Advertising
Five Ideas to Get Clicks to Your Affiliate Link
It is often said that marketing is a numbers game – the more targeted prospects who see your offers, the more money you make. Of course, that’s assuming that your have a great product to promote and that you have compelling reasons why the prospect should click on your link now.
With that in mind, here are five killer tips for getting others to click your affiliate links . . .
1. Buy and Use the Product You’re Going to Be Promoting
It should come as no surprise that most affiliates never purchase or have any experience with the product they are promoting. It’s simply lazy marketing to slap on an affiliate link to an email and hope that someone clicks and buys the product. How can an affiliate give a good and truthful recommendation to a product without owning it and trying it out? Seems rather logical doesn’t it? Truth be told, the vast majority of affiliates are much more concerned about their potential commission than the best interest of their customer.
2. Build Trust First
People buy from those they know, like and trust. So if you’re a virtual stranger who’s asking people to click on your affiliate links, guess what happens? Usually, not a darn thing! No one clicks because no one that sees your link trusts you.
Instead of hitting your prospects cold, you need to publish a newsletter and/or preferably a blog, too. By doing this, your prospects get to know you with each issue you send out or article you post. You’ll also build trust with your audience by providing free, quality solutions to their problems, questions, and desires.
3. Pre-Sell Your Products
Even if people know, like and trust you, they’re still not going to rush to click your affiliate links unless you give them a good reason to do so. What that means is that you need to pre-sell your affiliate offers before you send your visitors on to the vendor’s page.
Here are three ways to do exactly that…
a. Do a product review or comparison. If you want to sell a single product, then you can do a product review. This is where you share the good points (benefits) of the products, the product’s flaws and your “verdict” (whether you recommend it or not).
Tip: If you just want to offer the product benefits, then you’re basically writing a sales letter. Now that’s OK, but don’t confuse it with a product review. A review is an honest assessment of the product, including product flaws. However, don’t be afraid to share the flaws, as doing so makes people trust you more – and that greater trust increases your conversion rate.
Alternatively, you can compare two or more similar products – flaws and all – and let your readers know which one you recommend.
b. Share a case study. People want proof that a product works. One way to offer proof is by sharing a case study of what types of results you or someone else got by using the product.
c. Build anticipation. Another way to get people to click on your affiliate links is by building anticipation and curiosity. You can do this over a series of emails. Alternatively, you can also do it in just one email, where you get people curious about the sales page.
4. Add Value to Your Offers
When you’re an affiliate, you’re in direct competition with other affiliates who are selling exactly the same product. One way to virtually eliminate the competition is by adding value to the offer – that is, you offer a related bonus product or service to those who purchase the item through your affiliate link. Make the bonus offer relevant and useful to the product being promoted if at all possible.
Examples:
- You offer a free sales letter critique to those who buy a copywriting course through your link.
- You offer a free blogging course for those who purchase a traffic-generation course through your link.
- You offer a free exercise book and a free recipe book to those who purchase a diet course through your link.
5. If You’re a Serious Affiliate . . . Build an Email List in the Niche
It’s no secret that the best affiliates tend to focus their promotion efforts in a few targeted, and often related niche marketplaces. Why do they do this? One reason is that they understand the specific marketplace and the desires of prospects in it. They know the types of products that sell well, they know how and where to contact prospects, and they know the various vendors that are selling successfully. Here’s another important reason: they can promote and sell related items to the same prospects that have purchased previously in the niche. That strategy is a whole lot easier and more productive that finding new buying prospects. So these successful affiliates build niche mailing lists and often have great targeted audiences that they can tap into with related offers. It’s a huge advantage over other affiliates that are simply prospecting for first time buyers!
In summary: You can get more clicks to your affiliate links and more money in your pocket simply by doing these five things:
- Buy and use the product you’re going to be promoting.
- Building trust in your prospects first.
- Pre-sell your products.
- Add value to your offers.
- Build an email list in the niche.
Apply all five of these tips ASAP and see if you don’t start enjoying more sales, too!
To your online business success,
Steve Browne
www.SteveBrowneDirect.com