Most people starting out looking to make money from their own home based internet marketing business are drawn towards the affiliate marketing arena with claims of easy money.

But is it really as easy as just sending prospects to your affiliate link? In a word, no. Nothing's that easy. There is work involved. There's no such thing as a free ride.

And most people that fail at affiliate marketing are the ones that enter it with that mindset. You, as an aspiring affiliate, need to realize that it is still marketing and as such you will need to hone your skill set to achieve any level of success.

As with any product or service you must advertise to make prospects aware of what you have to offer. You can't just join a program and hope that your link will be clicked.

A successful affiliate applies many different strategies. Most of these can be used in any niche with a little altering to fit that particular niche's parameters.

Here are a few tips on how to grow your affiliate earnings.

*You're the expert

Get to know the product you're promoting. Research it as thoroughly as possible. If it's feasible, buy the product and use it. This gives you the advantage of working from a position of superior knowledge. Write your own testimonial or review. This instils confidence in the buyer because you've already purchased it yourself.

*Your own website

You have to have your own website. This is imperative to your affiliate success. Why? Because every other affiliate will be using the exact same sales pages as you. You must stand out from the crowd. Differentiate yourself.

With your own site you can create custom landing pages to pre-sell the product. You can also write a special report and set up an autoresponder to capture the name and email address of curious individuals and follow up with them.

Always check with the affiliate agreement before creating your own ads and landing pages as this may be against the rules for that particular program.

*Forums and discussion boards

Participating in online forums and discussion boards gives you two advantages. It not only allows you to drum up business for your products but it also gives you input from a customer's point of view.

By asking and answering questions you'll get a better feel for what exactly your prospects are looking for. What problems do they have? What do they feel would be the best way to solve these problems? Which do they think's the most pressing problem that needs to be addressed?

*Your own newsletter or ezine

There are a tremendous amount of free newsletters and ezines on the web today, and for good reason. People who are passionate about a certain subject will always welcome more information on it as long as it's well written and presented.

By building a relationship with your readers you build their trust too. This is when you can start recommending products and services and when your affiliate profits will soar.

Simply send out an email every other week with an article written by either yourself or another expert along with some tips and possibly a famous quote and you've got a winning formula for a newsletter.

Capturing someone's email can also be applied to giving away a special report or product review so long as you let the person know that you will be sending additional emails.

All in all, these tips should help you greatly increase your earnings in any affiliate program in any niche.