Introduction:
These days it seems one can’t be a legit online marketer without seeing ClickFunnels being mentioned at least once a day by other marketers.

Well, maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.

There’s just no denying that ClickFunnels has almost reached cult-like status among marketers. The 2 Comma Club and the golden disc awards aren’t helping things.

The masses will almost have you believing that just ClickFunnels will make you rich faster than you ever thought possible. Of course, this is not true.

At its core, ClickFunnels is a funnel builder. It’s a tool just like any other tool. How you wield it will determine your success online. While it has its fans gushing praise, it also has detractors spewing hate.

It’s easy to get swayed by all the opinions online, but once again, let’s not forget that ClickFunnels is a tool. So we have to look at it based on its merits as a funnel builder and not Russell Brunson’s charisma or the successful marketers hyping it up.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of ClickFunnels…

The Pros
* Stable funnel builder
Whether or not ClickFunnels was the first funnel builder to hit the scene is a point to be debated. But it definitely burst on to the scene like no other funnel builder before it.
The tool itself works and it works well, despite some people having problems with it. There are many marketers successfully running 6-figure businesses on ClickFunnels. So it works… and in this space where products don’t deliver on their promises, that’s definitely a good thing.

* ClickFunnels makes things easy
Unlike page builders such as Thrive Architect or OptimizePress, with ClickFunnels you don’t just build sales pages but you can EASILY link them all within the ClickFunnels interface.
This simplicity is a huge selling point that appeals to beginner marketers. The hassle of connecting the sales pages and upsells on their own with a 3rd party marketing platform just seems too complicated.
ClickFunnels is an all-in-one solution that makes life easier. It’s easy to add upsells and the visual layout tells you exactly how your funnel will work.

* Templates
There are over 280 templates in ClickFunnels. You can easily load an existing one, make edits to it and have a beautiful sales page in 30 minutes or so.
The interface is clean and intuitive. It’s just a matter of dragging and dropping elements in the page.
In the same way, you can build landing pages too. Though one could argue that the landing pages in Leadpages look better (true), but ClickFunnels still gets the job done – and you can build your list with it.

* Has an affiliate program feature
Thinking of running your own affiliate program for your product/s?
ClickFunnels has you covered here too. It’s all built within the platform. Marketers who are not using ClickFunnels will need a 3rd party plugin such as iDev Affiliate and they’ll have to set it up on their site, sync the products and so on. Quite the hassle.
No such issues here, because simplicity seems to be ClickFunnels’ motto.

* Lots of integrations
ClickFunnels integrates with many popular 3rd party apps/tools such as: Active Campaign, AWeber, ConvertKit, Facebook, GetResponse, GoToWebinar, Hubspot, InfusionSoft, Kajabi, Maropost and much more.
You can see the full list of integrations on the official site. So, you can get the best out of ClickFunnels by using it in conjunction with other powerful tools.

* In-built autoresponder
If you’re wondering whether ClickFunnels has an autoresponder built within the software – yes, it does. It’s called Actionetics and works as an email marketing tool that comes with your package.
However, Actionetics on its own doesn’t quite compare to the other solid autoresponders such as ConvertKit, AWeber, etc. You’re better off using ClickFunnels as a funnel builder and integrating it with a better email marketing tool.

* Share your funnels
A very unique feature in ClickFunnels is that you can share your funnels with other users.
For example, if one of your sales funnels is doing very well, you could share it with your friend or a partner and just by editing the elements and making it their own, they’d have a higher chance of achieving success. Better to use an existing winner than try to create one from scratch.

* Analytics
ClickFunnels does provide you with analytics so that you can study your conversion stats and other metrics to improve your business.

* ClickFunnels hosts your pages
You know what’s truly interesting?
You could actually build a 6-figure online business without ever signing up for web hosting. If you can drive traffic to a sales page built with ClickFunnels and you have an autoresponder in place, you could run your business just fine – BECAUSE ClickFunnels will host your sales pages, thank you pages, etc. on their servers.
You could use a service like Dropbox to store your download files, etc. Of course, this is a very lean operation and you may want to have your own hosting, but just knowing that your pages are hosted by ClickFunnels makes things seem simpler.

* 24/7 Support
If you’re having problems with your pages, etc. you can always contact ClickFunnels’ round the clock support via live chat or phone support. They have a very capable team in place to help you.

The Cons
Well, the haters will have a lot to say. But generally, ClickFunnels can seem glitchy every now and then. but that’s to be expected from a software tool that’s so advanced.

ClickFunnels works most of the time with only occasional hiccups. It’s not perfect but that doesn’t mean this is a deal breaker.

As for the pricing, it costs $97 a month but after 100 pages (or 20 funnels), you’ll need to upgrade and the price jumps significantly to $297.

If your business is generating enough income, you’ll gladly pay the extra. But if not, the new price might make you balk. If you decide to quit, moving your pages out of ClickFunnels can be a hassle.

Should You Get It?
It all depends on your budget and your needs. If you’re a beginner marketer on a tight budget, ClickFunnels is not for you. Forking out $97 a month can be burdensome.
However, if you’re a beginner but you can afford the monthly fee and prefer simplicity, ClickFunnels might be exactly what you need.

Intermediate marketers may decide to give it a try and many will prefer it. Others may not be too happy with it. Either way, you’re covered by a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can try it out risk-free and see if it works for you.

The truth is that ClickFunnels really is a solid brand and millionaires are using it in their business. If it’s good for them, it’ll probably be good for you too.
So try it out and you’ll be glad you did.

