An Affiliate
Marketing Course Designed to Maximize Your Success
I
have included this course because it is the best there is. Following this
advice will go a long way in helping you to become a highly successful
affiliate. We hope you enjoy it...
(Please be aware that sending
unsolicited emails to others (known as spamming) is an illegal,
unacceptable practice and will not be tolerated. Anyone caught spamming
will have their account terminated immediately.)
The following is an excerpt from Affiliate Masters 101 -by Ken Evoy
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Business Basics
-
Income and Expenses
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Traffic, Click Throughs, and Conversion Rates
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PRE-selling... why
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PRE-selling and your visitor's MINDSET
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PRE-selling... how
Intro to Affiliate Business Basics
Being a GREAT AFFILIATE is *NOT* about selling... It's about
PRE-SELLING.
--PART ONE--
The goal of any business, including your affiliate business, is to
maximize PROFITS. "PROFIT" is simply your INCOME minus
your EXPENSES.
As an affiliate, there are exactly two ways to increase your INCOME
(i.e., the amount of money your business makes)...
1) Refer more visitors to the merchants that you represent.
2) Increase the Conversion Rate (i.e., the percent of visitors referred
to your merchant who deliver the response FOR WHICH THE MERCHANT PAYS,
whether that's a sale, or a lead, etc.).
Simple, right? If you refer 100 visitors per day to a merchant
and 1% buy, you get paid for that one purchase. But if you send 1,000
visitors per day and 3% buy, you get paid for 30 purchases. Yes, thirty
times more!
So it's pretty clear how to maximize affiliate INCOME! :-)
Of course, every business has EXPENSES, too. Maximizing PROFITS
does *NOT* imply that you must minimize EXPENSES. After all, if you spend
NO money or time on a business...You have no business! You *MUST*
get the BEST POSSIBLE traffic-building and sales-converting results for
every DOLLAR you spend... and for every HOUR you spend on your business.
Time *IS* money. So don't count your hours as zero cost simply
because it does not cost you "out of pocket." Assign your time a
dollar value -- it will put your affiliate business on a solid,
professional "business footing." Let's examine EXPENSES by
asking two questions...
QUESTION #1
What does it cost to build traffic to your merchants' sites?
Traffic-building, no matter how you cut it, will cost you...in terms of
both time and money. Spending DOLLARS is optional, but spending TIME
is not.
There are many ways, both offline and on, to drive traffic to your
merchants' sites. This course will show you *THE* most highly
PROFITABLE, TIME-and-DOLLAR-effective way to build traffic to your
merchants' sites...
Build your own Theme-Based Content Site -- one that is loaded with high
info-value Keyword-Focused Content Pages which rank well with the Search
Engines *AND* "get the click throughs" to your merchants' sites.
Let's break that down... for your affiliate web site to generate
traffic to your merchants, it must do two things well...
1) Rank well at the Search Engines, so that it pulls in lots of
traffic. So far, though, that traffic is still on *your* site.
Therefore, it's not generating income yet – your visitors are just
"looking around." So...
2) Get those visitors to click through to your merchants. (Some
affiliate program models can actually place merchant offerings on *your*
Web site. In this case, your traffic does not actually visit your
merchant's site. But you still have to "get the click" to
generate income.)
This 5-day course will show you how to achieve both parts. It makes
sense, of course, that a web site is THE way to go. After all, this *IS*
the Net!
QUESTION #2
What does it cost to maximize Conversion Rates?
Maximizing your Conversion Rate (CR) is simply a question of doing
things right. There is no extra DOLLAR or TIME cost to boosting
Conversion Rates at your merchants' sites. This course will show you
how to achieve this, too.
Remember, when this course talks about Conversion Rates, we are talking
about the Conversion Rate at the sites of the merchants that you represent
as an affiliate. So we are talking about *YOU* maximizing the percent of
visitors (who you refer) who deliver the response FOR WHICH THE VENDOR
PAYS, whether that's a sale, or lead, etc.
