It often happens that new internet marketers are greeted with an overwhelming amount of ideas, methods, and tools. It can be confusing to know who to believe and what to try. One internet marketing method which still works after all these years is the simple “poll”.Perhaps you have heard of this method. It consists of running simple YES/NO polls on the content network on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This idea has been around a long time. It has been around for years. Some people say this method is outdated, or that it’s a waste of time. I disagree. I enjoy the process of creating poll questions and I start a new one each week.

There are programs available that make it so easy to create a poll on any WordPress blog. You simply search for a hot news topic, write a poll question, find an image related to the topic. Once visitors vote Yes or No on your poll, they are redirected to an email submit offer which can pay .75 to $2 per submission.

Polls are a good introduction to internet advertising. You learn several key skills including market research, keyword research, targeting, poll and question creation, ad creation, tracking, PPC methods on the main search engines, and so much more.

However, if you are an experienced affiliate marketer, and you are comfortable launching high volumes of campaigns on the search engines, then you may not need the learning experience that polls provide. Perhaps money is your motivator? Once you know what you are doing, you can always return to polls to increase your income.

Either way, it’s worth doing a little research into this method of internet marketing. It’s effective, simple, and easy to duplicate once you know what you are doing.

Still, you can get accepted! You’ll want to follow the strategies below if you are turned down (and even before that happens!) by the networks so you can start making money from cost per action offers as soon as possible.

The first thing you need to do is select the networks you want to join. That’s right — you’re going to join more than one. That’s because there are likely a wide variety of offers you want to choose from on the different networks. Something that is available on one network may not be available on another network. Also, you should pay close attention to offers that are available in more than one network. That’s because the payout is not always the same! You might find that the same exact offer pays quite a bit more on another network.

After you have determined which networks you want to apply to, go ahead and find their application form. They will likely ask you questions, such as how you intend on promoting their offers, where your main website is, how much traffic you generally receive, and other questions at their discretion. These questions may be intimidating if you are new, so just answer them to the best of your ability and know that this is not the be-all end-all.

Send the application, and be prepared to wait up to a week to hear something back. Alternatively, you can just go ahead and call the CPA network to gain acceptance right away. Calling is the magic answer in many circumstances. If you are taking the time to call them and discuss things over the phone, the managers will know that you are serious about this. You’ll often get accepted right on the spot!

Some networks are a little bit more difficult to get accepted into. When that happens to you, you might want to lay out the marketing plan you have developed to promote their offers. Often laying out a solid business plan will help get you accepted!

As a last resort, you can contact a successful CPA marketer so they can put in a good word for you. It usually does not come to this, but it never hurts to make these kind of contacts so you can make use of them if necessary.

If you are not able to get into a certain CPA network right now, and you have tried everything, you’ll just have to move on and focus on the networks you were accepted into. You can always reapply later once you have more experience under your belt. They definitely will not turn down someone who is able to get results for themselves and for the company! Remember — the networks are there to make money, so if you are able to help them make money they have no reason not to accept you.

Niche blogging, for those who don’t know, is blogging about a specific topic. For example the topic ‘cats’ is a very broad niche. Your blog most likely is going to be buried 300 pages deep in the search engines without some major $$ spent building it up. Building your blog around ‘cat food’, you are now narrowing down your niche and targeting a much more specific audience, that is more likely to find what they are looking for on your site. An even better choice would be to micro-niche your blog further into something such as ‘organic cat food’. Now you have a very specific target audience and can map out a solid marketing and monetization plan.

Gone are the days of building a blog, throwing up a ton of general content, smacking up some adsense ads, and then waiting for your Google cheque. Each blog needs to have its’ own marketing and monetization plan. Too many new bloggers online are looking for an “exact step-by-step process”, but, if you are wanting your efforts to be a success, this crucial stage of your blog creation should not come from a simply “how to” plan.

When deciding on how to monetize your niche, consider not only the niche itself, but your target audience. What are the demographics, age group, and potential disposable income of your market? Is this audience likely to pull out a credit card or are they “tire clickers”? Are they likely to be old-school or new-school? All these factors, and more, determine how you should start planning.

Here is a great example of someone, unfortunately, not planning well…

Two of my children play a popular online role playing game called Runescape. They regularily ask either Jeremy or I to help them google a ‘how to’ on a specific task they need to complete. In doing this, we came across someone with a great blog of tips, offering a newsletter for player advice. We signed up. Sadly, this blog owner had not planned his monetization very well.

His blog content is great – lots of tips, and the boys almost always find the info they are looking for. His newsletter on the other hand is a different story. Every 2 days we receive a hard sell email prompting us to buy his Runescape guide. We’ve politely read through the emails hoping for a good tip, and have always ended up clicking the delete button.

It is a great looking ebook; super graphics, well done sales page, and a decent price point. Aesthetically it was perfect and normally would have sold well. So why did he send an email to his list last week begging people to reply and tell him why no one was buying? Simple – he forgot his target audience.

Runescape primarily is played by 10-14 year olds. Granted there are teenagers and adults as well, but the large majority of its players are young. This is an audience that does not have access to a credit card, without parent approval. Considering mom and dad have already forked over $$ for a monthly membership, they are unlikly in these hard times to be paying for a game instruction manual.

Kids are your “tire clickers”. They surf, find and move on. If they even manage to read through a typically long sales page, they are not likely going to be running to mom to buy it. They want their info and they want it NOW. His efforts would have been much better spent blending contextual ads and/or integrating other popular free trial game platforms into his blog. Instead, everything was geared towards his own guide sales. I feel bad for this fellow, who genuinely seems like a great person. Hopefully he will duplicate his ebook efforts on a more accepting crowd.

The moral of this story is to plan from every angle. Our blog owner above did everything right; he had content, was building a list, had created his own product and set it all up beautifully. He simply forgot his niche audience. Don’t let it happen to you…

== Joanne ==