If you have been an affiliate marketer for any time at all, chances are you know that you need a list.  Do you have a list yet?  Do you even have any idea how to start building a list?

The bottom line is that if you want to succeed in affiliate marketing, you need to build a list.  There are lots of articles out there on how to build a list and it is very easy to feel that in no time at all you will have a huge list.  But the reality is that list building can be a slow process and it can be very frustrating when your list doesn't make you any money.   

One thing that you will quickly learn, whether you are writing your own content or you have someone else writing it for you, the majority of your list will not buy from you.  It's just a fact. It happens to all internet marketers.

You might be asking yourself, why are some internet marketers succeeding while you are failing?  Successful affiliate marketers have several things in common.

A successful affiliate marketer does careful research in order to find a niche that he or she can be profitable in.  If you pick a niche that is over crowded, you have very little chance of standing out in the crowd and getting anyone to buy from you.

Customers of successful online marketers trust the person sending them information.  Smart affiliate marketers plan out a campaign and then follow it. They write articles and have establish themselves as experts in their particular niche before they ever send their customers to an opt in list.  So, write articles focusing on a particular niche and send these articles to your subscribers.  You can even set them up as series and call it an e-course. Send them free reports or products where they don't have to opt in initially.

Successful internet marketers participate in forums and offer advice to newbies.  You need to be active in a few forums and post regularly.  It doesn't do any good if you don't participate.  After you have been active for while, the participants on the forum will start to trust you and will be more willing to opt in to your subscriber list.  You need to be subtle though.  Put your link in your signature line and just leave it at that. You will get in trouble if you sell aggressively.

The bottom line is that without trust, you won't sell anything.  There are too many scams online and people are very afraid of being taken advantage of.  Your subscribers will place their trust in you and you need to take care of them once you have them.  Don't abuse them by sending emails to their boxes every single day.  I unsubscribe from anyone that abuses my email and mails to me more than once every few days.

If you want to make money online, you have to find a product or service that is in demand.  You need to do your research and find something that you can sell.  Visit Clickbank, Amazon, Ebay and Ezine to see what items are being offered for sale and to see what types of articles are being written.  Then pick some keywords and do keyword research to see how popular the niche is.  As a beginner internet marketer, you can't be competitive with keywords that have a million hits so look down the list and choose keywords that are less competitive. 

Another trick to befriend other affiliate marketers that have opt in lists.  Finding someone that has more experience than you do is a great way to get hands on experience.  While there are a lot of resources online regarding internet marketing and list building, there is no better source than someone who has actually successfully built their own list and had a successful launch.

Don't get discouraged if your list is off to a slow start.  It will take time.  You need to put together a plan, do your research and find people with more experience than you.  Once you have managed to build a list, don't abuse it!  Treat it like the goldmine that it is.

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About the Author:
Do you still need help building a list?  Grab your free copy of "Affiliate Profits From Free Google Traffic".  What this 50 page report reveals is a highly effective technique to make substantial affiliate commissions by seeking out keyword phrases with high traffic and low competition then setting up a series of simple high converting websites to target to dominate the top spots in Google. 
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