If you think that it's impossible for you to change the
sales-effectiveness of your merchants' sites, you are in for a big
surprise. :-) So... your goals, and your *ONLY* goals, are...
1) Maximize traffic to your merchants, spending only DOLLARS and TIME
that maximize PROFITS.
2) Maximize Conversion Rates. Do things right (no expense).
Don't just do one. Do BOTH. Why? Because, as you saw above,
your payment is determined by traffic MULTIPLIED by the Conversion Rate...
NOT "added." Your PROFITS grow geometrically when you
concentrate on maximizing BOTH traffic and Conversion Rates. I have spent
quite a bit of time reviewing the difference between 5 Pillar Affiliates
who refer high traffic to us AND who deliver high Conversion Rates (% of
visitors who purchase) and those with low ones.
THE #1 REASON FOR LOW TRAFFIC AND TERRIBLE CONVERSION RATES?
Banner ads!
The futility of banners was *FIRST* revealed by our 5 Pillar Program,
both in our award-winning 5 Pillar Manual and in the Five Pillar Affiliate
Reports.
Retinal studies have shown that Web surfers actually avoid
banners. Yes, their eyes look away! Click throughs have
plummeted to under half-of-a-percent. And, for the few who
DO click...We went on to prove that banners are WORSE than futile, they
are COUNTER-productive. The 5 Pillar Affiliates who rely on banners
have an average Conversion Rate of 0.5%. But those who use
"in-context" TEXT links (i.e., text links that are part of the
content of the Web page) average over 3.5%!
How's that for a reason *NOT* to use banners.
Why does this happen? Banners are cheesy and hurt your
credibility. Because visitors simply arrive feeling
"pitched" rather than informed. So they arrive in a
resisting mindset, rather than with an open, ready-to-buy attitude.
Remember that example where you sent 100 visitors per day to a merchant
and 1% bought? If you rely on flipping up some banners, it will be
more like 10 visitors per day and NO one buys! Beside the obvious futility
of banners, I've spotted ANOTHER major point. This one is more
subtle, but it's IMPORTANT. EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. After banner
advertising, it's the second most common error. And it's an even
BIGGER shame because this boo-boo involves a lot of work... misplaced
work. I mean, if you're going to fail, the best thing would be not to
spend much time at it, right? ;-)
Here it is... selling instead of PRE-selling.Yes, I agree, that's
better than banners. But remember these folks put in a lot MORE work
than tossing up a couple of banners. We'll see in a moment that it's
*misdirected* work. (The good news is that this course will redirect
those efforts into high-profit areas.)
Time for a philosophical perspective...In life, the vast majority of
people just keep doing the "same old thing." It seems
easier that way. But it guarantees the "same old results."
So in the long run, it's actually much, MUCH harder. In the movie,
"The Renaissance Man," Danny De Vito's character makes a
profound statement..."The choices we make dictate the lives we
lead." To paraphrase..."Where you are today is the result of all
the choices and actions that you have made in your life."
When he said that, I remember thinking, "You know, he's right.
Except in rare cases of extraordinarily good or bad luck, everyone
basically ends up where they are as a result of choices they make and
courses of action they take."
People tend to blame a lack of success in life on "bad luck"
or "poor timing" or other people. And yes, at times, that
can be accurate. A heck of a lot of factors beyond our control *can*
blindside us. In the long run, however, as long as we PERSIST in our
efforts, these factors tend to even out and De Vito's statement remains
valid.
Now, here's the good news...
E-commerce is simpler than life. Due to its digital nature, there
are fewer variables... so the outcome is more controllable. Which
means that we can boil De Vito's statement down to "The #1 E-commerce
Reality." This Reality is almost self-evident, yet it's so easy to
forget. Your success with *ANYTHING* you do in the world of e-commerce
flows from it. Internalize it and act upon it, you'll succeed. Yes, it's
THAT fundamental.
The #1 E-commerce Reality
"NOTHING happens by accident in the world of computers, the Net,
and customer response. There is always a reason for what happens, good or
bad, and that reason is *YOU*."
