In my last post I gave you the first two of ten tips for maximizing the return from your online affiliate marketing* efforts. Here are tips 3 and 4.
Tip #3
Create communities related to your niche to leverage the power of social media sites working synergistically.
How? If your niche is golf, for example, then all the social media tools you put to work should focus on golf… and only on golf-related info, products and services. Not on sports in general, but on golf. Just golf.
Some of the things you can/should do to create communities:
• Choose a URL (domain name) that has golf in the title. This will enable you to have an e-mail address with a golf-related suffix (e.g. yourname@golf.com). All things being equal, this will produce much better results than having a “free” or generic e-mail address. It will also help raise your website in the returned search results – and it’s one of the basic Search Engine Optimization tenets.
Make sure that you have plenty of golf-related content on your website to keep the search engine crawlers happy and to help you with page rank.
Make it easy for people to find your products and buy your products on your site - they should be able to get to where you want them to take action within 3 clicks.
• Choose a twitter name that has golf in the title. This will signal that your primary interest is indeed golf and help people interested in golf to find you... and make them more likely to follow you. Make sure you use the bio section to talk about your golf passion and/ or business’ experience re golf, etc. Also, create a twitter background that shows golf images – and have it created so that the image fills your page, rather than tiling a smaller image (when you tile, the image is repeated over and over and over again on your page).
• Choose a blog title (the name you give your blog) with the word golf in it and create a banner for your blog that shows golf images (which you alt tag with the word golf).
Make all your posts about golf-related topics and use blog post titles that contain the word golf, or a content-relevant golf term. Your blog content should include your own golf experiences as often as possible/appropriate so that your personal passion for the subject shines through.
You can include affiliate sales links on your blog - but don't overwhelm your visitors. They are turning to your blog to get info or be entertained, not to be sold.
• Create a facebook business/fan page that has golf in its name. Again, golf images need to be used… and if you are going to include a picture of yourself, make sure you are in golf attire. Use this page to sell your material by posting a blurb and link under your picture.
From time to time, update your page with info about your affiliate products... and message your fans, occasionally, too.
• Ditto re your YouTube Channel.
• Join other social networking sites and choose screen/user names that contain the word golf. If possible, use your facebook or twitter name (if they are not one in the same). Link back to your facebook fan page (where
• Interlink each of these online “presence makers” and encourage visitors to one “site” to visit the others to help drive traffic and establish connections between your various communities of followers.
• Leverage automation tools such as ping.fm so you can syndicate one message to more than one of your social media accounts. Consider using an RSS feed as well to automatically post great content about your niche to your social media sites. (Thanks to Maria Gudelis from Wildhorse Performance Marketing for this tip’s phrasing.)
Once you have created communities, and people have come to know you and trust you, you will find it easier to sell products to this group – just make sure that all the affiliate products you create or choose to sell are golf-related to maintain credibility within your community.
Tip #4
Create digital videos and add them to your blog posts, website, facebook page, YouTube, etc. There are people who search for/ click through to videos rather than printed info, so you will miss a growing portion of potential online traffic if you ignore video.
Make your video as professional as you can and stick to one single golf-related topic per “movie”. This will help you stick to YouTube maximum time length of 15 minutes or 2GB (unless, of course, you have a professional account and then you have unlimited time length).
Also, do not try to sell material with all of your videos. Current “best practices” say to make sure that at least 75% of your material is aimed at providing information, not at selling. Yes, include links (or verbal references) to sites where you do sell stuff, but do not make that the focus of your message. This alone will increase your referral and view rate… leading to increased sales.
An important production tip (sounds obvious but…): Make sure your video and audio lengths are the same length.
There are many simple online tools for creating videos, including animoto and Windows Movie Maker. Practice, record, review, get input from people you trust, edit and/or re-record as necessary. When you’re ready, upload your video in the original format in the highest quality possible.
