How many times have you read articles on Affiliate Marketing that end up with some variation of: “All You Have to do Now is Promote…” But they never quite get around to telling you how to effectively provide the right tools for your eager affiliates
Well, this report is going to change all that!
Here are your 31 Hot Ideas for Affiliate Promo Tools to help you beef up your Affiliate Center – and put your Affiliate Product Launch on OVERDRIVE.
You expect your Affiliates to promote your product as enthusiastically as you do. That’s how you all get paid, right?
But merely slapping a link at the bottom of their emails or on their web page and forgetting all about it is not going to drive customers flocking to buy that product.
If that’s how they’ve always done it, they’re probably still waiting for their first affiliate commission cheques to arrive. If this sounds like your affiliates, I’m betting they maybe have 5 strategies they use for affiliate product promotion, tops.
To get you past that depressing roadblock, here are 31 strategies you can suggest they put into practice straight away.
- Resource Box Tip Sheet
Don’t take it for granted they know what to do. Remind them about the little “about you” section at the end of every article they’re going to post on any directory. Point out that, unlike the Author Bio, they can customize each Resource Box for each article. Just make sure you also remind them to follow the guidelines on what’s acceptable – and not to “push” too hard to get people to click on their link. Give them tips on making their articles into the Resource Box as naturally as possible, finishing off with something as simple as:
For more about how you can make [Your Technique/Article Subject] work this way for you, visit [TheLandingPageYouWantToSendThemTo].com
- Signature Tip Sheet
Which brings us to the signature. They may not know the principles are similar to the Resource Box, above – and that they should use their signature more in:
- Email marketing
- Your newsletter
- Forums
- Guest blog posts
And on everything listed above except forums and guest blog posts, they can consider including their direct affiliate links, if preferred.
- Testimonials 101
Remind them never underestimate the power of a sincere and honest testimonial about your product to their readers, as they talk about a product you’re promoting. And, if done right, this testimonial will never feel like a formal testimonial. It will be a spontaneous part of their blog posts, or enthusiastic results they’re reporting in a subscriber list email or forum.
Encourage them make sure they mean every word they say. They’ll trigger not only affiliate sales for that particular product… but build real trust for their next affiliate product recommendation!
Encourage them to record video and audio testimonials too – which they can send to you, along with their photo! After all, the more you both benefit from testimonials, the bigger the sale!
- Article Marketing Tutorial
This still remains one of the absolute top ways to promote your affiliate links. Why? There’s a dozen answers to this – but the best one is… that Resource Box we were just speaking about.
Help your affiliates out by reminding them of this strategy, and providing them with:
- A suggested directory list
- PLR articles – but make sure you tell them to absolutely re-write each piece
- SEO
Encourage your affiliates not to neglect this aspect of affiliate link promotions. Strong Search Engine Optimization provides an effective way to bring in subscribers and purchasers not already on their lists, or in their usual promotion circuit.
If they are using static sites, suggest tools like SEOQuake for Firefox and SEMRush to see what keywords your best competitors are using. Remind them not to neglect their META-tags – that they still carry more weight than one might think.
Even if they don’t know HTML from CSS on their static site: Point out to them the easiest way to boos their SEO… by always making sure their “ALT” tags contain a text description (which 90% of all marketers don’t bother about, thanks to old-fashioned copies of mini-site generating software!
Write them a simple tutorial on how add META-tags and ALT descriptions.
- Provide a Blog Tutorial
The best way to power-boost your SEO, of course, is to abandon static web pages completely, and make your site a WordPress blog – so perhaps in your Affiliate Center, provide a free tutorial on setting up WordPress blogs too. Remind them to host blogs on their own domains; and never to settle for a free one at WordPress.com or Blogger (where they run the risk of seeing the blogs “disappear” for rule violations.)
In your SEO FAQ sheet, warn your affiliates never to sign up with a “submit your site to zillions of search engines!” offer. That’s a tried and true way to not only throw away your hard-earned cash – but get yourself banned from search engines for irrelevant, spammy links!
- Provide Press Release Templates
Press releases are a great way to bring attention to your affiliate links. Provide a small selection of Press Release templates for your affiliates to use – along with the reminder that all editors (offline and on) are looking for one thing: a strong story that will fill a need for their readers.
Point out to them how fulfilling this function and combining it with creating interest in the affiliate product they’re promoting provides a winning way of creating buzz and driving new traffic to your links!
- Give Them Graphic Ads:
Give them well-designed, graphic Banner Ads or Button Ads, and encourage them to drop these into appropriate sections of their web pages. Provide a short Placement Tutorial, demonstrating how to make graphic ads they choose relevant to the feel and subject of their page. The most important point for your tutorial? Point out that having an ad that sticks out like a sore thumb and feels “forced” is the quickest way to weaken your page – and your message. Whatever they do, they shouldn’t let this happen. Warn them that brighter and more colorful is not at all “better”!