So...When I see some Affiliates with CRs over 10% (and a few over
20%!), I figure that those with CRs at 1-2% or less could be multiplying
their sales five-or-more-fold. How? *NOT* by working harder, but by simply
channelling their motivation in a better direction...
Let's continue with the case of Affiliates who make "great
efforts" but so-so-results...
As I reviewed many of these affiliate sites (those that are getting
sales but have CRs under 2%), I realized that almost half were basically
one big sales letter. Which means that these affiliates are SELLING (with
sales copy) when they should be PRE-selling (with great, and related,
content that is of value to the reader). There's really not much point in
straight SELLING off your site -- that's what your merchant's site is
for. Picture this...
A visitor arrives at an affiliate's site that is really just one, big
sales site. Put yourself in these visitors' shoes for a moment. They
don't see inspiring, editorial content -- they see a sales effort.
BUT THEY WERE SEARCHING FOR CONTENT!
People resist sales efforts, so your click-through actually goes down.
And if they do click, what do they see when they arrive at the merchants
web site? More sales effort. And, in some cases, many of the
words on your site are similar to the words that they've just read.
Result? Poor Conversion Rate.
If your site is basically a "bunch of sales letters," you
have not yet built your credibility and likeability with this visitor.
Your visitor ends up feeling "pitched." And then feels
double-pitched *IF* she clicks through to your merchant's site...That's
why the CR actually goes down. To make things worse, as she
"smells" a sales effort, she becomes less likely to click!
So referred traffic drops, too.
Women now represent 50% of all surfers. And they control approximately
80% of all shopping dollars. To reinforce this in your mind, we'll use the
feminine pronoun to talk about readers/visitors/customers. To keep
things simple and even, we'll use the masculine pronoun when referring to
affiliates. OK, let's see... Referred traffic down. And
Conversion Rate down. But these are the two ways to increase your
INCOME (that we talked about right at the top today's lesson). We're going
in the wrong direction!
Conclusion?
Don't SELL! Instead, warm your visitor up for your merchants by
PRE-selling them with great content that they value and respect.
They'll click-through with pleasure, arriving at your merchants' sites in
an open-to-buy mindset.
It's your PRE-sell effort that will boost your traffic-to- merchants
*and* Conversion Rate. Which in turn maximizes your INCOME. This brings us
to our second philosophical premise and the end of Part One...
"The #1 Affiliate Reality"...
"Your CR will literally vary from 1% to 10% (and at times, as much
as 20%!), purely because of...
1) *HOW YOU REACH* your visitor, and
2) *WHAT YOU SAY* to her, and
3) *HOW YOU REFER* her to your merchant."
Your CR depends upon what *YOU* do and how *YOU* do it. You do NOT need
Lady Luck, Sir Serendipity or anyone else. There is *ALWAYS* a reason for
how well you do, and that reason always relates to *WHAT* you do and *HOW*
you do it. Once you realize this, then you *KNOW* success really is
DO-able. Some people DO succeed... big-time. But not
necessarily the first time. Just keep trying until you find the
right approach. To quote Calvin Coolidge..."Nothing in this world can
take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common
than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius
is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated
derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the
problems of the human race."
Of course, the goal of the 5-day Affiliate Masters series is to reduce
the amount of trial-and-error-PERSISTENCE that will be required before you
find *YOUR OWN* successful formula! :-) Why is "The #1
Affiliate Reality" true?...
Because *HOW* you reach your customer, and *WHAT* you say once you
reach her, and *HOW* you refer your visitor to your merchant DIRECTLY
affects your visitor's *MINDSET* when she arrives at your merchant's site.
A POSITIVE mindset turns into a PURCHASE with amazing regularity.
A NEGATIVE one is near-impossible to overcome. And THAT is what
"HIGH-CR affiliates" have known all along.
*************************************
"They refer people to their merchants
in an 'OPEN-TO-BUY' frame of mind."
*************************************
"Your CR will literally vary from 1% to 20%, purely because of...
