Associate Programs Newsletter #74

My assistant, Nathan Power, asked me this week: "What are you doing that's useful, apart from making money for yourself?" (I suspect he thinks that if I'm not doing something useful I must be a waste of valuable space.)

So this edition concentrates on doing something useful - helping YOU boost YOUR sales to improve your lifestyle.

Then perhaps I'll get a chance to meet a few more of you at the E-Commerce 2000 conference in Hawaii, the price of which has just been reduced as a special introductory offer.

CONTENTS:

1. How Ron Gage achieves a 49.6% click-through rate
2. The Seven Keys to Success for Affiliates
3. A simple technique to increase sales
4. Put your referral URL in a merchant's article
5. Buyonet pays lifetime commissions
6. Adguide's search box makes click-throughs soar
7. How last week's error happened

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1. How Ron Gage achieves a 49.6% click-through rate
===================================================

If you have a look at Ron Gage's InstantSales.com your first impression will no doubt be that you've reached a high quality, professional site - which it is.

You'll probably also soon notice that InstantSales.com doesn't have ANY banner ads. All the selling which the site does is achieved via text links.

Also, the articles are totally lacking in hype. Instead, Ron, a marketing consultant who was first in his MBA class, leads his visitors gently to the click-through, allowing them to make the decision.

So how well does Ron's technique work?

Incredibly well.

"My average click-through to the various affiliate sites is exactly 49.65%," Ron says.

"My lowest click-through is 25% and my highest is 84%."

As well, 48.7% of people who visit InstantSales.com sign up for Ron's ezine.

Ron agreed to be interviewed on how he achieves those phenomenal click-throughs.

Ron, what are your thoughts on banner advertising versus text (articles, product reviews, letters of endorsement, text links)?

I believe that banners have already made it to the dinosaur category of Internet marketing. Surfers of all kinds are quite immune to banners.

Am I saying that banners flat-out do not work? Absolutely not. However, if I walked into a casino, I wouldn't put my money down on a game where you have odds of 1% to win. And that is why I would not waste my time with them. There are far more effective methods of generating sales.

With marketing in general, people ignore advertising. Think of how you read a newspaper or magazine. Your eyes are scanning at a very cursory level to find something of interest. Put another way, your brain has been trained from years of reading to notice headlines. In fact, it has been scientifically proven through motion detectors that people read a page in a "V" fashion.

Readers essentially start in the upper right hand corner, drop their eyes toward the bottom of the page, and then ascend to the upper left.
 
[UPDATE: Ron later corrected that: It is from upper left to down middle and then end up in the upper right.] That is why marketers and consultants such as myself will always jockey with the advertising departments to have our ads or our client's ads placed in the upper right hand side of a magazine or newspaper.

People simply do not like advertising or being sold. Just like the two age-old expressions, it is far better to lead the horse to water, and it is eminently more effective to have people think that decisions were "their" idea. Marketing is a very sensitive psychological science, and merchants will greatly increase their odds for success by recognizing that they need to be somewhat subtle in their approach.

So you are saying that text advertising is the way to go?

Absolutely. There simply is nothing better than a good old-fashioned headline. The only purpose of a headline is to get people to stop dead in their tracks and stimulate interest. And a good headline just begs the reader to continue on to the next sentence. In fact, the purpose of every sentence is to drive the reader to the next sentence, and so on, until you make your case to take a specific action.

There are two main actions that you want your copy to achieve: 1) To sell somebody right then and there, or 2) Get them to go to a next step. What I am referring to is "one-step" and "two-step" selling.

If you are selling your own product on the Internet, you of course would want to adopt one-step selling. You will want to literally suck your prospects in with a great headline, cultivate intense interest, position yourself as the only logical solution, and literally ask for the sale right on the spot. And in the process, make your offer so compelling that they have no choice but to act right then and there.

However, in the world of associate programs, your goal is to drive people to the sponsor's site where they hopefully do a great job of selling as I just mentioned earlier. So you therefore need to adopt a "two-step" selling approach where you essentially provide the first step ... cultivating enough interest to drive people to that site.

