Today’s post is all about YOU, earning more money as an AFFILIATE, promoting other peoples products.
Now I appreciate some of you will be thinking — I don’t have much of a list or much of a following – so how can I go about promoting a product launch.
Well of course in theory the bigger the list you have, the more sales you will get – but let me make another point. Some of the most successful affiliates for the launch of PopUp Domination actually had relatively small lists, but what they had that more than made up for it was, a very responsive list.
So you might ask how do you build a responsive list? There are a number of factors that matter – but the two I would highlight are:
1) Your reputation with the subscribers on your list. If you are someone who consistently offers your subscribers great value in the way of information and strategies, then they are more likely to read your emails and more importantly, take action based on your recommendation in those emails.
I have said it before, but I will say it again – only ever promote products you believe in and would buy yourself. The quickest way to lose that good reputation is to constantly be peddling and hyping STUFF – just because you might make a few commissions.
2) The second factor is of course your niche. I have a pretty responsive list but if I was to start promoting a course on Pay Per Click marketing, I can bet the response would not be so good. You see most of the people on my list are not using PPC – but rather are bloggers.
People (myself included) have often said the Money is in the List — well that is true, but the real fact is, that the money is in the responsiveness of the list!
OK, let’s get started:
10 Top Tips For Promoting Product Launches as an Affiliate
1. Review The Product
Reviews have been one of the most powerful things I do for launches, for a lot of reasons, including:
- Proof I have the product and I’m not just promoting to make money.
- Proof it works.
- Long team sales from new readers coming to my site.
- SEO Rankings. Tip: Name your post something people will search in Google to find it.
You want to of course do a write up on the product and include screen shots and a video would be a great addition.
One great example of a review was by David Risley for my launch. He was able to sell over 100 copies of my plugin by writing a post, adding images and a video then emailing it to his list.
ANOTHER TIP: Not sure when product launches are happening? Visit your competition and the gurus in your industry and sign up to their list. If there is a product being launched, they will be promoting!
Then you can go about getting involved, usually you can find the affiliate page is linked to in the footer of the sales page. If not, Google the name of the product + affiliate.
2. Email Pre-launch
For a long time I was against emailing pre-launches because I thought I would lose a whole load of my list to someone else. However this isn’t the case, your readers will not unsubscribe just because they opt-ed into someone elses list. In fact, they probably already are on dozens of other lists already. As long as you provide value, your subscribers will stay with you!
Emailing pre-launch is great because it builds momentum and interest.
The problem with emailing a direct sales page is that people have no idea why they need to look at the product in the first place. It’s a lot easier to tempt them in with a free video or download from the pre-launch so that they can learn about the product and why they so desperately need it.
It’s also a good opportunity to build trust and the fact is, most of the time, your readers don’t realize you are promoting a squeeze page because you’re making money from it.
3. Follow Up
Often you have 3 or even more opportunity to email, blog, Facebook, Tweet etc… a launch:
- Launch Day
- 24 Hours Till Close/Price Increase
- Reopen for 24 hours/Webinar
I have even promoted a launch where they suggested you emailed as much as 12 times!
We all know email is the most important thing you could be using right now, that’s why all the big marketers do so much to build a list.
We all know email is the most important thing you could be using right now, that’s why all the big marketers do so much to build a list.
It’s simple, you build a list and then at any given time you can email your subscribers a product launch and cash in. For me it literally is the closest thing to printing money. I have friends who travel the world and live off just emailing promotions to their list. A lot of people don’t mind being send promotions, heck if I minded, I wouldn’t be on half the lists I’m on. If you want more information on list building, check this post out!
4. Interview The Creator
Typically product owners will be mega busy coming up to their launch, however this is pure gold as well.
I often interview people before they launch their products. This way, when they launch and all the thousands of people are research in Google about the product and who created it, they see my website. Then once they check out the interview, they end up buying through my affiliate link.
5. Split Test Emails
I have many different lists, something I recommend everyone does.
What I do is email one of my lists (for example my Retireat21 subscribers) a new promotion / product launch. When I do this I use two different Subject Lines in the email I’m sending out and then whichever SUBJECT LINE gets the best open rate – I roll out and use on the rest of my lists.
I mean if your email doesn’t get opened – you may as well not have sent it!.
This is a very simple split test (there are a lot more complicated split tests you can do another day) and I have been blown away with how beneficial it has been to me. I used to just use one subject line — sometimes I nailed it and got lots of OPEN’s but other times I did not.
At least with this simple split test, I’m assuring myself a lot more opens with the majority of my list by testing on part of the list first.
The other advantage of emailing a smaller list first, is that you can discover if the OFFER is converting. If I get bad results with my initial mailing using two different subject lines, I may well not roll out across all my lists.
6. Promote The Right Product
There is no point me promoting a Pay Per Click product to my readers and buyers because I have never talked about PPC and more of my subscribers are probably not interested in it.
You want to promote something with broad appeal to the subscribers on your list.
Let’s take for example, PopUp Domination – this is software that could be used on just about every website because it will make the website owner more money. That means that just about everyone in the internet marketing industry can promote it. Bloggers, Social Media People, PPC guys, Product Creators — all of them need a product like PopUp Domination.
The advantage to me of course is, that I have a very wide range of people who I can approach as potential affiliates – even though in many instances it would not make sense for me to promote their product in return because my subscribers are not interested in their specific niche.
That is what I mean by BROAD. Of course there are lots of people who will say to go NICHE and sub-niche. That works as well – I am just pointing out that with PopUp Domination we deliberately went BROAD.
7. Offer a BONUS!
This is one of the most important things you can do when promoting someones product – ADD A BONUS for all the buyers who buy via your affiliate link.
A lot of people follow most people in the industry, so by you offering a free consult, review, product, download etc.. you will stand out and they will choose to buy via your affiliate link, over someone elses.
Recently when promoting a product launch by Gideon Shalwick, I put together a special bonus offer for people who bought via my link. This proved to work quite well because several people commented that they bought via my link because of my bonus offer.
James Schramko mentioned how he built a business around offering a bonus for each product he promoted in an interview with Yaro Starak, click here to see it!
8. Use It In a Tutorial
Depending on what you are promoting, you can sometimes use it in a tutorial, for example, Aweber. I can teach people how to make money with email marketing and promote Aweber as my choice of email software.
I have found this to work very well!
9. Use All Of Your Resources
There are so many ways to get the message out, some people simply over look them, you can:
- Blog about the product
- Tweet/Facebook about it
- Build a review site (someone did this to PopUp Domination and they were one of our top affiliates)
- Email your mailing list
- Buy advertising
Sometimes, the best thing you can do, is contact the product creator and ask them what they can do to improve the deal for your readers.
Here are a few of the things they can offer you:
- $1 Trial Offers
- Special Landing Pages
- Webinars (these convert like crazy, just ask Lewis Howes)
- Discounted Price
- Special Bundles
- Coupon Codes
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