Would you rather be a big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond? No matter which pond you want to swim in… you’re still going to have to become known for one thing if you want to get your trunks wet! The most successful professionals master one domain (the little pond) and then they go on to tackle bigger things.

Some people fear niches because they think it will limit their success or potential. That could not be farther from truth. If you want to create a thriving business you must develop a personal brand that highlights two things:

1. Your "WHO and DO WHAT" statement 2. Your "call to action"

One of biggest mistakes I see affiliates making everyday is that their building a short-term business where they just make a small sale – one sale at a time. If they stop running ads today, their business would shut down! The strategy we’re going to discuss now will allow any affiliate to build a long-term business. This strategy will allow you to upsell your visitors for expensive services. Even more importantly, by using this strategy you’ll soon become recognized as an expert in your field and making money will be all easier!

So what is this strategy? … … You guessed it, it’s building an opt-in list – a newsletter/Ezine.

By having an opt-in list you’re building a customer base instead of just small sales! You can sell same customer over and over without having any more advertising costs. You build a trust with your readers that allows them to be loyal in doing business through you affiliate link!

So, as an affiliate, how do you build an opt-in list?

=============== How to Build List ===============

The simplest way I have found is to start deferring all of my traffic that I pay for to an opt-in page. After person opts-in, have them land on a thank you page where you pre-sell them for affiliate product.

So, you’re probably already building traffic to your site – now, instead of sending that traffic directly to your affiliate link, send it to a page that has an opt-in.

========================== How Should My Opt-In Page Look? ==========================

The next most popular question is how to make opt-in page look. Believe it or not, there actually IS a strategy behind this. Your page MUST be small, short and to point. This means that you should NOT have a long sales letter type page to get them to opt-in.