Affiliate Business Tips
Preselling for profit
The number one strategy to increase your affiliate sales is preselling.
Before we begin, we need to first define what preselling is. There are two components to it – art & science. The goal is to get your reader prepped to make a purchase. Then sending them to the product sales page to make the purchase. If you do it well, it’s completely invisible.
Basically, you give them some content. And then refer them to the product website. In a second we’ll talk about how to do actually it. Before we get into that, you should understand what’s in it for you. Just a few of the reasons you want to presell.
- Preselling creates trust – Once you have your readers’ trust, they will click your links more readily. Which obviously means you’ll make more sales.
- It disarms your reader – Nobody likes to be sold something. By not doing that to them, your reader is less defensive. And in turn they read to understand what you’re saying. And your intention is conveyed more easily.
- It puts them in a buying mood – Now they’re open to hearing what you’re telling them. And in turn, they’re open to other messages, as well. For example, the sales message on the page you’re linking to. Being open to a sales message is what it means being in a buying mood.
- You make more money – They arrive at the product website prepped to buy. With a feeling of trust and openness. The only possible result is more sales!
- It boosts customer loyalty – Plus, they feel they’ve made the buying decision on their own. Instead of feeling pressured or “sold”. So they are happier with their purchase.
- Preselling increases your bottom line – Satisfied customers are less like to refund. Which means you keep more of your affiliate commissions.
The need to presell is clear. You earn more commissions. And produce happier customers. It’s a win-win-win!
How does it work?
You’ve learned the importance of preselling. And I hope you’re resolved to being preselling, too. So, it’s time to break down how it works. Like we talked about before, it’s an art. And it’s a science.
The art of preselling
Effective preselling requires gaining your readers trust in order for them to let down their guard. And the only method of doing this is to give exceptional value to your readers. The art of this is to provide enough information to be of value, but not enough to satiate the hunger. That is, they have to be wanting more when you refer them to the product sales page for the product you’re trying to sell. And because you’ve gained trust, they’re more receptive to the sales message and more likely to buy.
It’s also a science
There are also several key elements that need to be included.
The first is how you present the information. You’ve got to map out your strategy before you start writing. Your goal is to sell the product you’re promoting. How can providing information accomplish this goal? The first method is to provide enough info to get them started, but not enough to finish. The other method is to explain all the details and expose how difficult it is to do what you’re explaining. In either case, the product you’re referring them to solves the problem for them.
But you can’t link to your affiliate link. You have directly to the home page of the product. When you do this, you’re click-throughs go way up. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? This is all part of the science of preselling. You “pre-cookie” your reader before sending them to the sales page.
The next trick is to hyperlink specific words and phrases inside the content of the article you’re providing. It’s habitual to click on words and phrases that are hyperlinked. And when the words are in context like this, it makes perfect sense for your reader to click them.
Putting all of this together creates a powerful affiliate marketing formula for success.
Unfortunately…
It’s extremely difficult to do this correctly. Let’s talk about everything required to put this plan into action: Awesome content. First and foremost, you have to be able to write a great article that provides valuable information. This means you have to be able to write well, and have enough knowledge to be useful. Strategic writing. Yes, you must providing useful content. You also have to present the info in a way that provides real value. And somehow also make them want to learn more. The other approach is to reveal a self-evident problem through the information.
Picking products. After that you have to figure out which products you want to promote. Even if you can pull off writing and great article. All your efforts are wasted if you send your reader to the wrong sales letter.
Technical skills. And finally, you need the technical know-how to embed your image tag and make sure you get credit for the sale. This is pretty easy – you just make a 1 pixel X 1 pixel image with no border and make the “source” of the image your affiliate link. (But if you do it wrong, you won’t get paid for the traffic you send.)
Wrapping it up:
Now you’re armed with the information needed to effectively presell. And doing this increases your affiliate commissions by over 500%! So, start now and develop preselling content for all your affiliate promotions. Don’t wait another minute. The effort it takes is well worth the benefits…
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