Now there are three ways that you can do this. The first way is to write a short passage, similar to a well worded classified, to generate interest. It will have your associate link, of course, embedded at the end. This method requires precision as you have very few words to generate interest and compel people to click on your link. So you must treat it as a headline and make every word count.

The second way is to write up a "product review" where you write as objectively as possible and enumerate the features and benefits of the product. People love product reviews, particularly if they are written objectively without any hype. Hype is a huge turn-off as it comes off as just another sales job.

The third way, in my opinion, is the most effective. And it is the method I use. When I find a product that I really like, and I believe it would unconditionally be of benefit to my readers and clients, then I write an endorsement for that particular product. Endorsements are extremely powerful marketing tools as your audience is there by choice ... they trust you. So your click-through and conversion ratios will be the highest. It is important with an endorsement to let your enthusiasm bubble through and get the reader excited. But again, be careful to not lay a sales job on your readers. That will simply annoy them.

Can you provide a specific example of a click-through you're achieving?

On my Products page, there are seven products with each product represented by a headline. The first headline is Corey's affiliate program. People who are interested by that particular headline click on it, and read my personal endorsement of Corey's course. At the bottom of the page, I have a link that takes them to Corey's site. Therefore, of the people who read that page regarding Corey's course, specifically 64% then click through to his site.

Your readers may also find this interesting:

   1. 55.5% of people who come to my home page click through to my Products page.

   2. 59.8% of those people who land on my Products page click through to one or more of the various product pages.

What I am also saying is that there is a process. I don't "goo- up" my main page with banners and all of that stuff. I qualify their interest to take a look at the Products main page, and then my headlines qualify those who continue on. It's the way I do it, and I am pleased with the results.

What conversion rates are you achieving?

My highest conversion (purchases divided by click-throughs) is 1.54% (that product had a click-through of 64%) and my lowest was 0.21% (not 21% ... I wish!), but it was probably the hardest product to sell.

People really need to realize that making money as an affiliate of somebody else's product(s) is a numbers game. You really need to generate serious traffic to start reaping meaningful results. But whether you have the traffic now or later, site owners must be aware that what you say and how you say it matters if you use text links as a strategy for affiliate programs ... it must be well done and from the heart.

Ron, do you have any extra tips or tricks that could help my readers?

Allan, I was heading in that direction, and I guess you saw it coming. First, it is critical to be able to get real-time feedback to see if what you are doing is working.

I use Extreme Tracking to provide me with visitor results (in addition to Web Trends) because it shows me daily where people are viewing pages at my website. So I am getting instantaneous feedback on any changes that I may make. By the way, that was not an endorsement for either product. There may very well be better website statistical packages out there.

For example, if I see sub-par click-throughs for a particular product that I endorse, I always test, test, test! I can't stress that enough. Always test to see if your headlines are the most effective in doing their job. Try different ones until you settle on the one that draws the best. And also recognize that even with a great headline, if your copy beneath it stinks, the job won't get done. So try to be the best wordsmith you can be all the way through your copy.

I also believe in working each of the three text methods (classifieds, product reviews and endorsements) to see which one works best. Sometimes what can happen is that in a product review or endorsement, you speak too much about the product. So when your visitor goes to the host site, you have already stolen the thunder of their sales message and rendered their message useless and redundant. So you definitely need to be careful.

One way to solve this is to become briefer in your write-ups and focus on how the product has benefited you. That makes it very personal and people will relate far better to that.

My last point has to do with the most common mistake I see people make with associate programs. People become over-zealous in the number of products that they are trying to push, and then they compound that mistake by pushing products that have no relevancy to the theme of their site.

You must be selective in the products you choose. If you try to sell too many products at once, you will confuse your visitors and they will click away. Provide them with a few key products so that they can focus on what you have to offer. And please make sure that these products are germane to your website. Don't go selling VISA cards, flowers, Internet marketing courses and books from the same site. That will drive a stake through your heart in your sales efforts.

Also, please make sure you have actually bought and used the product. You will never be effective selling products that you don't know firsthand. So many people on the Internet think that they can "cheap" their way to making money through associate programs, and that couldn't be further from the truth.

