THE AFFILIATE MARKETING PRIMER

Decide, at least for now, how much time/effort you're willing to put into marketing a program, or a set of them. It's not going to hurt anything if you start by doing little... or even if you never get beyond that. (Well, I should say, not if you haven't done anything detrimental like cluttering your website with banners that end up annoying your visitors.) You know what you can handle.

Don't be disturbed by any harrying tone you may find in the information put forth in affiliate companies'  recommendations or affiliate gurus' newsletters. They might speak somewhat disparagingly of affiliates who don't produce big click-to-referral ratios, and they'll say things like "you've got to have an ezine that you send out every week", or "you have to spend at least an hour a day on link exchanges". One of their roles is to encourage toward success... But that may be tantamount to saying that you've got to double the stress load in your life and drive yourself and your family crazy - if so, you can ignore it!  You get to decide.

Some affiliate companies seem to be contemplating how to jettison "poor producers". I find that unfortunate - I don't believe that they are losing by them, they just aren't gaining a lot... But they are gaining some, and the potential for more is always there. Even if they aren't pulling significant sales, they are still helping out with brand awareness (like bumper stickers!).

All affiliate marketing programs I've looked into are entirely automated, except for the matter of answering questions (usually by email). There's no doubt that the latter can be a considerable load - but that's part of the cost of doing business this way. (I have to believe that only a small proportion of the poorer producers are causing the email influx anyway. Most people simply don't bother to write!)

Rather than turning to something negative and punitive, the situation would seem to beg for creative solutions on the part of affiliate companies. The normal business model would simply call for hiring more people to field the questions, but I'm sure that ingenious people can come up with less expensive ways to handle the load.

In any case, most questions point to weaknesses that might be shored up so that those questions don't crop up any more. ("Frequently Asked Questions" come to mind!) In that sense, they are of value despite the time they take to answer.

The reality is that not everyone has the kind of life that allows them to spend a lot of time on a business venture - especially, perhaps, at first... And online commerce, especially, attracts people who seek to pursue their own course in their own way, at their own pace. One starts where one can and appreciates help and encouragement, not exhortation and intimidation.

Affiliate marketing isn't an arena that can ever be expected to produce only a high-powered sales force. But, high-powered company managers also want to be able to shape their own destinies... and we as affiliates have the freedom to filter/disregard or reject as it suits us. Be that as it may, if a company were to dump me because I wasn't deemed a good enough producer, I'd be discomfited, but guess what... I could always find another affiliate company to take its place.

But assuming that you are interested in working to achieve as much as you can - more, anyway - there are a few things that you can focus on right away for greater benefits:  pre-selling, good copywriting, and creative marketing. (These come after devising a website - if you have one - that really stands out from all the rest. ...That's essential!)
 
 

"Pre-selling" is a concept that has been promulgated by Ken Evoy, the author of the book Make Your Site Sell! (otherwise known as "MYSS!" - which is just the foundation for an extensive web-helpful product line).

Ken maintains that it is inefficient and counterproductive for an affiliate to do the job he has done on his excellent website, namely the selling of his products...

If you repeat information that you've gleaned from his site, visitors to your site who click on your link to his will be annoyed to find themselves reading the same material over again... The message is diminished, and prospective buyers/affiliates are turned off. Ken has data to prove that people who switch from inappropriate selling to pre-selling dramatically improve their income from sales (their click-to-sales ratios).

What Ken means by "pre-selling" is providing considered testimonials, intriguing editorial commentary, or examples of how people can use the MYSS! book, concepts, or (but more likely "and") affiliate opportunity to enhance their success on the web - but not a sales pitch.

In other words, add something. Mention major benefits and solutions likely to be most important to your audience. Lead in to his site - presage, don't reveal... that's Ken's job, and he does it very well. The MYSS! site can help if you don't hinder.

Give any affiliate company's website the same room to work - it will be to your gain.

There's an excellent article by Ken on pre-selling at http://articles.sitesell.com/granite.html if you'd like to read further.
 

