In the previous article on selling more of your products, I talked about having an affiliate page for each of your sales pages plus how you’d go about writing to your blogging friends inviting them to sell your product as an affiliate.
That should be the first stage of your affiliate marketing strategy.
In this article we shall cover how we approach strangers!
Writing to strangers hoping they will sell hundreds of your products is EASY.
Writing to strangers hoping they will sell hundreds of your products and getting a great positive response is HARD.
Just because you are offering a high percentage doesn’t mean they are going to be on board and start selling for you.
First of all every potential affiliate is thinking “What’s In It For Me?” when they read your email.
That means they don’t care about how much it will help you for them to promote your product. They are only interested in what’s in it for them.
The prospective affiliate has three concerns (in no particular order):
1. Will their customers thank them for recommending such a great product
2. How much will they earn
3. How much effort is needed in order to sell this product
The email you write has to succinctly cover all 3 areas.
If you write and simply only talk about the money, then it might attract some affiliates but not many.
Similarly if you write and only talk about the little amount of effort required or their customers will thank them.
The email has to be persuasive, believable and to the point.
You often hear some ‘Internet Gurus” say you must tell them “how wonderful their site is”, or “how much you like their site and how much you loved their blog post entitled xxxx”.
RUBBISH!
If someone writes to me like that, I know they are just sucking up.
Get to the point. If you want me to sell your product, don’t try and butter me up first. Just tell me how it is.
So don’t ramble on and on. Get to the point, fast!
After testing what works and what doesn’t work here are my rules for ‘cold calling’ affiliate emails:
1. Personalize the email. Use their name in the subject line and in your opening.
2. Keep it short. Cut out all unnecessary ‘flannel’. Only keep the sentences that earn their place in your email. You’re writing to busy people, so keep it short and simple.
3. Get to the point, FAST!
4. Use specific numbers when possible. What conversion rates has your site tested at?
5. Remember the three motivations. They want more money, they want to look good to their customers and they want to do it with as little effort as possible. You need to mention all three points.
6. Include a free copy of your product. Any good affiliate marketer will always want to see your product before recommending it to their list.
7. Mention the tools. Banners, emails, ads and offer to work with them and write bespoke emails if necessary.
8. Provide contact information. Make it easy to contact you.
Now you may be thinking that’s quite a lot to cram into an email. We want it short, to the point but mention all these points.
How?
Here’s an example:
Subject: Name, Affiliate Proposal
Hi (Name):
I noticed on your site that you promote XXXXXX type of products. (XXXXX is the type of product)
I’ve just created my brand new product, PRODUCT TITLE at SALES PAGE DOMAIN NAME. This product is totally unique in the marketplace because of XXXXXX.
I am running the program through ClickBank and the sales page is currently converting at 3.5% and for each sale you’d make 75%, which is $30.
I think your list would love it. They get a great deal, AND they’d thank you for recommending such a product.
You can download the product here: DOWNLOAD DOMAIN NAME
You can get your affiliate link and affiliate tools including banners, emails and text ads right here:
AFFILIATE DOMAIN NAME
I’m more than happy to work with you to write specific bespoke emails, etc for your list.
Please let me have your thoughts.
Andrew
http://www.webuildyourblog.com/
When a ‘cold’ Affiliate proposal email doesn’t work…
No matter how good your email is, the vast majority of your ‘cold’ affiliate proposal emails will simply not work.
If you have no relationship, then your chances of a positive response is low.
It’s similar to the response you may get from your sales pages. Are your sales pages converting at 2%? Expect similar with your cold affiliate proposal emails. For every 100 emails your send out, expect only 2 to reply. If you get more you can ‘jump with joy’.
How can we boost our results?
It’s simple. If you want a higher conversion rate you must build a relationship.
You could start by commenting on some of their blog posts. Become a regular blog commenter.
Start Tweeting their blog posts.
Offer to provide a guest blog post.
Do whatever you can to build that relationship.
That way, you are bound to have a much more positive result when you ask them to help sell your product as an affiliate.
What tips or advice do you suggest and have worked for you?
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When I am selling something, I always want to make it benefit the person. If it doesn\’t fully benefit all parties involved (ie. the affiliate, the end user and myself), then it is just not worth selling. I believe that the sales letter starts with the production of the product. If you produce the product with the end user in mind, then you can build your sales letters around the same criteria that was used to crate the product in the first place.