YouTube supports the following file formats:
• WebM files (Vp8 video codec and Vorbis Audio codec)
• .MPEG4, 3GPP and MOV files - (typically supporting h264 and mpeg4 video codecs and AAC audio codec)
• .AVI (Many cameras output this format - typically the video codec is MJPEG and audio is PCM)
• .MPEGPS (Typically supporting MPEG2 video codec and MP2 audio)
• .WMV
• .FLV (Adobe - FLV1 video codec, MP3 audio)
Note: YouTube prefers de-interlaced file (de-interlacing: the process of converting interlaced files such common analog television signals and 1080i format HDTV signals, into a non-interlaced form). If you are recording your video online or using a digital recording device, you don’t need to worry about this.
Once you are happy with your video (not just satisfied), you are ready to upload, you can use free automation tools such as tubemogul to submit your movie to multiple video-sharing sites simultaneously.
Caution: Make sure you really are happy with your video because it is not possible to re-upload videos to YouTube (you’ll have to delete, rename and upload as though for the first time). Once a video becomes popular, the number of views, user ratings, user comments and other community data, cannot be transferred if another, higher quality version of the same video is uploaded.
Well, that’s it for now. Tips 5 and 6 will be posted shortly – but why not sign up for this blog so that you are notified when I post them?
Until then, have fun and remember: “You must be prepared to go out on a limb because that is where the fruit is!”
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
10 Tips for Online Affiliate Success - #s 1 and 2
These days, everyone claims that it is soooo easy to make money online and that social media is touted as a panacea for just about every marketing ailment. Neither is true. What is true is that there are things you can do to dramatically increase the likelihood of being successful in cyberspace.
Over the next little while, I’ll share some of the secrets that are rapidly becoming truisms for people in the industry.
To start, here are the first two tips for maximizing the return from your online affiliate marketing* efforts:
1) Promote products in categories where online buyers will eat them up the way Pacman ploughs through power pills, rather than choosing items that only get the occasional nibble.
At the moment the “hot” B2C categories are related to...
• Business Success
• Making Money Online
• Marketing
• Gambling (though you may want to stay away from this for a variety of business reasons)
• Dating
• Health and Fitness
• Weight Loss
• Self Improvement and Motivation
• Real Estate Investing
• Home and Gardening
• Pharmaceuticals
• Nutrition
If you business does not fall into one of these categories, don’t despair; there are plenty of ways you can still run a successful affiliate program.
One of the options available is the forming of relationships with businesses that complement your own, and becoming one of their affiliates to create new revenue streams for your company. Just make sure that you do not detract from your core business in any way.
2) Concentrate on one product niche at a time.
You can have multiple target audiences for this niche, and multiple approaches for reaching your prospects, but don’t confuse your audience by trying to be too many things to them at once.
Instead, stick to the basic marketing principle that says single-minded focus has the power of a laser when it comes to creating sales.
Not only that, but you need to really understand your online customers in order to build a relationship with them and maximize the sales potential of this relationship.
The next two tips will be in my next post, but in case you were wondering...
About Affiliate Marketing
If you are the online affiliate, your job is to promote someone else’s products and/or services. In exchange, you will receive a commission when your site visitors click on the link provided and purchase the product. The other site owner collects the money, ships the item(s) and handles every other aspect of the customer transaction. This means you should only choose to work with companies with customer service standards that match your own.
If you are the owner of a product or service with an affiliate program, your will pay sales commissions to people who drive traffic to your site that results in a sale. You will remain in control of every aspect of the transaction and product delivery process, including who can promote your product. Hint: The more generous your affiliate commissions, and the better your reputation good products and customer service, the more likely online marketers will be to actively promote your offering.
Whether you are an affiliate, or an online affiliate program manager, you will need to take action to be successful and, as you have heard me say so often before, “You must be prepared to go out on a limb because that is where the fruit is!”
Over the next little while, I’ll share some of the secrets that are rapidly becoming truisms for people in the industry.
To start, here are the first two tips for maximizing the return from your online affiliate marketing* efforts:
1) Promote products in categories where online buyers will eat them up the way Pacman ploughs through power pills, rather than choosing items that only get the occasional nibble.
