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There was a question asked on one of my earlier posts, Affiliate Marketing: Develop And Maintain Your List – FIRST, that asked for the list of tools and resources that I used or recommended.  So I decided to discuss the ONE tool that I think all Affiliate Marketers should have.

Email Marketing

The most important tool to have is an Autoresponder, or an Email Marketing Tool.  You need to be able to communicate directly with ‘your list’.  Even if you don’t have a website, you can still be building an email marketing list.  All you need is the right system is place.

There are a few ways you can create and manage an email marketing list and  I’ll discuss a few of those here, and my take on the Pros and the Cons.

Manage Your Own List

There are several ways to manage your own list from using your local email address book and local email client, like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird to running software on webhost (like phplist or Parabots). Read the rest of this entry →

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Marketing any type of product is really about getting the correct Target Audience to view your product or service.  I’ve written previously about getting to know exactly who your Target Audience is.  By knowing who your Target Audience is, you will be able to speak directly to those people in words and language they will understand – you will also be able to address their specific problems and offer solutions, increasing the opportunity of making a sale.

There really is little point in marketing to everyone.

All successful marketers know that someone will buy your product or service when it ’solves a problem’ for them and how can you address everyone’s problem in one go?

Each lens you create for a product, should address a specific target audience.  The keywords (or tags) that you choose and the language you use in your writing will be for that audience.

The same concept applies for your traffic generation – getting the right traffic to your lens.  As only a certain percentage of your visitors will buy from your lens, even when they are your target audience, it is important to keep a regular flow of traffic to your lens.

Article Submissions

One very effective way is to write articles and submit them to article directories and blogs in your niche.  Not only will this aid in increasing the rankings of your lenses in the Search Engines, it will also credential you as an expert within the Niche and encourage visitors to your site.

There are a number of ’standard’ article directories to submit to, which are listed in the One Week Marketing Plan but there are also a number of Niche sites that you can submit to.  For example if you are promoting a Self Help product, www.SelfGrowth.com is an excellent site to consider.   Spend a little bit of time looking for sites that you may be able to contribute articles to – you may need to approach the site owner directly and ask if they will.  If you know someone who owns a blog in your niche, why not ask them if they would like some guest posts – many bloggers appreciate extra good quality content for their site.

If you run your own blog in that niche, post a version of your article to your own blog as well.

I’ve also found it useful to use a submission service like Unique Article Wizard.  I can submit an article to UAW, select the category that I’m targeting and have my article distributed and displayed on several other sites.

Article Marketing may seem like a lot of work, but when implemented correctly and used regularly you will find targeted traffic hitting your lens.

For more information, I’ve shared  6 Article Marketing Tips on my blog.

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If you have joined Squidoo to promote and sell products, one skill that you are going to need is the ability to write an effective sales document.  As an affiliate marketer, every lens you write should be designed to attract a customer that is willing to buy your product or service and / or to gain their email address so you can follow up and market to them later.You are, in fact, writing a Sales Letter on your lens even if it is over several modules.  The content of that Sales Letter is incredibly important and should exhibit a level of friendliness, whilst still being direct and to the point.

Many business people struggle with writing an effective sales letter and realize that if the sales copy doesn’t speak to their target audience, in a way that the target audience will appreciate and understand – they are wasting their time. Not only should your sales letter speak to your lens visitor in a way that they can relate to, it must also address the reader’s main interest – generally a problem they are experiencing that requires a direct solution, or specific training or another need that requires filling.

You can use these six tips for keeping your potential customers, your readers, very interested and convert readers into buyers:

#1…Understand What Your Potential Clients Are Looking For

It is imperative that you know why your visitors will buy your products or services. Your visitors really aren’t interest in your product or service – you would be wrong – your visitors are are only interested in what your product or service will do for them. When writing your sales letter, you need to stress the benefits your potential clients will get if they buy your product.

There is an emotional component to all sales and it is that emotional component that prompts buying. The emotional component is the bit that contains the “WIIFM” or “What’s In It For Me?” Provide the answer to that question with the benefits of your product or service and you will make sales.

#2…Your Headline Counts

The first thing your visitors see when they land on your lens is the headline. The headline must grab the reader and makes them want to read more.

Your lens headline is the most important part of your entire sales letter. It’s worthwhile spending time on the headline when creating your lens.

#3…Be Direct And Focus On The Benefits

Your sales copy, or lens content, shouldn’t ramble – it should be direct and specifically focused on the benefits of owning your product or taking your service. There is no Golden Rule about the length of sales letters, it should be as long as it needs to be. Some lenses will be one page and some will be several pages long.  As long as you stress your benefits and make your copy as long as it needs to be to make your points (WIIFM).

