|
|
affiliate_marketing :: Internet Marketing :: Affiliate Marketing
Can't Find Any ClickBank Super Affiliates? Grow Your Own!
Success with Affiliate Marketing, or Internet Marketing in general, depends on a lot of factors; the product
you decide to promote, the type of advertising you use, the size of your advertising budget, etc. One product
in particular has been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web. It has in the past, and still is making
small fortunes for many Internet Marketers. The product I am refering to is information. Throughout this site
you will find an abundance of information on affiliate programs, marketing, website building, advertising and
so much more. Enjoy!
affiliate marketing has become extremely popular, and ClickBank offers a large and growing network of affiliates
to tap into, but only a tiny percentage of them know how to make the
most of their web traffic. Countless studies have demonstrated the huge
benefits of proper pre-selling, but most affiliates do little more than display their merchant's banner ads.
Unfortunately, the cause of this problem lies with the merchants. affiliate relationships are often treated as little more than risk-free advertising, with the affiliate
providing the space and the merchant providing the ad to fill it. What
is lacking in this approach is any attempt to leverage the affiliate's
unique relationship with her niche community.
Even some of the largest online merchants, who spend huge sums setting up the infrastructure for their affiliate programs, do nothing to coach or motivate their affiliates. Nor do they provide any of the basic materials necessary to optimize the quality of referrals.
But, by treating affiliates
as a valued marketing resource instead of a risk-free ad service, you
can achieve astonishing results. This means investing effort in helping
your affiliates.
The most fundamental way to prime your affiliates
for effective pre-selling is by producing a support pack that leads
them in the right direction and makes the process as simple and
effortless as possible.
Of course, the pack should contain all the staple advertising
tools, like banners, classified ads, headlines and a variety of short
and long descriptions for search engines and classified listings. But
it should also include content that your affiliates can use to extend the value of their websites or distribute in their newsletters.
This content should include templates for infomercials, product
reviews and endorsements (ready for customization) as well as articles,
interviews and case studies (to be reproduced verbatim).
A typical product review is a mix of facts and opinions. Although you may not wish to dictate the opinions of your affiliates,
you can make it easy for them to write their own personalized reviews,
by setting out all the most important facts in a brief article that
they can customize with their own impressions. The most effective
product reviews explain exactly how and why the author uses the
product, with a big emphasis on benefits. Again, you can help out here,
using template paragraphs that your affiliates can tailor to describe their own experiences. The more work you do for your affiliates, the easier you make it for them to present your product in the most favorable light.
This brings us to the important issue of product ownership. The best way for an affiliate
to write a credible product review is from personal experience. In
other words, she should own and use the product before offering an
opinion on its suitability.
So, as a merchant, it should be among your priorities to encourage your affiliates
to own the products they promote. One way to do this is to allow them
to buy your products using their own affiliate link. Some merchants are
wary of this approach, fearing that it leads to commission theft and
encourages buyers to sign up as affiliates purely to obtain a discount.
The alternative is to restrict the membership of your affiliate
program to existing customers, forcing them to buy your product if they
want to participate in its promotion. A number of very successful
ClickBank merchants adopt this policy, although it should be noted that
it carries the risk of seriously diminishing your affiliate recruitment
rate.
A final - somewhat drastic - step is to offer your product free to registered affiliates,
thus encouraging them to become familiar with it and properly endorse
it. Of course, you would need to employ this tactic discreetly, or you
run the risk of being overrun by freebie seekers.
If the thought of giving your product away free is too
intimidating, consider making the offer conditional on a tacit
commitment by your affiliates
to participate in your coaching program. In other words, you get the
chance to interact directly with the affiliate, mentoring her in her
quest to deliver high-quality targeted prospects to your sales page.
This kind of one-to-one relationship with affiliates
can be extremely time-consuming at the outset, but as each affiliate
tunes in to the most effective pre-selling tactics, she becomes
self-sufficient and low-maintenance. And little by little you build a
marketing SWAT team that delivers immediate results whenever you launch
a new product.
About The Author
Copyright © Tim Coulter. All rights reserved.
Tim Coulter is a consultant and software developer who helps netpreneurs to harness marketing technologies.
He is also the author of "ClickBank - The Definitive Guide" The Ultimate ClickBank Tutorial & Reference Manual.
http://www.clickbankrevealed.com/
We hope you found the information on this page useful and will return often to browse
the many articles throughout our site. We will be adding new material on an ongoing
basis in order to keep our visitors up to date on the latest promotion and marketing
information and tools that allow so many marketers to earn a full time living on the
internet.
|
|
|
|