At the moment the “hot” B2C categories are related to...
• Business Success
• Making Money Online
• Marketing
• Gambling (though you may want to stay away from this for a variety of business reasons)
• Dating
• Health and Fitness
• Weight Loss
• Self Improvement and Motivation
• Real Estate Investing
• Home and Gardening
• Pharmaceuticals
• Nutrition
If you business does not fall into one of these categories, don’t despair; there are plenty of ways you can still run a successful affiliate program.
One of the options available is the forming of relationships with businesses that complement your own, and becoming one of their affiliates to create new revenue streams for your company. Just make sure that you do not detract from your core business in any way.
2) Concentrate on one product niche at a time.
You can have multiple target audiences for this niche, and multiple approaches for reaching your prospects, but don’t confuse your audience by trying to be too many things to them at once.
Instead, stick to the basic marketing principle that says single-minded focus has the power of a laser when it comes to creating sales.
Not only that, but you need to really understand your online customers in order to build a relationship with them and maximize the sales potential of this relationship.
The next two tips will be in my next post, but in case you were wondering...
About Affiliate Marketing
If you are the online affiliate, your job is to promote someone else’s products and/or services. In exchange, you will receive a commission when your site visitors click on the link provided and purchase the product. The other site owner collects the money, ships the item(s) and handles every other aspect of the customer transaction. This means you should only choose to work with companies with customer service standards that match your own.
If you are the owner of a product or service with an affiliate program, your will pay sales commissions to people who drive traffic to your site that results in a sale. You will remain in control of every aspect of the transaction and product delivery process, including who can promote your product. Hint: The more generous your affiliate commissions, and the better your reputation good products and customer service, the more likely online marketers will be to actively promote your offering.
Whether you are an affiliate, or an online affiliate program manager, you will need to take action to be successful and, as you have heard me say so often before, “You must be prepared to go out on a limb because that is where the fruit is!”
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Sometimes You NEED to Say “No” to Your Boss or Client
I recently heard someone say that you must never say “no” to a client. I beg to disagree. That’s only true to a certain degree.
There are several instances when saying “no” the best thing you can do to help your boss, company, client or others. The top three:
1. When they are wrong. Yes, the old adage is that the customer is never wrong. If, however, what they want to do will adversely affect the company (yours or theirs), you have an obligation to say “no”. Politely, diplomatically and in a way that gives those involved the facts and lets everyone save face – but firmly, nevertheless. It is your responsibility to look out for the best interests of your client and/or company.
There will be times when your recommendations are overlooked, but you still have an obligation to speak up and say “no” if necessary. In these situations it’s usually a good idea to put your thoughts in writing. Having a quick memo which outlines the matter objectively, gives solid reasons as to why you disagree and offers an alternative solution may give the other parties an opportunity to really hear what you have to say and be persuaded. This paper trail could also serve as a CYA in case their “bad” decision comes back to haunt you personally.
2. When you know that you really cannot meet their deadline, no matter what you try. Yes, I believe that you should try to move heaven and earth to meet a client’s request when possible. Ditto when it comes to meeting your boss’ challenges. However, when you know you will not be able to meet the deadline, you must say so as soon as possible to give the other person a chance to find an alternate solution.
It is far worse to say “yes” and then let the person down, than it is to say “no” at the outset.
3. When you know the other person does not have all the facts. There are times when information has not flowed along corporate lines the way in an ideal manner. When another individual is making decisions based on faulty info, you have an obligation to say “no” and step up to the plate with the correct data... even if it puts you and/or your collegauges in a bad light temporarily. Believe me; it’s far better to take a moment’s worth of heat than it is to let major errors compound the existing problem.
There are also times when you need to say “no” to maintain balance in your work and personal life. To read more about that, please go to: http://www.theqgroup.com/articles-b.php?ArtID=39
There are several instances when saying “no” the best thing you can do to help your boss, company, client or others. The top three:
1. When they are wrong. Yes, the old adage is that the customer is never wrong. If, however, what they want to do will adversely affect the company (yours or theirs), you have an obligation to say “no”. Politely, diplomatically and in a way that gives those involved the facts and lets everyone save face – but firmly, nevertheless. It is your responsibility to look out for the best interests of your client and/or company.