#4…Keep Sentences And Paragraphs, Short And Sweet

Readers tend to skim through endless paragraphs of text and the look of your page is important to your conversion and as such, you should keep your sentences and paragraphs short.

Large blocks of text get skipped by scanning eyes. Use bullet points and subheads to direct and focus your reader’s attention and put a space or two between paragraphs to make your page easy to read.

Formatted text boxes will attract attention for special information or calls to action.

#5…Add A ‘PS’ After The Signature (maybe…)

Many successful Internet marketers believe that including a PS or two at the end of your sales letter, after your signature at the end, will increase your conversion rates dramatically. This may, or may not be true – it would depend on your target audience. Test your lens with a PS (a module right at the end) and without – see what results are achieved.

#6…Add Several Calls To Actions

Often, when writing a sales page, we can forget to add several calls to action. A Call To Action literally tells your reader what to do – graciously and politely. The Call To Action is generally a request to actually buy the product or service. If you review any sales page, or lens, that coverts well, you will usually find two or three opportunities to purchase the product on the sales page, complete with a statement of urgency and the ‘buy now’ link.

Once you have led the reader through your benefits and listed the bonuses available after they buy the product, you have to tell them what to do next.

These six tips are a great but your best training tools can be found on the sales pages and lenses of any of the very successful businesses. Review lots of sales pages and lenses, note things like colors, placement of the “Buy Now” button / links and the general layout of the page. Find pages that appeal to your target audience and duplicate what already works.

 

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In this article, I will discuss why you should promote one product per lens when implementing an Affiliate Marketing strategy.

Going back to the principles of Niche Marketing, best practice tells us to have a different websites or each type of product we are promoting.

When using Squidoo, we can translate this to having one lens for each type of product we are promoting.

What I mean is that if you are promoting Dance Shoes – you should create separate lenses for Ballroom Dancing Shoes and Ballet Shoes.  You could even go to a deeper level and promote different brands of Ballroom Dancing Shoes on different lenses.

This approach has the benefit of allowing you to speak directly to the Target Audience for each specific product, in a way that they will understand. In addition, you will be able to focus your marketing efforts to drive targetted traffic to the specific lens without diluting your efforts.

On your lenses, include reviews and great information about the product you are promoting. This has several benefits including:

• Meeting the Squidoo Terms of Service,
• Aiding the indexing of your lenses by the search engines and
• Proving to your readers that the product is worthwhile and you are trustworthy.

Of course, it is best to write your review from a personal point – try the product yourself and write about how it helped you, what you liked and what you didn’t like.  Be honest in your review – it will help your readers get to know you, like you and trust you.

Using Testimonials

Testimonials are also are great proof of the effectiveness of a product however, become familiar with the new FTC rules governing the use of the testimonials.  Part of the new rules mean that any testimonial used must show ‘the usual results’ not ‘the unusual results’ and must be from bona-fida customers.  (It’s worthwhile becoming familiar with the FTC rules regarding endorsements and testimonials today).

Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product.   Be sure that these customers are more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.

Include Useful Information

You can add additional text modules to your lenses and include articles about the product.  In each article or text module, you should:

• Choose a specific benefit of the product to write about in these modules and keep the content interesting and informational
• Break the information into dot points to make it easier to read and understand
• Include one or two images per module to add variety

If you have videos of the product include one or two on your lens as well.

Headlines and Call To Actions

Each module should contain a headline that attracts the readers attention and encourages them to read more.  The headline should address the benefit that you ar discussing or demonstrating in the module.

In addition, you should direct your reader to the next step they should take – this is known as a Call To Action and may be a request to buy or to contact you for more information.

 

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I had an interesting discussion with my Mastermind Group the other day about using redirects to control your affiliate marketing traffic. I was relating how one of the affiliate programs I was promoting had closed down and that all of my affiliate links were disabled on the host site and when someone clicked on my link, they got a ‘dead page’.   It was really frustrating.

The problem I was lamenting wasn’t that the program had closed down – I had already found something to replace it – the problem was that I had linked my raw affiliate link ‘all over the place’ and I couldn’t remember where!   I was sending good quality traffic (quite likely qualified traffic) to a dead link and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I had also spent the better part of several days going through the sites I knew about and changing my links.

If I had heeded the advice that every piece of literature on affiliate marketing had given me – I wouldn’t now be sending traffic to a dead link and I would have saved myself several hours of tedious, mindnumbing work in changing all my links….

Read the rest of this entry →

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