1) *HOW YOU REACH* your visitor, and
2) *WHAT YOU SAY* to her, and
3) *HOW YOU REFER* her to your merchant." Some people e-mail us
after reading this course, refusing to believe that we have affiliates who
can generate a Conversion Rate (CR) of over 20%. Actually, the
monthly record is 26%. Do they do that *EVERY* month? No. But we
know it's not a fluke. Why? Because, although each affiliate's
CR may fluctuate in any given month, a "high-CR" affiliate does
not suddenly become a "low-CR" affiliate. The good ones score
high, and make significant dollars, every month.
--PART TWO--
Your strategies and actions as an affiliate directly affect your
Conversion Rate. This section deals with how to PRE-sell effectively.
(Later in the course we will cover traffic-building in more detail.) Let's
look at examples of how "LOW-CR affiliates" create
NEGATIVE mindsets by making HOW-YOU-REACH, WHAT-YOU-SAY, or
HOW-YOU-REFER boo-boos... 1) *HOW* to Reach Your Visitor...
Free-For-All Sites (FFAs) are a great example of *HOW NOT* to reach
people. For the most part, they have become so seamy and useless, that no
matter *WHAT* you say, you're doomed from the start. I made a
request to all 5 Pillar Affiliates for FFA success stories some time
ago... not a single success story!
Compare this with how smart and open-minded your visitor feels when
*SHE* finds *YOU* via a Search Engine! 2) *WHAT* to Say to Your Visitor...
Don't write a site purely devoted to "hard-selling" your
merchants' products. Imagine a visitor who hits your site and reads an
immediate sales pitch. That person will RESIST because she does not
know you. Then, *IF* (and it's not likely) she clicks to your merchant,
she gets *ANOTHER* sales pitch on your merchant's site ==> Negative x
2!
In other words...
NEVER DEVOTE YOUR SITE TO ONE COMPANY'S PRODUCT LINE.
No matter what you do, no matter how sincere you are, this kind of
approach always ends up "smelling" like a sales pitch. It simply
makes no difference that you honestly love the products -- your visitor
will mistake your devotion for SELLING. It's far better to develop a
concept that relates to that company's products *AND* to other products
from other companies that are COMPLEMENTARY. Develop related content
that PRE-sells. Then "get the click" through
"in-context" TEXT links.
3) *HOW* to Refer Your Visitor to Your Merchant...
Banners are the best example of *HOW NOT* to refer your visitor to your
merchant (unless it's for products that you are *not* so proud to
recommend -- a banner is an ad, so you're not putting your personal
endorsement upon it). In plain and simple language... people feel
"pitched" when they click on a banner. And people who feel
"pitched" are difficult to convert into a sale.
Now for a critical ACTION STEP...
Review your site or whatever other means you are using to REACH, TALK
TO, and REFER visitors to your merchants. Put yourself in your
customer's BRAIN. What will she think, how will she feel, at each of
the 3 major STEPS above? If you're doing everything perfectly,
congratulations! You must have a high CR. If you don't have a
high CR, or if you see some big MINDSET mistakes....
Consider how much higher your CR would be if a visitor found you in a
bona fide manner (ex., as a result of doing a search on a Search Engine),
then became "your friend" (or your "trusting admirer"
if you do a truly awesome job!) because you provided excellent content,
and finally was led to a context-appropriate RECOMMENDATION (more on
RECOMMENDATION vs. SALES PITCH below).
The BOTTOM LINE? Always consider how these actions affect your
visitor's mindset...
1) *HOW YOU REACH* your visitor, and
2) *WHAT YOU SAY* to her, and
3) *HOW YOU REFER* her to your merchant.
Get inside your visitor's head -- realize how she will feel each step
of the way. Whatever you do, consider the impact on your visitor --
if it does not make her *MORE* "open to buy," don't do it.
PRE-selling is really all about selling YOURSELF to your customer, every
step of the way. You reach the right folks in a proper fashion, you
deliver valuable, appropriate editorial content, and you RECOMMEND
visitors to your merchant *AFTER* they have come to respect and like you.
