Although some will suggest that you need a list or website to be successful in affiliate marketing, there are thousands, possibly millions of marketers out there who earn a full time living with affiliate programs and don't know the first thing about website building or list building. In fact, the best part of affiliate marketing is that you can focus most of your efforts on marketing, and once you learn how to do it correctly, you'll spend a lot less time working, and you'll make a lot more money.



Since marketing affiliate programs can be quite competitive depending on the products or services you sell, you need some type of edge for getting the sale.

Below are five ways to market you should consider. There are plenty of ways to market online even if you don't have a website.

1. Although list building isn't necessary, you may want to consider it. The reason is that its biggest advantage is you can recycle your traffic. When visitors visit your site, and it can be as simple as a one page lead capture page, you can get your visitors to subscribe. Not only will you have an opportunity to tell your visitor about your initial offering, you can also market additional products to those who subscribe.

The easiest way to build a list is to give away some type of premium. Free ebooks or reports that talk about the problem your product solves are always good. Put yourself in your subcribers' shoes. Define what the problem is and then show how the product can solve the problem.

2. Try pay per click. If you have a very small marketing budget to begin with, this may sound crazy. After all, you want to make money, not spend money. However, there are plenty of pay per click sites out there that will give you free traffic to get you started, and you can test and track your ads to find the winners.

If you really want to learn how to make the most of this type of marketing, study the FAQs as well as other resources offered on pay per click sites. These sites want you to make money because you'll become their customer. It's in the best interests of these sites to offer you extensive resources to help you reach your financial goals.

3. Try advertising in online ezines. This is an overlooked marketing technique, and there are tons of ezines on the internet that sell advertising. You can do a search on your favorite search engine to help you find ezines that fit your target niche. Start off small, test and track your ads, and cloak your affiliate links. You want to give a professional appearance to what you're offering.

Try out each ezine for at least a month. That way you'll know whether or not your advertising is working. Don't try to sell your reader up front. Use what's called in newspaper advertising as the two step method. This is where you get visitors to the site and then make your offer.

4. Try writing articles and product reviews. Like ezine advertising, this is often an overlooked way to promote affiliate products. Although many article directories don't accept articles with affiliate links in the resource box, you can avoid this by sending your vistors to a simple lead capture page website, a Squidoo lens, or even a free blog you've created.

Article marketing can be very effective whether you are selling your products or someone else's. Your goal should be to give readers enough information so they click through your link to the site.

5. Try creating viral reports. Although some affiliate program managers offer these reports, others don't. It's not that hard to write a short report explaining the problem and then adding your affiliate links. Make sure you convert the report to PDF so anyone can read it.

By making your offers different, or offering your visitors an instant solution to their problems, you can make a lot of money whether you market your products or someone else's.