figure this out is to see if other are making money in it.

Here’s how to determine if you can make money in your chosen niche

• Are there blogs or forums in this niche? Take the name of your niche and search for “niche name blog” & “niche name forum” in Google to see if there is an active group of people talking about and interested in the niche. This tells you there are people who are actively interested in your niche.
• Check Amazon, eBay and Google Shopping to find out if others are making and selling products in your niche. It’s a good sign if there are because it tells you people are making money here.
• Watch Google Adwords for a period of time and look for ads the run again and again. Adwords ads are expensive, so people only run them repeatedly if they are profitable. And to be profitable, they have to be selling products and making money.

Last, but not least… How hard will it be to break into this niche?

After figuring out a good niche and determining that other people are making money in it, the last thing to do is decide if you will be able to enter the market. Here’s how to make this determination:

• Figure out what kinds of products people are interested in. If it’s mostly physical products, coaching and live seminars, then it will be harder to break into this niche. The easiest membership website to create and maintain are information membership sites.
• Competition. How many other people are trying to sell to this market? You want to start in a market that’s not completely saturated with competitors.
• Unless the market is just so big that it doesn’t matter how many competitors there are, you want to limit the competition. So evaluate the size vs. the competition.
• Market readiness. Are people ready to buy? Are the receptive to marketing messages? Every market is different. Sometimes people are looking for information and are ready to pay for it right now. And sometimes it takes weeks, months or even years for them to make the decision to purchase.

Putting it all together

At this point you’ve figured out what niche you’re going into. You found your fanatics, you know they spend money and you’re confident there’s room in the market for you. If you’ve done your homework, your business will be a success because you already know your market is a profitable one with room for you. Learning how to run a membership website is a topic for another article…

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

Before we begin

Before you begin trying to get traffic to your site, you need to do your keyword research first. The reason this is so important is that you are going to be building content and traffic sources for specific keywords. This means it’s critical to select your keywords properly.

While doing your keyword research, keep the following in mind:

• Are the keywords you’re interested in attainable? This involves doing some competitive analysis to determine the ease of entry for each keyword
• Will the keywords you’re targeting bring buyers? Some keywords will bring lots of traffic, but none of them will buy. What you want is buyers!
• Another thing to think about is affiliates. If you want to build a huge business, you’re going to need affiliates to help you. So, it’s important to also target affiliates in the keywords you go after.

Although this is an essential step, doing it all by hand can take a very long time. Experts are expensive and don’t guarantee results. Which is why practically none of your competitors will do this! What I recommend is using website traffic software to save the time of doing it yourself and the money of hiring someone else. This will not only speed it up. It will give you better results, as well.

Only then can you start getting traffic

Only after doing your keyword research correctly can you start targeting these keywords to get you traffic.

Here are a couple of clever ways to do this…

• Most people overlook the power of Surveys!
• “Help” Websites
• Video

Surveys

Here’s the thing – people love surveys. It’s human nature. You can use this fact to provide “sticky” content for other website owners. And when they put your survey on their site, they will include a link back to your website. This allows you to get free website traffic from other people’s sites! Using just this one extra idea will put you ahead of your competition . . . who think surveys are for gathering information! So, get creative and make up a survey that’s wacky to get other people interested in putting it on their sites.

“Help” Websites

These sites, like answers.yahoo.com are filled with people asking and answering questions for each other. Once again, the main reason for this site is not the reason you’re interested. You are going to generate traffic, leads and sales from them. One thing you can do is to visit sites like Craigslist and Yahoo! Answers and manually extract contact info to contact other users. The good news is that it’s easy to find website traffic software that can do this automatically. Then you just get a daily batch of fresh leads delivered to your inbox.

Video Websites

Video is huge and sites like YouTube and Vimeo are extremely popular. These sites generate massive traffic and people watch over 2 billion videos a day on YouTube alone . If used properly, video sites can get you more website traffic than you know what to do with.

You don’t have to be able to make awesome videos for this to work. You can even take a webpage or article that you’ve written. Then just do a screen capture of yourself going through it. You can even get software that will automatically do this for you.

The Bottom Line…

Getting traffic is not that difficult. Use your noodle and come up with things other people aren’t doing. Plus, there’s lots of great software out there to help you.

Don’t waste any more time:

• Do your keyword research
• Next, set up a survey or two with viral appeal
• Build your traffic traps
• Capitalize on video

Cheers

Alwin Chuah

One of the easiest and fastest way to earn a living online is through affiliate marketing. This is when you refer traffic to someone else’s product sales page, they do everything else! (make the product, design the sale page, handle the billing and support, etc.), and you get a percentage of the sale price as your commission (usually 50% or more for digital products).

Here’s just a few benefits

1. You can start right now with no up-front costs and no need to make a product, set up a website and sales page, design the website, develop marketing materials, or get a merchant account and CRM.
2. It runs on auto-pilotfor you because they handle the billing, support, maintenance, etc.
3. You have nearly zero risk because you already know the product sells, because the product owner has already made sure the product sells. So you already know that the visitors you send will result in commissions for you.

Looking at these benefits, it’s clear that affiliate marketing is the way to go!

There is one major drawback…

Once you send your visitors to the product sales page, they are gone forever. Less than 10% of the visitors your send will actually buy the product. The 10% or less that make a purchase now belong to the product owner. She can sell them additional products, but you can never sell to them again.

What’s the solution?

It’s simple: You must get your visitors’ email addresses before you send them to the product owner’s website. This way you can follow up with them and keep sending them back to the sales page to increase your chances of making the sale. And if you want to do it like a pro, you’ll give them some great content before sending them to the sales page.

Here are the benefits of doing affiliate marketing like this:

1. By building your own list, you’re creating a renewable resource that you can tap again and again for instant profits.
2. You’re generating good will by giving them high-quality content. This way, they are much more likely to make a purchase when you send them to the sales page.

If you want to create an affiliate marketing system like this, you’ll need the following:

1. A squeeze page, and even better a Video squeeze page.
2. Several high-quality content pages
3. At least a 5-Part Email Followup Series

The video squeeze page is where you’ll direct your traffic instead of directly to the product sales page. This page is where you collect your visitors’ contact info and add them to your autoresponder, which in turn starts sending them the multi-part email series. Once your visitors have been subscribed to your email series, they are sent to your content pages.

The content pages provide valuable information for your visitors and make them more receptive to the sales message that you’ll link to from inside the content. And at the same time, the email series begins following up with them to get them back to the sales page, in case they don’t buy on the first visit.

Putting all of these pieces together will increase your sales by 500% or more, so it’s obviously worth the time and energy to do it. And after you get it all set up, it runs on total auto-pilot. You just refer people to your lead capture page, instead of the product sales page.

If you don’t have the time or expertise to set it all up yourself, you can use something like Affiliate Silver Bullet. With a service like that, you don’t have to do anything. They make the video, build the squeeze page, write the email series, develop the content mini-site, etc. And then just give you a finished package. The major benefit of using a service like this is that you can get started right away, and for a whole lot less than it would cost to do it all yourself. The downside is that other people will be using the same affiliate tools as you. But the internet is pretty big, so this isn’t much of a concern.

Alternatively, you can use a service like Elance to “outsource” each of these compnents. Whichever way you decided to go, it’s critical to get an affiliate marketing system like this in place, if you’re at all serious about your business.

Cheers

Alwin Chuah