Affiliate Marketing: Develop And Maintain Your List – FIRST
June 10, 2009 in Featured, Internet Marketing, Making Money by Charly Leetham
When promoting an affiliate product, I think it is really important to maintain ‘control’ of the relationship with your prospect. There are a couple of reasons I say this.
Let’s consider the ‘buying patterns’ of your market, or any market.
The main thing to consider is that it is extremely unusual for a site visitor to purchase on their first visit. In my experience, it can take 7 (or more) ‘touches’ or exposures to a product or service before they will commit to buy it. This means that we need a way of encouraging our visitors to take another look, or two or three, at our products and services.
The next thing to consider is that sometimes, the site visitor just isn’t ready to purchase and we (as marketers) need to be able to remind our visitors periodically that the product or service is still around. By doing so, gracefully, we are able to be positioned in our site visitors mind when they are ready to make a buying decision.
The main issue with marketing a product for someone else is that you are literally handing that relationship off to the product owner. In affiliate marketing, the process generally works as follows:
As you’ll see, because we are simply ‘directing’ traffic to the product owners pages, we are also loosing ‘control’ of that prospect. Savvy product owners will ensure that these visitors are added to a list that they can continue to market to. Whilst you, as the referrer, will receive commission for the first sale made it is unlikely that you will be recognized for further sales.
So how do you overcome this? How can you ‘be in control’ of the client? It requires a little work on your part – but it’s well worth it in the long run.
By the time you’ve decided to promote an affiliate product, you’ve probably set up a blog or a Squidoo lens to generate traffic. This is a great start and if you haven’t, then you should. On your blog and/or squidoo lens, you want to differentiate yourself from all the other marketers promoting the same or similar products. Talk about the problem that this product solves, talk about how it helped you and certainly talk about the ‘negative’ aspects of the product – this provides a basis for your visitors to get to Know You, Like You and Trust You.
Once you’ve setup your site, you’ll want to ‘capture’ your visitors names and email addresses so that you can follow up with them – remind them about the product, how it can benefit them, what you’ve discovered about it etc. This process is know as ‘Lead Capture’ and it is important, because this is really where you will be able to develop the relationship with your visitors and maintain control of the relationship – you will be able to recommend other products and help your site visitors find the result they are looking for.
The best way to capture your visitors details is to have an autoresponder (like aweber) using one of the many ways available including a Squeeze page, Pop Up or Hover box or Exit Pop – each have different benefits and disadvantages. Implementing an autoresponder does require a financial investment but it is worth it in the long run.
Once you’ve chosen your autoresponder, set up a series of at least 7 to 12 messages that are sent to your subscribers. Each message should give a little bit of information about the problem your chosen product solves and how the product meets the need. Each message should also contain an invitation to visit your site again. Another option is to create a 7 to 12 part mini course delivered by email – this is an excellent way to build the Know You, Like You, Trust You model.
To actually get your visitors onto your list, you need an ‘irresistible’ offer. You need to offer something to your subscribers in return for their details. For the new affiliate marketer, this can be challenging however, here are some suggestions:
- A report that gives 5, 7 or 10 ‘quick fixes’ to the problem. People do look for quick and easy answers… Make sure the information is good though.
- An audio created by you of the report above.
- An interview with the product owner that gives away a couple of really juicy tid bits of info.
- A video review of the product
- The ecourse you have written for the autoresponder
There are a bundle of Private Label and Resale Right products available to help you create your own irresistible offer.
With a ‘lead capture’ process in place, the Affiliate Marketing flow now appears:
Once you’ve got your subscribers, you are on your way to creating life long customers and, when you decide to create your own product in the niche – you automatically have a list of interested people. How cool is that?
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This is invaluable advice, Charly. Thank you!
Do you have resources on your websites, or do you plan on writing more SquidLog articles explaining in greater detail how to set up this “Lead Capture”? What are the individual steps for setting up an Auto Responder and how do you do this on a Squidoo lens?
Very enlightening. I’d seen references to creating a customer list but not exactly how it might be used. Very helpful!
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This is golden. I use the same practice at my store with the offer of a free e-book. I know for a fact that I have realized several sales because of the list generated by that book.
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I’ve always wondered about the PLR stuff. Do you just rebrand it with your name and details or do you “rework” it to make it uniquely yours? And how do you find these?