Affiliates: Part 4 – You Should Pre-Sell (Not Sell)

KNOW YOUR AFFILIATE PRODUCT

Once you have chosen a product that you think meets a hungry market that is willing AND able to buy – what is your role as an affiliate?

Your role could not really be more simple – you should know your product and then recommend it based upon your enthusiasm for the benefits it has to offer the target market.  That’s it!

I won’t close there though as this point is not understood by the majority of potential affiliates. 

THE LAZY AFFILIATE APPROACH

Far too many people try to sell products without having ever seen or used the products themselves.

They do this by using material (eg draft e-mails, pre-written ads, and even articles) supplied by the merchant – and do you know what – the reader knows it and you the affiliate don’t come over as sincere. 

Furthermore I have had the situation where several different affiliates have sent me identical messages as if they themselves had written it – how many people am I supposed to believe couldn’t sleep because they were so excited about this new product that they know I will need?  I have had as many as ten different affiliates trying to sell me a hyped up product – and all using similar if not the same messages.  ( I am on a lot of lists it has to be said because I have done my research thoroughly)

So – number one rule – know your product and preferably have a genuine interest in the benefits that can be realised by purchasing it.

IF THIS IS THE CASE SHOULD AFFILIATES GET A FREE PRODUCT FROM THE MERCHANT?

My answer is a resounding – NO!!!!!

We have people approach us about our Adam Eason products with the line …”I would like to sell your products can you send me a free copy of …..”  Now come on – I have said earlier that as many as 95% of people that sign up as affiliates – do precisely nothing!

As you are reading this – you are presumably interested in affiliate selling seriously enough to study the subject.  I am going to tell you a secret.  We do have a special deal for anyone signed up as an affiliate.  If you are reading this you are welcome to get in touch with me about this deal.

We will let our affiliates have ten products for £95 (even including the expensive ones).  We don’t publish this to people who have shown no interest in being affiliates.  That is an investment – but an important one – as you will be armed to pre-sell our products.

WHAT IS THIS PRE-SELLING YOU KEEP RABBITING ON ABOUT – I HEAR YOU ASK

What an affiliate has to do – is purely and simply to review and recommend products to potentially interested parties.  They are the go between based upon their research of needs within the market place and helping to put people in touch with suitable solutions.

The job of the merchant is to sell the product to the hot lead from the affiliate.

Let me illustrate with an everyday, away from the internet example.

I was in a pub recently talking to a mate who has a similar sized family to mine.  His kids even have the same interests of surfing and playing music in a band.  The discussion was about cars as I wanted a larger one to transport surf boards and musical equipment.  My mate told me about the great car that he currently was using for that purpose.  He didn’t have to tell me much as I knew him well and trusted his judgement etc etc.

I was like putty in the hands of the salesman when I showed up to test drive the recommended Toyota.  I had been pre-sold.  The Toyota salesman went through all the benefits in detail but he hardly needed to.

THE LESSONS TO AFFILIATES FROM THIS EXAMPLE

Many affiliates feel that they don’t need to get to know the purchasers.  This is probably the biggest mistake you could make.  If you are looking to make a fortune from this affiliate game – you need to build your own list of clients and potential clients – and then you have people that can get to know you, trust you and buy time and time again.

The money is in the list – is a phrase you will see all over the net – and it is true.  But there are a few things to get in place in the next few days.

A VERY SERIOUS WARNING!  DON’T GET SIDE TRACKED – YOU WILL FINISH UP DOING NOTHING.

I will begin to look at list building tomorrow and give you one sound recommendation based upon years of studying all the gurus out there.   Please, please, please do not go off to Google and put in ‘list building’ .  I promise you – if you try to get to the bottom of all of the techniques and secrets and tips that you will be presented with – you will just get bewildered.  Most (not all) of the quick fix – get large lists overnight type of offering – may give you traffic – but not good quality or targetted.  Enough said today.  More on that tomorrow.

BUT THERE IS ANOTHER PROBLEM – WHERE DO YOU SEND THEM TO ANYWAY

There are affiliates who work by paying for traffic from Google Adwords (we will cover this later) and sending it direct to the merchants sales page.  I believe that this is the worst of all ways to try to earn money as an affiliate.  Not only are they having to spend money for the traffic but they don’t have a clue who has clicked on their links and only the merchant gets the buyer onto his list.  Therefore the affiliate can’t sell to that client again.  Wow – not good.

I think that you have to have web pages of some sort – and I we will get to solutions to that problem after we have discussed the list building need.

TODAYS WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT

What I want you to appreciate now is that there is a lot to do at this stage and you may begin to feel overwhelmed with what I will tell you over the next few days.   BUT the aim will be to set up everything in such a way that there is an automated system in place.  Computers are perfectly happy repeating the same process millions of times.  We are all about automation so that the result of the hard work now will be lazy days in the future just watching your computer keep your clients happy.


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