There will be times when your recommendations are overlooked, but you still have an obligation to speak up and say “no” if necessary. In these situations it’s usually a good idea to put your thoughts in writing. Having a quick memo which outlines the matter objectively, gives solid reasons as to why you disagree and offers an alternative solution may give the other parties an opportunity to really hear what you have to say and be persuaded. This paper trail could also serve as a CYA in case their “bad” decision comes back to haunt you personally.
2. When you know that you really cannot meet their deadline, no matter what you try. Yes, I believe that you should try to move heaven and earth to meet a client’s request when possible. Ditto when it comes to meeting your boss’ challenges. However, when you know you will not be able to meet the deadline, you must say so as soon as possible to give the other person a chance to find an alternate solution.
It is far worse to say “yes” and then let the person down, than it is to say “no” at the outset.
3. When you know the other person does not have all the facts. There are times when information has not flowed along corporate lines the way in an ideal manner. When another individual is making decisions based on faulty info, you have an obligation to say “no” and step up to the plate with the correct data... even if it puts you and/or your collegauges in a bad light temporarily. Believe me; it’s far better to take a moment’s worth of heat than it is to let major errors compound the existing problem.
There are also times when you need to say “no” to maintain balance in your work and personal life. To read more about that, please go to: http://www.theqgroup.com/articles-b.php?ArtID=39
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Cold Calling Part II: Does in-person cold calling work?
The short answer to this perennial question: If you’re going to crash call, stick to small non-retail prospects.
In today’s tougher economic times, more and more companies are pushing their sales force to make cold calls... in person. Indeed, a June 2010 survey conducted by A.S. Danier & Co. suggests that in person cold calling has increased 20% since 2008.
The rationale: It’s harder to avoid someone who is standing right in front of you than it is to get off the phone or ignore a voice mail.
What’s not so rational is that...
• It costs a company far more to have sales reps driving around town than dialing around. Even if sales reps are on straight commission, they can make 10 – 12 the number of contacts (calling, but not getting past the gatekeeper does not count as a contact) by phone than they can in the same time period when working the phone.
• +85% of decision makers hate it when sales people “drop by” without an appointment.
Executive comments include:
“It suggests a complete lack of respect for my needs and makes me feel less respect for the company that sent the rep in to big me.”
“I hate it and really resent the intrusion.”
“It’s unprofessional – no ifs ands or buts about it.”
• Less than 10% of companies that require sales reps to spend part of their time doing “drop-bys” provide any training on how to make this a successful practice... and reps who are forced to call on corporate clients unannounced only make one sale on average for every 150 such visits. Hardly seems worth the effort.
Bottom line: The vast majority of corporate decision makers are reluctant to do business with reps who cold call in person. In other words, stop banging your head against the wall... and stop wasting your time knocking on cold doors.
Are there any exceptions to this? Absolutely.
After talking with 10 sales reps who use in-person cold calling successfully, and contacting some of the authors of good online articles, we found that the method works under the conditions below. (Okay, it’s not statistically valid research, but the consistency of the results suggests there is merit to what they had to say.)
In-person cold calling works when all of the following conditions exist:
1) When your product or service is one that is ideally-suited for smaller businesses.
When a company has fewer than 25 people, it is often run by an entrepreneur, and the culture is usually less formal than in larger firms. As a result, it frequently possible for the unexpected rep to get in to see the decision maker for a couple of minutes.
If not, then there is often someone who will give the rep enough info for the company to be qualified as a prospect (or not). Barring that, it is usually possible for the rep to get the business card of the decision maker so that a proper appointment can be made.
Note: This does not work well with busy retailers, however, because interrupting their sales efforts will alienate them... and the constant interruptions of the sales pitch diminishes the likelihood of a deal being closed in any event.
2) When the cost vs. benefit balance makes the decision an easy one.
