Intro To Affiliate Business Basics Part 2.

PREsell To Convert

Your strategies and actions as an affiliate directly affect your Conversion Rate. This section deals with how to PREsell effectively. (Later in the course, we will cover traffic-building in more detail.) Let’s look at examples of how “low-CR affiliates” create negative mindsets by making how-you-reach, what-you-say, or how-you-refer boo-boos. We’ll begin at the top…

1)How to Reach Your Visitor...

Free-For-All Sites (FFAs) are a great example of how not to reach people. For the most part, FFAs have become so seamy and useless that no matter what you say, you’re doomed from the start. I once made a request to all 5 Pillar Affiliates for FFA success stories... not a single success story! I won’t bother to ask again. Compare this with how smart and open-minded your visitor feels when she finds you via a Search Engine!

2) What to Say to Your Visitor...

Don’t write a site purely devoted to “hard-selling” your merchants’ products. Imagine a visitor who hits your site and reads an immediate sales pitch. That person will resist because she does not know you. Then, if she clicks to your merchant, she gets another sales pitch. Never devote your site to one company’s product line. No matter what you do, no matter how sincere you are, this kind of approach always ends up “smelling” like a sales pitch. It simply makes no difference that you honestly love the products -- your visitor will mistake your devotion for selling. Remember, she doesn’t know you!

It’s far better to develop a concept that relates to that company’s products and to other products from other companies that are complementary. Develop related content that PREsells. Then “get the click” through “in-context” text links.

3) How to Refer Your Visitor to Your Merchant...

Banners, as we discussed earlier, are the best example of how not to refer your visitor to your merchant. In plain and simple language, people feel “pitched” when they click on a banner. And people who feel “pitched” are difficult to convert into a sale.

Now for a critical Action Step...

Review your site or whatever other means you are using to reach, talk to, and refer visitors to your merchants. Put yourself in your customer’s brain. What will she think, how will she feel, at each of the 3 major steps from above? If you’re doing everything perfectly, congratulations! You must have a high CR. If you don’t have a high CR, or if you see some big mindset mistakes, consider how much higher your CR would be if a visitor…

• found you in a bona fide manner (ex., as a result of doing a search on a Search Engine),

• became “your friend” (or your “trusting admirer” if you do a truly awesome job!) because you provided excellent content

• and finally was led to a context-appropriate recommendation. (There will be more on recommendation vs. sales pitch shortly.)

Key learning point?

Always consider how these actions affect your visitor’s mindset...

1) HOW YOU REACH your visitor, and…

2) WHAT YOU SAY to her, and…

3) HOW YOU REFER her to your merchant.

Get inside your visitor’s head. Realize how she will feel each step of the way. Whatever you do, consider the impact on your visitor -- if it does not make her more “open to buy,” don’t do it.

PREselling is really all about selling yourself (i.e., your credibility) to your customer, every step of the way. You reach your targeted traffic in a proper fashion, you deliver valuable, appropriate, editorial content, and you recommend merchants to your visitor after she has come to respect and like you. Your CR will soar.

Why does PREselling work so well?

A sale via any affiliate program is really a two-step process. It requires the delivery of two “Most Wanted Responses,” yours and your merchant’s. As an affiliate, what is your Most Wanted Response (MWR)? No, it’s not to get the sale. That’s the second step and it's also your merchant’s MWR. Your MWR is to “get the open-to-buy click” (i.e., your visitor clicks through to your merchant with an open-to-buy mindset).

(Our article session will include a great part about writing techniques to make you a pro writer. Stay tuned!)

It’s a two-step process that builds to the sale...

STEP 1 You PREsell to get an open-to-buy click-through to your merchant.

STEP 2 Your merchant gets the sale.

So, whatever you do, however you do it, it should always pull your visitor one step closer to delivering your MWR... Get an open-to-buy click through to your income-generating source!

Whoops! I was just about to move on to the next point. Good thing I heard you asking...

“If I leave it up to the merchant's site to get the sale, I still don’t see how I have any influence on the Conversion Rate. I'd much rather sell the visitor on my own site.”

First, let’s make sure we have our terms straight by examining a real case study. Elad Shippony, from Israel, is an excellent example of an infopreneur. He is creating fun and entertaining content to drive traffic from the Search Engines, and then monetizing that traffic, without selling a product or service.

PREsell effectively, and your CR will zoom. But if it reads like a “hard-sell sales pitch,” you’ll quickly lose credibility with your audience.

On the other hand, let’s say that you do not have a mega-content, ultra-high traffic site. After all, you’d never want to just “push stuff” on people, products that you do not believe represent true value-for-dollar.

"Get inside your visitor's head -- realize how she will feel each step of the way. Whatever you do, consider the impact on your visitor -- if it does not make her “open to buy,” don't do it."

Your visitor sees a straight sales effort. With no other true content, it would be hard for “an outsider” to see it any other way. It does not matter what you see. If your visitors basically perceive a straight sales effort for your merchants, you’re selling, not PREselling. That means that the two-step process is now SELL-SELL...

Redundancy = Turned OFF customer = LOW CR.

But if you develop great content, it will lead to the click. You become a friend making a recommendation rather than a stranger making a sales pitch. And if you create a truly great site, you’ll actually become a trusted expert making an endorsement.

Recommendation = Turned ON customer = HIGH CR.

In other words, don’t push your visitor to the click. Make her want to click. It makes all the difference if your visitor feels that it’s her idea to deliver your MWR (the open-to-buy click).

“The Road to Becoming a Master Affiliate”

The more I researched successful 5 Pillar Affiliates, the more PREselling techniques I found. But, no matter how they do it, they all accomplish the same thing in the end...

“They refer people to their merchants in an ‘OPEN-TO-BUY’ frame of mind.”

What's the key? PREselling. Not selling.

You must, must, must know how to PREsell!

Basically, The Affiliate Masters Course delivers the single most productive approach to affiliate income. It will show you how to PREsell your way to a CR of 5-10% and at the same time, maximize targeted traffic to your site and your merchants’ sites (and your other monetization options, if applicable).

This brings us to the bottom line of this part...

If you’re drawing targeted traffic to your site... and if your site is getting a great Click-Through Rate (CTR) to the merchants that you represent (and your other monetization sources)... and if you are converting a high percentage of them into sales...

You are following the roadmap to becoming a high-earning affiliate champion!

Let’s summarize the whole point of PREselling with this question...

Which would you respond to?...

A stranger with a sales pitch?

Or… A knowledgeable friend making a recommendation?