Your CR will soar.
Why does PRE-selling work so well?
Because a sale via ANY Affiliate Program is really a *TWO-STEP PROCESS*
-- it requires the delivery of two "Most Wanted Responses,"
yours *AND* your merchant's.
As an affiliate, what is *YOUR* MWR? No, it's NOT to get the
sale. That's the second STEP -- it's your merchant's MWR.
*YOUR* MWR is to...GET THE *CLICK* (the click-through to your
merchant) WITH THE VISITOR IN AN OPEN-TO-BUY MINDSET. Let your
merchant's site do *its* job and get the sale. I remember when I
used to tell my star baseball pitcher, Joel Leonoff...
"Joel... you don't have to strike 'em all out. You've got a
great team behind you. Let them do their job."
Same goes for your merchants... Let them do their job. Top Affiliates
all provide useful content -- they PRE-sell. Then they let the rest
of their team get the sale. It's a TWO-STEP process that builds to
the sale...
STEP 1 --> *YOU* PRE-sell to get an *OPEN-TO-BUY CLICK* to your
merchant.
STEP 2 --> Your merchant gets the sale.
So, whatever you do, however you do it, it should always pull your
visitor one step closer to delivering *YOUR* MWR... Get an
*OPEN-TO-BUY* click.
"Ken, if I leave it up to the merchant's site to get the sale, I
still don't see how I have any influence on the Conversion Rate. I'd much
rather SELL the visitor on my own site.
Let's say that you have a large, high-traffic site that is all about
Web marketing, and that has lots of high-value content about marketing and
selling on the Net. If you write a terrific review about "the
BIBLE of selling on the Net," Make Your Site SELL!...You are *NOT*
SELLING, you're PRE-selling. After all, your high quality, content-filled
site, has already done a great deal of PRE-selling your visitor. And your
review itself should be a fair reflection of your feelings about MYSS!,
written in such a way that you address the major benefits for those
readers who are assessing if they need it.
Do this right, and your CR will zoom. But if it reads like a
"hard-sell sales pitch," you'll quickly lose credibility with
your audience. On the other hand...Let's say that you do NOT have a
MEGA-content, ultra-high traffic site and a widely read e-zine of an Allan
Gardyne or Ralph Wilson. But you DO really love the merchant's
products -- that's why you're so proud to represent them. After all,
you'd never just want to "push stuff" on people, products that
you do *NOT* believe represent true value-for-dollar.
Make Your Knowledge Sell! Create, publish and sell what you know...
Bottom line?...Do *NOT* represent merchants who simply bribe you with a
high commission to recommend overpriced products...Short-term gain like
this results in long-term pain. Your REPUTATION is your
foundation. Build it on ROCK.
Let's focus on your VISITOR's mindset. Up above, I said...Get
inside your visitor's head -- realize how she will feel each step of the
way. Whatever you do, consider the impact on your visitor -- if it does
not make her "open to buy," don't do it.
So maybe *YOU* see an honest site that tries to share the benefits with
your visitor. But your *VISITOR* does not know you or your
motivations. She might very well see a straight sales effort.
With no other true content, it would be hard "for an outsider"
to see it any other way. It does not matter what YOU see. If your
VISITORS basically perceive a straight sales effort for your merchants,
you're SELLING, not PRE-selling. That means that the TWO-STEP process is
now SELL-SELL...Redundancy = Turned OFF customer = LOW CR.
But if you develop great content that leads to the click, you become a
friend making a RECOMMENDATION rather than a stranger making a SALES
PITCH. And if you create a truly great site, you'll actually become
a trusted EXPERT making an ENDORSEMENT. Recommendation = Turned ON
customer = HIGH CR. In other words, don't PUSH your visitor to the click,
make her WANT to click. It makes all the difference if your visitor
feels that it's HER idea to deliver *YOUR* MWR (the *OPEN-TO-BUY CLICK*).
