Top Tips for Helping Affiliates to Achieve Success
Recently I have been investigating the ways in which companies with affiliate schemes try to help their affiliates to achieve maximum success.
One thing I noticed in the course of this research, is that many of them will give “affiliate materials” such as banners, text links, articles etc - but often very little in the way of actual advice and coaching into how best to implement these things.
So, on money-while-you-sleep.biz I decided to go against the grain of this and, in addition to the usual “raw materials”, am putting up as much info as I could on how to *actually go about* affiliate marketing.
Below is an edit of an article I recently wrote as part of the suite of affiliate materials available on money-while-you-sleep.biz.
It contains what I think are some valuable ideas both for affiliates and for other internet marketers - and I hope it is of benefit to you!
I’d love to know a) what you think of this “coaching” strategy, b) opinions / feedback on the article below, and c) can you think of any more “offline” marketing strategies to expand upon this with?
Alex
AFFILIATE MARKETING IN THE “REAL” WORLD
When most people think of being an affiliate, they think only in terms of pay-per-click advertising, email lists and other “internet” methods of promoting a product.
They are leaving a huge amount of money on the table. There are countless opportunities for marketing in the real world. Here are a few examples and ideas.
The first step is typically to make up some form of flyer, business card, poster or even just a small slip of paper with your hoplink or URL on it - that you can give to people when you are in conversation with them.
Small flyers are a great promotional tool. You can keep some on your person, to give away in conversation. You can attach them to public noticeboards, take them to events, give them to street teams who will distribute them for a fee… the list is endless. A form of flyer I like is a letter or half-letter sized poster with small “ribbon-strips” cut into the bottom of it, with a URL that people can tear off.
If you are going to make up your own printed materials, it is advisable to get your own URL - either to redirect to your affiliate link - or to send people to your “pre-sell” page, relevant blog, web site or “email list squeeze page”.
This is a good idea for several reasons:
a) A nice, tidy-looking link can be much more memorable and enticing than an affiliate link.
b) It’s something that can help prevent “bypassing” of your affiliate commission, which occasionally happens.
c) It gives you the opportunity to do other things with the traffic that arrives at your site: - For example; get subscribers for your email list, advertise other products, send traffic to other sites, or deliver other valuable content and free gifts.
d) Having your own unique web site means you can link to it from sites that do not approve of affiliate marketing. Then, you can create sales information and hoplinks on your own site as part of the site’s overall content.
A super strategy is to offer a high-quality product entirely free on your affiliate web site - and then in your flyers, just focus on the free offer. Then you can do the selling on the web site, when you have established rapport and have their focused attention.
There is a company that offers 250 free business cards - www.vistaprint.com - as well as all kinds of other marketing materials.
Please be eco-friendly and use recycled paper with a high post-consumer-waste content! Another interesting eco-idea - I once came across someone who made flyers from “offcuts” from a printing company. Previously, the printing company discarded the paper that was cut off in the process of making their postcards and flyers. This individual printed simple flyers on the offcuts - the size was of course random but he got a huge number of flyers for an incredible price. This idea might be worth investigating.
Word of mouth: This is important - in conversations with people, tell them that you are an affiliate for the product you are promoting, and that you make a commission on sales. This “disclosure” that you are an affiliate is actually an FTC regulation for word-of-mouth marketing.
Describe the product and the benefits it can offer, and also explain that people can also become affiliates and make money.
Another idea - seek out press, radio, TV or “web video” interviews. You could pitch yourself for interview as an affiliate - give a talk on what it means to be an affiliate, describe your experiences, ways to make money, share knowledge etc. This could work especially well if you are already making a living as an affiliate: People will be fascinated by a “success story” of someone who was able to walk away from their job and have a more exciting or unusual life.
You could advertise - such as classified ads in newspapers and magazines. Some papers and magazines have “free ads” sections.
There are all kinds of other materials you can make up for promotional purposes. If you have a catchy URL that ignites people’s curiosity, it may be worthwhile to have it printed on other things - and the list is endless: buttons, fridge magnets, pens, stickers, basecall caps, magnets, calendars… again, this stuff is much more effective if, rather than just dropping a link, it describes some kind of free product available at the web site. There are over a billion web sites out there now - and people need a good reason to type in your URL when they get home…
A final note - carry your promotional materials on your person at all times!
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