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.

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. 

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.

• 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.

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. 

You will want to check out two of the better affiliate networks – Commission Junction and Clickbank.  Clickbank does not deal with physical products so you don’t have to worry about problems with product delivery or supply.  Most of your information product ebooks will be found here and you can make up to 60% commission on each product.  Commission Junction is a giant that handles all kinds of products and many major brands.  Go to their sites and look for yourself.  There are many more affiliate networks so just google in those two words and you will get a long list. 

Once you have a product you want to promote then you need to go to their website and sign up as an affiliate.  It should be a quick and easy process.  When you are accepted, you can use some of their advertising tools but it is better to do a lot on your own so you don’t look exactly like the other affiliates.   Remember you want to stand out from the crowd of other affiliate marketers.

1.    Pay per lead in which you get paid a certain amount when a customer fills out a form or survey                           
2.  Pay  per click  where you are paid when a customer clicks on a link for a certain program
3.   Pay per sale when the affiliate is paid a certain amount or percentage  for each sale from the affiliate’s link

When you sign up to be an affiliate for a product, you will be given an unique link or URL that will have your special ID so you will be given credit for each sale you make. 

Being an affiliate marketer is quick and easy to start up.  You pick the product you want to sell and contact the company and once you are accepted you can start making money.  

There are many advantages to affiliate marketing:

• very little cost to set up
• no inventory
• no employees
• no order processing
• no shipping costs
• no customer service hassles
• no experience needed

So when you start out you need to follow some steps to get the ball rolling and the money flowing:

• decide on a product or program
• do your research on the viability of the product
• get a domain name and web host
• do research for your site so it fits with the product
• sign up for an affiliate program
• get traffic to your site for your sales

I will continue on what you need for affiliate marketing next time.