Internet Marketing with Josh SpauldingMaking Money through Ethical Internet Marketing.

How to Increase Affiliate Sales without Increasing Exposure

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When I first got into affiliate marketing I would always concentrate on increasing traffic (build a bigger list, get higher rankings etc.) I had a one-track mind and the only thing that made me happy was more eyeballs on my affiliate promos, whether they were promos to my email lists, traffic to affiliates sites or something else… it didn’t matter. I only cared about more traffic.

After a year or two of small to moderate success here and there, I would frequently look through all of my affiliate promotions and try to find trends. Why did “this” promo do so much better (or worse) than “this” promo. That’s when I started to realize the extreme importance of the “angle” (as I call it) and the offer.

When you’re executing an affiliate promotion, no matter if it’s to a mailing list, on an affiliate site or done in some other way, the angle and the offer are the two most important factors that will determine whether the promo is a success or a failure.

The Angle: This is how you present the product. For instance, if you’re promoting an SEO product, the angle might be “This Guy got a #1 Ranking in 2 Days Doing THIS” or it might be “A good SEO Guide I just Picked up.”

The Offer: The offer could be thought of as the actual product, but what I mean by the offer is what are you offering that others aren’t? An offer might be a discount that is exclusive to your list or website. Or the offer could be a special bonus that is exclusive to your list or website. It could be one of many other things too.

For quite some time I didn’t even consider those things. Of course, I figured a good angle and offer would be good, but I just didn’t quite understand at the time just HOW important they are in the success of any affiliate offer. I quickly learned that these two things can and often times do make the difference between a $100 promo and a $5,000 or even $10,000 promo. I learned this by looking at trends from my previous promos.

Once I started concentrating on these two things primarily, while making list and traffic growth secondary, I immediately increased my income! Just think about it. In my “Angle” example above, I mention two example angles for the same product. Both angles are for the same product, but I would bet that the first example would outperform the second angle by 30% or more simply because it hits on results while the second does not. You want to hit the emotions of your viewers… give them an angle that draws on their emotions… in this case, they WANT top rankings. So “This is a good guide” is not NEARLY as good of an angle as “This guy got #1 rankings… here’s how!” (for example.)

The offer is equally huge. You could be promoting the same product, using the same angle, but if you did a promo offering a small discount or a good bonus (for example) you would do many more sales and in most cases you would end up earning much more money simple because you’re offering something that others are not offering. It also helps convert those people who view your offer that would have normally ordered through their own affiliate link, or through someone else’s because now they have a good reason to order through yours. This is especially important when you’re promoting a product AT launch time while loads of others are promoting at the same time. But even when that’s not the case, offering something special is almost always a good idea that will earn you more money!

Anytime you can promote a quality product that has a limited supply and/or only sells for a limited period of time you should consider it as well, but only if there is a good reason for the scarcity of course.

Here are the key characteristics of a perfect affiliate promotion. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen for all of your promos BECAUSE of #1:

#1 The product is of quality and helpful to your visitors/subscribers.
#2 You have proof that the product does exactly what it says it does and you use that proof to create a compelling “angle.”
#3 The product owner sets up a special discount or other offer that is available exclusively to your people. Or you offer something of value to those who order through your link.
#4 The product is either only available for a limited time (a few days to a week ideally) or only XX number of copies are available.
#5 The product has some kind of a free trial. Free trials are a great way make sales. The free trial could be letting users use the software, if it’s software, or it could be giving away one chapter of an ebook, if it’s an ebook or one of many other options. Ideally, you let the customer get a taste of the product, then when their free “taste” ends, they can’t use it or finish it, so they must buy.

The more of these five characteristics that you can incorporate into your affiliate promo, the more sales you’re going to generate whether you’re promoting to 100 people or 100,000!

So continue to work on generating more subscribers/visitors, but put that task second. Working to get the most out of the visitors you already have should be first! AND converting first time website visitors into recurring visitors (by getting them on your mailing list) should also be a top priority.