One of the best ways to develop credibility when you are trying to sell a product as an affiliate is to have testimonials. These are statements from people who have used the product and give their feedback on the product. This can be one of the most powerful keys in getting customers to buy the product.
Positive statements from satisfied customers that are put in a sales letter help reinforce to the prospective buyer that this product is worth buying. A potential buyer feels more comfortable buying when other people recommend the product. Conversion rates increase greatly with the addition of testimonials.
People often buy on an emotional level and words of praise from satisfied customers give buyers the security they want when buying a product.
Not all testimonials are a good thing. Use testimonials that are positive and have solid content and not just a quick sentence like “A great product.” Make sure the testimonials are legitimate and never make up testimonials. This will ruin your credibility and get you in trouble. Try to use varied testimonials that give a complete viewpoint about the product and are not all the same.
So how do you get good testimonials? The best way is to ask your customers. Contact your customers and ask them for a testimonial. Most satisfied customers will be glad to give one. You can also have a questionaire asking for feedback.
You can use written or video testimonials. Video is hot now and they can be a great addition along with audio testimonials. Either is fine and both are great together.
You want testimonials to support each of your selling points. This will help reinforce your key points. Use the testimonials in the latter part of your sales letter.
Use enough testimonials to strengthen your selling points, but don’t overdo it. The potential customer will not read all the testimonials if you have too many. Have enought to give a positive viewpoint of your product. use full names with basic addresses and a picture if possible.
One of the questions that doesn’t have a simple answer is how many products to promote. Obviously, with more products you will generate interest for more people who are looking to solve different needs. But, then again, when you key on one product, you can zero in on all the good points of the product and do a better job of promoting the product.
When you are looking for a specific product, you don’t really want to see a site that is promoting everything under the sun. Kind of a shotgun effect. You are looking for one specific thing and everything else is annoying. The customer gets distracted and looks elsewhere. When you read one of those long sales letters, they are promoting one product and they make sure they give a complete description of the product. If I am promoting a product that I think could be a great money maker, I am going to key on that product and give all the information possible to attract potential customers. I don’t want to lose customers by giving a snippet of information on my key product and turn around and talk about another product. You don’t come across as being passionate about one specific product. You are just trying to make a sale.
On the other hand, you can promote different products and be successful if all the products are in the same field. Many e-commerce sites use this principal such as a golf site that promotes golf accessories. The key is make sure the products you are promoting are related.
So it is really up to you want you want to promote and how many different products. If it is a large ticket item, it might be better to key on that one product and cover all aspects of the product. You can use other lesser products as an up sell. If you have several products that are similar then you could promote them, but make sure there is a relationship and are in the same category. If you do have several products, you still must do a good job of promoting each product or you will lose a potential customer.
There are some key points you need to go over and make sure you don’t ruin your chances of making some good money. Don’t pick a product to promote just because it is popular right now. You need to do your research to see if it is a quality product, sales haven’t peaked, there aren’t a lot of complaints about the product, and you can make a good commission.
Promoting a product that you don’t know much about will not lead to a successful campaign. You should purchase the product and try it out to see if it really is as good as you thought. Of course, you can’t purchase all the products you promote, but the more you know the product and sound like an authority on it, the more successful you will be promoting it.
Don’t make false statements about a product. You will lose credibility with customers and ruin chances for keeping good customers. All it takes is one false statement and your business is down the toilet. If you don’t know enough about the product, then you need to do your research before promoting the product. If it is not the best product, don’t sugar coat it, be honest and tell about its shortcomings. You will gain lots of respect and this will help you keep long term relationships with your customers.
Don’t just copy the ads given by the company. Most of the other affiliate marketers are using the same ones and you want to stand out from the crowd. Be creative so when someone sees your promotion it will be noticed over others promoting the same product.
The key is to plan ahead, do your homework, be honest and put some effort into producing a quality promotion. The results will speak volumes.
OK. So you did your research on what you think would be good products in your niche. You have a solid list of keywords phrases to key on that are related to your product. You know there is a burning need for your product and you have checked out various products to promote. Now you need to make sure the following points can be answered with a resounding yes:
- The product has a good salesletter that makes you want to buy it.
- The product is priced reasonably and you can make at least 50% per sale.
- The main site is attractive and well thought out. Not too many bells and whistles.
- The product goes along with the theme of your website.
- The company has good customer service.
- You get recurring commissions with same customer.
- No fee for signing up with company.
- What is time frame of the cookie? (A cookie is a coded piece of information on a computer that identifies the computer when it visits the website. You need a cookie that will be active for at least 30 days so anything bought in that time frame will be credited to you).
Make sure all these points are answered with a yes. Nothing worse than signing up with a company and finding out they have major problems or a bad track record. Do your homework first before you jump in.
Make sure before you go with a product you do some good market research and that includes keyword analysis. What you need to do is make a list of the keywords that fit the niche you are going to promote. One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is to use too general of a word that doesn’t really focus on your specific targeted market. Usually one word will be too general and it is best to have two or more words in a phrase to start your search.
If you are going to promote cat beds, then you don’t want to just use the word cats. It’s too general and you won’t get your specific hungry market. Look for phrases related to cat beds and then you need to do your keyword research to find the demand for the keyword phrases.
There are several free keywords research tools you can use as well as popular pay ones such as Wordtracker and Nichebot. You can google the phrase free keyword research tools to find the free ones and also checkout the Wordtracker and Nichebot websites. I have used the free ones and also the pay ones. It all depends on your budget but you have to do the research before you promote.
When you are looking at the results of your keyword phrases, if the daily count is less than 50 people searching for that phrase, then you should look for other phrases. You should come up with as many phrases as possible for your niche and with each phrase having over 50 people a day searching, the total number of people searching in your niche should add up quickly.
Another important point when doing keyword research is to check out the competition. The good keyword research tools will show you how much competition each phrase has and if it is worth pursuing that specific phrase. You can look at competing websites and see how they compare to what you might have on your site.
I can’t stress enough the importance of putting in the time to do your market research including keyword research. If you don’t get this step right, you won’t be making the money you want.