"AFFILIATE MASTERS" COURSE:

Affiliate Masters is a free 5-day intensive course by Ken Evoy that goes in-depth into the value of pre-selling and thinking via the customer's point of view. It also gives valuable insights into marketing psychology, why niche marketing is so effective, and how to enhance your marketing efforts with good keyword selection.  Just click on the link above to download the course!  

(If you haven't seen the course in awhile, get it again - it's way better than ever.)

     An aside:  No matter what affiliate programs you may be involved with, the MYSS! materials can be of huge benefit to you in improving traffic to your site, selling anything yourself on the web, and intensifying your affiliate marketing results. ...See for yourself how much by going to the MYSS! site at http://myss.sitesell.com/granite.html. The book is incredibly inexpensive, and you can download a big sample portion for free... (They alone are worth more than many web marketing books/courses!)
     A great benefit to signing up for the MYSS!/etc. affiliate program there is that you get an extremely helpful 200+ page free affiliate manual that will help you take advantage of any affiliate program, not just SiteSell's "5 Pillar Program"... Plus the excellent "marketing toolbox"... Plus three great web-marketing ezines, one of which is only for SiteSell affiliates... Plus a "Mail-out" feature for emailing your sub-affiliates... Plus "The Ultimate Link Tracker" software so you'll know where your site hits are coming from... All totally free!, until the program closes... So sign up before it's too late. (Not to mention that whether or not you buy or sign up for anything, the SiteSell site is a prime example of web copy that sells.)

The other thing pre-selling means is:  Act like a company partner, not just a host to a banner!

So - your other affiliate companies' sites are probably likewise complete in their own way (if not, that's a serious deficiency - which you might be able to improve with your own suggestions)... Work on your pre-selling of them when you have the urge to improve.
 
 

Some of the best and most famous advertising copywriters read every book about copywriting they can get their hands on, and recommend that anyone serious about the subject do the same.  We don't all have the time/money to spend doing this in a short period (though it may be a good idea to simply keep one's eyes open for such opportunities) - but there are a few excellent possibilities here online that I might share...

The first is from a long-time "master" of the genre, a name that has cropped up again and again in my reading over the past two decades:  Joe Vitale. A hard-to-find manuscript has been restructured into an e-course downloadable within 15 minutes...  How to Hypnotize Anyone with Words (Hypnotic Writing).  The subtitle to the work is "(And get them to buy, agree, follow, click - anything you want.)".  This very inexpensive gem will show you how to quickly and persuasively write headlines that grab and don't let go, hold people's attention through fascination as well as interesting content, and lead them to give you the result you want to achieve.

The second is an exceptionally well-conceived offering, an interactive, step-paced, multi-media course via your web browser, Killer Copy Tactics, by well-known copywriting practitioner and coach David Garfinkel (who can say a lot of useful things in just a few pithy paragraphs). This is a course in 12 weekly lessons, with audio (a sample can be heard on the site), examples, and exercises to reinforce learning.  Naturally, tactics specific to the internet are included, and the last lesson focuses on techniques particularly useful to affiliate marketing. This is comparable to getting one-on-one help in a classroom but is far more convenient and self-paced (besides which, I wouldn't know where to take such a course!).

The third is a fantastic book produced by Ken Evoy and internet (and other) copywriting expert Joe Robson, Make Your Words Sell!. Joe has many years of experience writing ads offline - and while this ebook draws from that, it also shows where the two styles differ and gives many important tips specific to website, email, and ezine copywriting.  As with the other excellent SiteSell offerings, you can test the waters with a free 5-day course... click here to download the Netwriting Masters Course.  (But the book is much, much more than this!)

If you want to do it the really easy way... this is a very useful product:  Instant Sales Letters, from copywriter and marketer Yanik Silver. This is a little database of 33 templates for sales letters of all types.  They accomplish many things, and they work for all types of businesses too. Attract leads and referrals, reactivate former clients, introduce new services, gather testimonials, generate new subscribers... with assurance. Just fill in the blanks in minutes, or tailor them to your own needs. (Great copywriting bonuses too - and a water-tight guarantee.)
  

There's one more page to this section! - See PART THREE of 6 - HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR AFFILIATE PROGRAMS...
  

  Wondering what to try next in your marketing arsenal?...  ThinkJointVenture.com