Also make sure they know they can contact you and request a new ad, if your current selection absolutely don’t work for a particular site or page.
- Teach Them About Text Ads:
Encourage them to use Text Ads whenever possible, instead of banners. Remind them it’s all about relevance: Any ad should feel as if it belongs. It should feel part of the natural flow, when their readers are reading that page. (It’s not the text that’s better: it’s the message!) Point out that link colors or heading colors should be changed to match those already on your page – and to make sure the background is the same as their page or sidebar background (whichever one is housing the ad.)
- Be Sure To Include Pay Per Click On Your FAQ
It’s great if they want to start off their campaign on your behalf with paid advertising via Pay Per Click search engine programs like Google Adwords and Microsoft Ad Center, but in your FAQ page, you may wish to point out that PPC can be dangerous for absolute newbies: If they miscalculate when picking paid keywords, and don’t know how to properly test and select, they can quickly run up huge charges on their credit cards.
Remind them that PPC means exactly what it says – Pay Per Click – and if they’re inexperienced and have gone after the wrong target demographic, they may be paying for thousands of clicks… with no sales to show for it.
However, signing up with a PPC program such as Google Adwords is admittedly the fastest way to get a new campaign going.
Provide them with keywords you’ve researched – both to encourage them to try PPC and to make sure they get the most “bang” for their advertising “buck”. (Just don’t forget to point out your keywords DO NOT GUARANTEE results either!)
- Educate Them About Thank You Pages
Suggest natural places they can place affiliate links for your product. Let them know it’s actually quite appropriate to include an affiliate link to another related product on “Thank You” pages.
Again, remind them to make sure it’s a highly relevant link that will feel like the next natural step.
- …And Don’t Forget Thank You Emails
Point out they can easily add an affiliate link under their signature in any “Thank You” emails, or present customers they’re replying to with a short, 2-sentence paragraph promoting another offer.
Again – be a “Broken Record”: Remind them to make sure the link is highly relevant to what prompted the person to buy or subscribe in the first place.
- Do They Have Newsletters – With Reviews?
Encourage them to create a newsletter, if they don’t have one – for their sake, and yours! Point out their own newsletter is the perfect place to frequently “showcase” an affiliate product and include those all-important Reviews!
- Provide Email Courses
If you’re reluctant to provide PLR for their own ads, at least provide them with a relevant PLR mini email course they can customize and offer their list, and point out it’s a great way to include links to affiliate products. Show them how to keep it simple – just include their relevant link under their signature. Instruct them to include a paragraph at the end of the last lesson, actually promoting your product.
Point out that the fact that their customers have seen the link for 5-7 days in email installments is a psychological factor in encouraging customers to be prepared to click on this final affiliate link.
- Send Them A Solo Email About Solo Emails
Remind them they can send these out any time to their list. Not only the first time, to let customers and subscribers know they’re excited about the new product (and why they think it will particularly benefit their customers) – but also if some external event “suggests” a “refresher” solo email.
For example, if your product was a book on Small Pet Massage, and there was a news story about an animal who was cured by touch, rather than just blogging about it, they should send out a solo email with the high points of the story summarized – and tie it in to your offer before sending them to the new blog post they’ve written.
- Don’t Forget A Specific “Product Review” Tutorial
Top “Super Affiliates” are unanimous in citing this method as one of their most lucrative sales-garnering techniques. Point this out to your affiliates!
Give them a short tutorial on how to write a review of the product in question, giving subscribers honest, up front feedback on why they are recommending a particular product.
Encourage them to be sure to honestly include any drawbacks they’ve found – but to also look for opportunities to positioning the drawback to its best advantage (such as the wonderful customer support they had from you, and how quickly you solved the problem for them.).
- Offer Cheat Sheets
Another great “draw”: Offer affiliates a “Quick Tips” Cheat Sheet in. PDF format – one that serves a duel purpose: To educate your affiliate, but put in a form they can turn around and distribute to their list (with their own affiliate ID in your link, of course!)
People love Cheat Sheets that help them make a task go quicker, or help them sell more or write better. Make the Cheat Sheet relevant to your affiliate product, and just include a link at the bottom of the page: “For more great tips, check out [Super Affiliate’s] hot new course, [LinkName].
- Remind Them About Offline Marketing
Post articles on your Affiliate Blog giving your affiliates tips on offline sources of advertising too. Point out that just because they’re offline, it doesn’t mean these sources have nothing to contribute to your affiliate’s online profits!