And finally, Allan, although I believe that there is money to be made from associate programs, get in early because the market does get saturated quickly. So it behooves people to keep in touch with your site on a regular basis as it is your job to unearth new opportunities.

One last thing ... I almost forgot ... you will make far more money selling your own product and creating an associate program for it rather than becoming a participant. I am not saying to avoid becoming an associate ... quite the contrary. It's a great way to make "supplemental" income. But the real money is in marketing your own product.

Want to see how Ron achieves those phenomenal click-throughs? Here's the URL: InstantSales.com

[UPDATE: This site is no longer online.]

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===========================================
2. The Seven Keys to Success for Affiliates
===========================================

If my interview with Ron Gage has got you all fired up and ready to take action to boost your sales, you'll also find re-reading this FREE excerpt from Declan Dunn's book useful.
The Seven Keys to Success for Affiliates
- from "Winning the Affiliate Game":

[UPDATE: This product is no longer available.]

=======================================
3. A simple technique to increase sales
=======================================

If you're promoting an associate program which has a site which SELLS (and who would want any other kind?) you can increase your click-throughs by placing your link in a strong position.

Michael Campbell's book, "Nothing but 'Net", is my top-selling program this month. Helping achieve that is a three-line link I'm using at the bottom right of most of my web pages - very close to the scroll bar.

The link says:

    Find out how Michael Campbell
    generated $750,000
    in just over a year.

Of course, it helps a heck of a lot when you're selling a product launched by true professionals. Here's a brief sample of the sort of writing which helps the book SELL:

    "This is the success story of one guy working out of his
    parent's basement, who went from 0 to $750,000 in sales in his
    first year on the internet. No traditional advertising of any
    kind was used, not even a business card. He moved real world
    products without even so much as a physical store. Now you'll
    be able to use the same powerful internet marketing tactics he
    used. All you have to do is click here now to discover all his
    secrets!"

With writing like that working for me, no wonder the second-tier sales have started to kick in very nicely.

[UPDATE: Michael Campbell has stopped selling this product. If you want a really good, comprehensive instruction manual on affiliate marketing, I recommend Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook. Here's a review of Super Affiliate Handbook.]

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================================================
4. Put your referral URL in a merchant's article
================================================

Endorsements are the best way to promote associate programs. Another way is to ask the merchant for permission to reprint one of his articles.

Naturally, you'll want to include YOUR referral URLs in the article and probably in a resource box at the end, too.

Here are two example:

4 evil search engine myths
AssociatePrograms.com/search/engine-myths.shtml

A down and dirty guide to search engine positioning
AssociatePrograms.com/search/positioning.shtml

====================================
5. Buyonet pays lifetime commissions
====================================

Software store Buyonet, which has 2,000 software titles available for download, is paying 5% LIFETIME commissions.

It's an attractive store. I found it easy to navigate and use.

You can promote it using buttons or banners in a choice of languages, but not by links to individual products.

Looks good.

[UPDATE: This business has closed.]

=================================================
6. Adguide's search box makes click-throughs soar
=================================================

Two months ago Steven Rothberg's Adguide College Recruiter gave associates the ability to add a search box to their site.

The results have been dramatic.

"The click-through rate for the search box has been about 57%, Steven says. "For affiliates used to earning 5 cents with a 1% percent click-through, the change to the search box has had the same effect as us increasing their payout from $0.05 to $2.85 per click!"

With click-throughs like that combined with average commissions of $125 (33%) it could be worth setting up a section of your site aimed at job seekers.

You can join Adguide at CJ.com
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/cj

[UPDATE: In April 2001, College Recruiter changed its payout to $100, and extended the life of its cookie to one year.]

=================================
7. How last week's error occurred
=================================

It was my fault. Last week My TextPad software saved a draft version of this newsletter inside the final version, and I didn't check carefully enough before sending the newsletter. Sorry!

I've now installed the latest version of TextPad.

I'm very grateful to all the wonderful readers who wrote to forgive me, to describe even more embarrassing blunders they had made, or to suggest that my newsletter was worth reading two or three times. Thank you! You're very kind.

All the best

Allan Gardyne