When the rep can get to the point quickly and show the decision maker how the product or service will help – specifically – then there is a good chance the cold call will result in a follow-up appointment, or even a sale.
3) When the sales rep is prepared to put in the time and effort.
Sounds like a no-brainer, but many sales people give up for the day after 15 – 20 sales calls, without having made a sale. This can make them reluctant to make more calls – which leads to a vicious cycle of losing confidence in their ability to make sales, getting in to see fewer people, feeling depressed and then making less effort, which compounds the whole situation.
In reality it takes about 40 – 55 in-person cold calls to create a sale... and most sales reps do fewer drop-ins than that a day.
If a rep is willing to do a little homework, find out which buildings and parts of the city are home to smaller firms, and will keep good notes relating to how each of the firms he or she contacts can benefit for his or her product or service, then cold call visits can indeed lead to future sales. Many future sales.
In today’s tougher economic times, more and more companies are pushing their sales force to make cold calls... in person. Indeed, a June 2010 survey conducted by A.S. Danier & Co. suggests that in person cold calling has increased 20% since 2008.
The rationale: It’s harder to avoid someone who is standing right in front of you than it is to get off the phone or ignore a voice mail.
What’s not so rational is that...
• It costs a company far more to have sales reps driving around town than dialing around. Even if sales reps are on straight commission, they can make 10 – 12 the number of contacts (calling, but not getting past the gatekeeper does not count as a contact) by phone than they can in the same time period when working the phone.
• +85% of decision makers hate it when sales people “drop by” without an appointment.
Executive comments include:
“It suggests a complete lack of respect for my needs and makes me feel less respect for the company that sent the rep in to big me.”
“I hate it and really resent the intrusion.”
“It’s unprofessional – no ifs ands or buts about it.”
• Less than 10% of companies that require sales reps to spend part of their time doing “drop-bys” provide any training on how to make this a successful practice... and reps who are forced to call on corporate clients unannounced only make one sale on average for every 150 such visits. Hardly seems worth the effort.
Bottom line: The vast majority of corporate decision makers are reluctant to do business with reps who cold call in person. In other words, stop banging your head against the wall... and stop wasting your time knocking on cold doors.
Are there any exceptions to this? Absolutely.
After talking with 10 sales reps who use in-person cold calling successfully, and contacting some of the authors of good online articles, we found that the method works under the conditions below. (Okay, it’s not statistically valid research, but the consistency of the results suggests there is merit to what they had to say.)
In-person cold calling works when all of the following conditions exist:
1) When your product or service is one that is ideally-suited for smaller businesses.
When a company has fewer than 25 people, it is often run by an entrepreneur, and the culture is usually less formal than in larger firms. As a result, it frequently possible for the unexpected rep to get in to see the decision maker for a couple of minutes.
If not, then there is often someone who will give the rep enough info for the company to be qualified as a prospect (or not). Barring that, it is usually possible for the rep to get the business card of the decision maker so that a proper appointment can be made.
Note: This does not work well with busy retailers, however, because interrupting their sales efforts will alienate them... and the constant interruptions of the sales pitch diminishes the likelihood of a deal being closed in any event.
2) When the cost vs. benefit balance makes the decision an easy one.
When the rep can get to the point quickly and show the decision maker how the product or service will help – specifically – then there is a good chance the cold call will result in a follow-up appointment, or even a sale.
3) When the sales rep is prepared to put in the time and effort.
Sounds like a no-brainer, but many sales people give up for the day after 15 – 20 sales calls, without having made a sale. This can make them reluctant to make more calls – which leads to a vicious cycle of losing confidence in their ability to make sales, getting in to see fewer people, feeling depressed and then making less effort, which compounds the whole situation.
In reality it takes about 40 – 55 in-person cold calls to create a sale... and most sales reps do fewer drop-ins than that a day.
If a rep is willing to do a little homework, find out which buildings and parts of the city are home to smaller firms, and will keep good notes relating to how each of the firms he or she contacts can benefit for his or her product or service, then cold call visits can indeed lead to future sales. Many future sales.
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