Affiliate marketing is fun. At least for me it is. I like it because I deal with products and information I really like.

Take photography, for instance. I love cameras and all things related. So I have a relationship with camera sellers. I write about cameras and camera equipment, and in doing so, I learn more about my passion.

My relationship with Amazon brings me income each time someone buys a camera or a lens from my website. It is very easy to create this relationship with Amazon, just go to Amazon.com and sign up for an account. Then start promoting their products. They sell everything from Books to Tanks. So, if you have a passion, they have a product.

First Place For Valuable Market Research

Can you see that this product has OVER 14.000 reviews?

Here is where the Marketing Research comes in. Go to Amazon.com and find a product you want to promote. Click on the Customer Reviews of that product. You will usually find tons of valuable information you can use in your articles and web pages about the product. Look for the things that show up lots of times… these can become your keywords when you write articles or buy Google Ads.

Second Place For Affiliate Product Market Research

Ever heard of YouTube? Of course you have.

Try this. Type your product name into the search box at YouTube.com. Usually, unless you are looking at some really obscure product, you will find lots of “Review Videos”. Watching the videos can give you some things to write or post about, but the important stuff is BELOW the video. Those who watch the videos will post their opinion of the product and ask questions about it. “Does anyone know if the Kindle will allow me to play video games?” If the questions come up many times, you have something to write about!

Notice under the video (you have to view on YouTube) that there are 7 or more pages of comments. These are the Mother Load!

Third Place for Affiliate Market Research

This one will take just a bit more digging, but the information you gather is again like gold. The strategy goes like this.. do a search in Google.com for your keyword followed by “inurl:forum”. This search will result in a list of forum posts about your product. Folks who are interested enough to visit and post on forums are the ones who will know the most about the product of their passion. They will divulge loads of information in the form of questions and solutions to those questions. Look closely, because you will discover the “real” secrets to getting inside their thinking process. What you think people want is not always true. Read between the lines on these forums to get the inside skinny on the needs and wants of buyers of your product.

The search for Amazon Kindle would like like the picture below.

Affiliate marketing success is not all that elusive. It does take a little work and knowledge, but when you have strategies that work, you can succeed. Even though I have been using these strategies for awhile, I got the idea for this post from Matt Carter. Make sure you visit Matt’s Marketing blog for a nifty little video on this same subject.

Successful Internet Marketer

A very high percentage of the people who try Internet Marketing don’t make it. In fact, the percentage of all business failures, whether online or offline, is extremely high. But while the success rate for new businesses offline is only about 40%, online businesses is even lower. And Internet Marketing is less than 10%.

Why is that? Does Internet Marketing even work?

The truth is that it does work. There are plenty of people who are making a living online. We always hear about the ones who are making a gazillion bucks every week, and we tend to want to be like them. So we try buying into their system, making them their gazillions, and we fall by the wayside.

Many people fail because of lack of quick results. Many others don’t make it because they fall victim to believing lies.

Here is a list of some of the beliefs that cause good folks to quit.

1. Making money as an Internet Marketer is easy
   This is not true of any legitimate business, and it is not true of Internet Marketing. Yes, there are plenty of people who are advertising easy online money. But even they are working hard to get your attention and to sell their product. Oh, and they had to create the product before they could market it to you. So they are working hard.
   But even if you are not planning to train others in the ways of Internet Marketing, success is available. It takes work and diligence to follow the principles that others have used to climb the ladder of success. Find the right solution for you and follow it. Don’t get distracted by all the promises of instant wealth. It doesn’t work with Amway and it doesn’t work with online marketing. There is always effort and patience involved.
   Even those who appear to have overnight success have been working the system for much longer than you would imagine.
2. You have to know how to set up a website in order to be a success
   This simply is not true. In fact, there are plenty of people who are successful marketers who are challenged when it comes to HTML and CSS. It will definitely save you some money up front if you can do your own web design, but it is not a necessity. The idea people of any business are the ones who make the money. If you have an idea and know how to present it, you will be successful in this business. There are tons and tons of people out in cyber space who will work for very little money to get your website up and running. Do not let your knowledge of programming or graphic design hold you back.
3. Running an Internet Marketing business is expensive
   Again, this is not true. In fact, there are free resources that will host your Internet content, and there are free ways for you to promote your business. Of course, if you are willing to invest a little money, it will help you to get up and running quicker because you won’t have to share the income with those who are hosting your content, but it is not necessary. Also, as an Internet Marketer, you have products available that you can promote (again for free) and earn a commission for each sale.
4. As an Internet Marketer, you do not need to know how to sell
   This could not be further from the truth. All right, you don’t have to go face to face with a customer, but the art of selling is what Internet Marketing is all about. Those who are successful at this business are the ones who have the ability to get into the heads of their customers and present their pitch as if they could read the customer’s mind. And it works even better if the customer does not know they are a customer. It’s an art, but the good news is that it can be learned. If you are not the best at selling tactics, you will advance a little slower, but you can achieve success.
5. A mailing list is not necessary
   Well, this one is not absolutely essential. You truly can make money online without a mailing list. However, if you want to make business easier on yourself, ask folks for the email address so you can build a relationship with them. Don’t make it your priority to sell them something every day. If you give them what they want, they will appreciate it and show their appreciation by staying on your list and buying something that they deem valuable (from you).

These five statements contain important concepts for Internet Marketing. If you can understand the truth about this information, the truth will set you free.

Above all else, success in this business takes time and it takes commitment. If you tell yourself, “I’m gonna try this Internet Marketing thing,” you may as well go get a 9 to 5 job working for “the man,” because you will not succeed.

This is a plug for Instant Article Wizard.

Article marketing is what I do, so I am always in need of great content for my articles.

What I do when I have “brain lock” is to search the subjects on google trying to get some idea of what to write next. It’s time consuming and tedious, to say the least.

But, I recently got an email from Jonathan Ledger, the author of my favorite article spinning tool, The Best Spinner. Jonathan is a software genius when it comes to developing little tools to help with article marketing.

His newest release is the reason for this post. It is called “Instant Article Wizard“.

Here’s the good news… Right now it’s Free.

It’s free for the next couple of weeks so he can work out the bugs by using feedback from people like you and me who actually use the program.

I downloaded the program and gave it a trial run. It works just as advertised. Did I mention that Jonathan is a genius?

There is a tutorial about how to use the product, too. So it is easy even for guys like me who sometimes don’t know where to click or which widget to install.

So, if you want to get in on this FREE trial, click on Instant Article Wizard and give it a try. Costs you nothing.