"But can you give me a CONCRETE example of using content to
PRE-sell?" You want "concrete"? OK, concrete you
get...Let's go back to the example just above. You love the
merchant's products! And want to create a Net marketing site. Whoa!
My first recommendation...
Do *NOT* create another Web marketing site. There are zillions of
them. If I was to get the idea today, I would not do it. Too,
too crowded. It would be almost impossible to become so well
established today. However...
Where do you find a great concept for your site?...Inside YOU! Because
you do know stuff other people don't... things people would pay to
know. You might have learned it "on the job" or through
your hobby. There's a good chance that you don't even realize what you
know. It's often right under your nose. But, as you'll see,
everyone *IS* an expert about something. For now...Here's a real CONCRETE,
non-Web-marketing, example that *will* succeed...
It's all about creating a Theme-Based Content Site that is loaded with
Keyword-Focused Content-Rich Pages. Your theme?...You love
concrete. Yes, cement! It's been your hobby, your passion, for
years...
Concrete statues. Concrete painting. Decorative concrete.
Concrete in the garden. Repairing concrete. The various types
of concrete. Hand trowels. Things to do with cement
blocks. Concrete trade shows. Concrete and swimming pools.
Concrete molds. Cleaning concrete. Ready mixed concrete.
Concrete countertops.
For this example, I had to brainstorm topics for concrete. But I know
nothing about it. I chose it because it was the first thing to enter
my head. But I could develop topics about concrete forever.
More about brainstorming and developing HIGH-PROFITABILITY topics
tomorrow.
Anyway, let's say that you decide to create a THEME-BASED site that is
all about concrete. Your home page explains how your site is
"THE" site for everything concrete, from structural to esthetic.
You also, of course, create HIGH-VALUE content-jammed
Keyword-Focused Content Pages. For example, your page about
concrete statues explains all about how to make striking statues for the
home and garden. You could even expand it into an entire "Statue
Section," with a page on the history of concrete statues and another
one about how to market and sell the statues that the visitor makes.
The main point, though, is that you create truly excellent, HIGH-VALUE
content that delivers what your reader sought at the engines. And you also
weave RELEVANT, "in-context" TEXT links right in the content, as
appropriate. Links to...
o Books about the topic (ex. concrete statues if that's what the
page was about)
o A garden supplier for concrete molds, trowels, etc.
o Naturally, a concrete supplier!
o And so forth.
See what's happening? By writing about a niche that you know and
love, the content is easy. I'll show you how to ALSO write it to
score well for the engines later in the course.
By providing great content, you PRE-sell your reader, increasing your
click-through (traffic to your merchants) and your Conversion Rate
(sales). And by diversifying your affiliate programs among several RELATED
and EXCELLENT merchants, you develop multiple streams of income from one
site. *THIS* is the way to go.
OK, we can summarize today's session into a KEY LESSON to take home. I
am giving it this title...The Road to Becoming a Master Affiliate
The more I researched successful Affiliates, the more
PRE-selling techniques I found. But, no matter *HOW* they do it,
they all accomplish the same thing in the end...
"They refer people to their merchants in an 'OPEN-TO-BUY' frame of
mind."
What's the KEY? PRE-selling. Not selling. You must, must,
MUST know... HOW TO PRE-SELL!
Basically, The Affiliate Masters 5-day course delivers THE single most
productive approach to affiliate income. It will show you how to PRE-sell
your way to a CR of 5-10%.*AND*...At the same time, maximize traffic to
your merchants' sites. If you're building terrific traffic to your site...
*AND* if your site is getting a great click through rate (CTR) to the
merchants that you represent... *AND* if you are converting a high
percentage of them into sales...Isn't that the roadmap to becoming a
high-earning affiliate champion? Let's summarize the WHOLE point of
PRE-selling with this question...Which Would *YOU* Respond To...A Stranger
With a Sales Pitch or A Knowledgeable Friend Making a Recommendation?
The
above was an excerpt from Ken Evoy's excellent five part free affiliate marketing
course - a must for your success- get it now!.. For
more information please visit his site by clicking here.
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