>> Click Here To Get ClickFunnels

The post ClickFunnels Review appeared first on IM with Chris Lee.

What are Affiliate Programs?

Generally speaking affiliate programs are marketing programs offered by web advertisers or merchants that recruit website owners and bloggers. The merchants provide banner ads, links and buttons for website owners to place on their website to market the merchant’s products. In turn, the website owner or blogger will receive a referral fee or commission when a customer purchases a product that is delivered via an affiliate link. One of the most common types of affiliate links are pay per click (PPC – Pay Per Click) however, increasingly now have been intertwined with email and content marketing.

The Product

When you are looking for an affiliate program there are some things you need to consider before choosing which company you are going to take arms with. The product should be one of quality can also be a service. As long as it’s a product viable service and it offers something of value to the customer.

There are several types of compensation plans built into affiliate marketing programs, and one of them can be a residual program. However, not all affiliate marketing programs have residual programs built into them. If you can find one with residual funds, then that would be the way to go. However, there are some that actually offer a significantly high commission rate that may make up for the loss of the residual income. There are also others that offer a multilevel marketing structure of compensation. Now if you’re familiar with multilevel marketing than that may be an avenue that you would choose to examine.

But before jumping into any multilevel marketing program, you should read up on it and do a thorough analysis. The last thing you want to do is jump into an affiliate program that is going to be a serious waste of time.

Choosing an Affiliate Program

Back in 1994 there weren’t very many affiliate programs to choose from and most of them were revolved around offensive content websites. Today, affiliate programs have a higher standard and it is a new way of doing business. There are many companies that have affiliate marketing programs lime Amazon, web hosting companies, domain name registrars, and electronic websites, Apple iTunes, bit defender, panda security, PC health boost, Commission Junction, eBay Partner Network, Google AdSense, VistaPrint and the list goes on and on.

You can find an affiliate program for almost anything you want to sell. It is a good idea to sell something that is related to your website, providing you have one. Not everybody that signs up for an affiliate program has a website to run it through. There are some that actually write articles and direct the URLs to their affiliate program.

Becoming an Affiliate

If you want to become an affiliate it’s not that hard. You simply go to the website of choice and look for their affiliate link program. Usually what will happen is you will sign up and get a unique affiliate ID along with some banners and links. You then place these on your website so that your potential audience can click on those links which if they purchase, you will receive a commission. Just because you signed up for an affiliate program doesn’t mean that you’re actually going to drive traffic to your website. You still need to do something about driving traffic to your website or affiliate link like write compelling articles and become an expert in your field. These articles can be placed on article databases and are a sure way of driving traffic to your website or affiliate link.

What You Should Look For

When you go shopping for an affiliate program, try to look for high affiliate commissions, long cookies and of course you would want to get a great conversion rate. Two-tier programs which have the same structure as a multilevel marketing organization and can be quite lucrative. Such organizations that earn billions in multilevel marketing and direct sales is companies like Amway which has been in business for 53 years, Nu Skin started in 1984 and Nature’s Sunshine started in 1972 so multilevel marketing has been around for some time. Residual affiliate programs is definitely the way to go. You continue to make money on that visitor month after month. The advantage here is that eventually your sales start accumulating where you’re making more and more money as opposed to the individual sale where you have to continuously make money to stay at the same level.

Where You Can Go

There is services out there that have a database of a lot of companies that are doing affiliate program so you do not have to run around and seek out each individual program themselves. Companies like ClickBank where you sign up and select the affiliate program you wish to support.

Marketing Your Link

Now let’s talk about that affiliate link for a moment. Most affiliate links are extremely long, hideous and some of them have special characters in them like a “?” or “=” sign. These links will not rank on search engines like Google very well and definitely cannot be added to pay per click like Google AdSense. What I would suggest is getting yourself a domain name and rerouting it to your affiliate offer.

Let’s take for an example if I wanted to become an affiliate of a cell phone electronics company and I had a website I can actually write a review on a particular cell phone that I’m trying to market. If it’s more than one, then I could just pick a product or two to write my articles on. Anyway, I would try to register a domain name that may have something in it like cheap cell phones or something along those lines to help the search engines determine what your product might be.

Increase Your Sales

What if you don’t have a website and you wish to increase your sales with affiliate marketing; what would you do? One way to market an affiliate program I briefly touched on is to write quality articles about the product that is being marketed. I truly suggest this strategy to increase traffic and sales. There are several article directories that you can post your articles to, but do not post the same article to multiple sites other than the article directory and your own site if you have one.

Article directories can be a very good source of traffic because of their reputation and the amount of visitors they have each month reading your article. Of course, some of those readers will click on your affiliate link driving traffic to your affiliate program. I like Ezine Articles as an article directory, but there are others like; Goarticles, ehow, Examiner, Technorati, Thefreelibrary and much more, but that’s a good start. Don’t just read one article when doing your research and regurgitate the content from that one article. Try to do some in-depth study to get a complete understanding of what it is you’re writing about. Once you have that understanding, try to simplify your article by using either bullet points or topic list. To get people to click on your link you need to be compelled to do so, but the only way to do that is to write compelling articles.

Making money on the net with affiliate programs can be a rewarding experience if you know where to go the fine the right affiliate program and how to do the research needed. Just locating an affiliate program is not all you need to do, you need to weigh the gravity of that affiliate program. First determine what it is you would like to sell and do your research. Hopefully, you will look for something that accents your website or if you don’t have a website, something that you know a lot about so that you can write your reviews.

The post Affiliate Marketing For Beginners 101 appeared first on IM with Chris Lee.