It Shouldn’t Be About Just Selling…

Last week, we talked about affiliate marketing and the best way to pick and choose which products and services to sell to our list and subscribers.

Today, let’s focus on one important aspect and that’s the subtle art of selling. In the ideal world everyone of your subscribers would click on the link you provide them and purchase something. It seldom happens but there are some ways you can at least up the odds of earning some affiliate income.

Know Your Audience

We also touched on this last week too. The better you know your audience, the better you can pick a product or service that your audience needs or at least will enjoy using.

Sit down and make a profile of your customers and subscribers, their age, their interest, and what the biggest hurdle is for them.

It could be your list caters to busy moms who need help with planning meals. Finding a meal planning service or a site that has meal plans along with grocery lists and this would be a perfect match.

Offer Content and Not Just a Link

I subscribe to many lists and when I receive e-mails, I’m surprised how many just send a list of links for all their affiliate partners. It never encourages me to even click on the link let alone purchase anything. In fact, I’ve unsubscribed to most of them.

You have to offer them something more than the simple buy one of these and help me earn some money message. Put a few in a regular post on a topic that ties in with the product. Maybe it’s PLR and you have a link to a site that offers a PLR membership program.

How about offering some tips? For example, and using the meal planning idea again, maybe you can post a few tips of your own, even a recipe of two and then say if you want tips and a service from a real expert, how about checking out this meal planning service that I’ve been using.

Go for the Unique

I see lots of repetition in the e-mails I receive. On any one day, I’d guess three or four people are sending me links to the very same thing. Guess who wins, (if anyone wins at all)? It’s the first person whose e-mail gets opened first. The cookie is going to be traced back to their affiliate account and stay there even if subscriber later that day clicks on someone else’s one. A way around that, look for products and services that not everyone is promoting. It might mean less commission or even harder to find, but put in some work and it will pay off in the long run.

Review It

We also touched on this too last week. Use the product or service yourself. If it’s something you feel your audience can use, why not write an honest review with a link to the product at the end of the post?

Give all of the above some thought about how you can slip them easily into a post with your affiliate links and I think your audience will not only appreciate it, but you’ll probably see more clicks and purchases coming your way.