Point out they could easily take out a small Classified Ad in a local paper. Many affiliates don’t realize that local newspapers have slashed their rates considerably, to keep business coming in during these economically stressed times.
Remind them that a better idea, however, is to use a Press Release, giving the local editor a highly entertaining “story”. Including an online link with their Resource Box will bring new customers into both your lists and lead to more conversions.
- Provide An RSS Syndication Video
Let them know if they’re not already creating RSS feeds for their blog posts, they’re missing a huge nuclear-energy source of extra marketing power! It’s also a wonderful way to still reach people who automatically shun emails from marketers.
Post a short video showing them how simple it is take the URL of the blog containing their posts and enter it into Feedburner. Then take the code Feedburner give and submit it individually to as many aggregators (feed readers) as relevant and possible. (Provide a list of aggregators along with the video!)
Point out they only have to do this once. And after that, the feed readers they’ve subscribed to will promote every new post with its headline, a short summary – and their link.
Remind them to include an RSS button on their blog set up so readers can subscribe!
- Update Them About Social Bookmarking Sites
Help your readers instantly share (and save) your blog or website content by displaying bookmarking links. I like Add This, because it allows readers to instantly do this using their own favorite bookmarking service.
- Provide A Social Networking Sites Tutorial – With A Twist!
Provide a tutorial on Social Networking, particularly focusing on the changes and trends that make this addition to their marketing imperative nowadays. For example, point out that many of the people on Twitter no longer “bother” with emails. They get all their hot tips and posts instantly from Twitter.
Show them how there’s nothing easier or faster than driving people to affiliate-promoting blog posts than by typing a less-than-140 word Tweet that looks like this:
- Provide an URL Shortening Video
Long URLs can really trip up your readers and lessen the mystery. And Clickbank affiliate links should always be cloaked (correctly) – not to deceive, of course, but to prevent link theft.
Provide a video showing them how to redirect their URLs to a “dummy” folder or website, to keep their links safe and not unnecessarily discourage readers from buying.
Which allows you to add a second video, displaying yet anther reason why Twitter works so well for affiliate marketers: Show them how to sign up for bit.ly and shorten their links. Point out that on Twitter, seeing a link shortened with bit.ly doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean hard sell – it usually means a great blog post, or some helpful tools. (This point will be especially popular with timid affiliates, who hate to “sell”.)
Especially when you show them how bit.ly allows one to instantly check clickthroughs, too!
- Let Them Know They Can Interview You!
Let them know you are available for interviews. Provide a Podcasting or Audio tutorial for them.
And encourage them to join Skype – so neither of you will incur huge phone bills.
- Your Affiliate Blog
It’s vital to have an Affiliate blog – perhaps with an exclusive area that only your affiliates can join. (This both encourages new affiliates to sign up, and makes your own affiliates feel “exclusive”.
It’s also a vital tool for you to pass on vital information to your affiliates. For example, posting information reminding them that commenting on other blogs creates backlinks. Every relevant backlink (yes, there’s that “R” word again) increases their page rank… which increases your position in the search engines – and also telling them what not do while commenting!
- Offer To Guest Post
Offer to be available to write guest posts for them, on request!
- Provide Coupons and Discounts
This is one of the most overlooked affiliate promotion methods there is – and it answers the age-old question: “When 15 marketers are trying to get me to click on the same affiliate link, why should I click on yours?”
Provide them with coupons, prizes or discounts – so they can offer the people on their list a very special deal! (You’ll please both the affiliate and their list member!)
- Ezine Advertising Tip
Remind them that eZine advertising is usually much less expensive than paying for ads in offline magazines.
- Provide .MP3s and Transcript Bonuses
Record some tutorials on audio – special ones that relate more to your affiliates’ lists than as instruction for your actual affiliates. Make these .MP3 and .PDF transcripts available to them to use as Bonuses for their own promotions.
Hearing someone’s voice makes a strong connection for people who download interviews, and makes them much more likely to visit the links.
- Digital Product Signatures
Allow them Master Resell rights or Resell Rights. Allow them to replace your signature link in the footer with their own affiliate ID (but still your signature!
- Lifetime Cookies
Not properly speaking a “tool” – in that they can’t use it for their customers’ benefits.
But lifetime cookies are a great incentive – and reward – to affiliates who stay active.
- Selling Points Sheet
Provide them with an overview of each product that highlights the selling points. This will make it easier for them to write their own reviews, blog posts, articles, etc.
- Your Affiliate Center!
Last but not least, send them periodic reminders about all the wonderful goodies available in your Affiliate center. Keep it updated with the occasional fresh addition – and email them to let them know there is new material waiting to be used.
And there you have it – 31 red hot ways to ignite your affiliate promotion!
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