Stealing a Continuity Program
The popularity of promoting “BIG TICKET” items via a Joint Venture or Affiliate Programs has really exploded over the last four or five years. And why wouldn’t they? Commissions for these kind of programs are normally enormous, ranging from 15% to as high as 60%. This is big time money when the products being offered are priced in the thousands of dollars.
Personally, I have avoided promoting these products like the plague simply because I am not interested in a one-time big payout. Not only that but, many of these programs have had big-time difficulties with order fulfillment and even worse, terrible to non-existent customer service! It has become almost routine for a fly-by-night attitude to emerge where people will create a promising product with a large price tag. Offer monster commissions to entice the top super affiliates to market it for them. Use the best marketing tactics to create a large BUZZ about it in their target market. Explode on the scene with a large product launch. Enjoy sales in the six-figure range or even higher. And then disappear off the face of the earth!
Sure, you may pocket a six-figure affiliate commission check but, were do you go from there with a large number of pissed off customers wondering why it took weeks or months to receive the product and there is no one around to answer their questions? It not only ruins your credibility but, also stains your ability to maintain one of the proven sales triggers, “TRUST!”
My preferred Joint Venture or Affiliate Program involves what I call my, “Stealing a Continuity Program” strategy!
A continuity program is also known as a residual income affiliate program. They will normally pay only a small percentage of sales commission for every sale directed to the merchant’s website. These commissions normally fall into the 10-20% range. Because, of this a large majority of marketers IGNORE residual affiliate programs and would rather go after those high flying one-time large payments programs.
I say they are Making a Huge Mistake!
If you do your homework you will find high quality continuity programs to promote all over the Internet in just about every niche you can think of. Here are just a few of the advantages of these programs can offer:
- A high quality product or service.
- Outstanding customer service.
- Ongoing commissions for as long as your customer continues in the program.
- Competitive first sale commissions through the use of “Up sells”, “Down sells”, and “One-Time Offers” during the signup process.
- A happy and loyal customer base. (Why would they give them their money month after month for any other reason?)
When you promote these programs you will receive regular and ongoing commissions for a single affiliate initiated sale! That means, for the same effort you put into promoting a one-time commission “BIG TICKET” item, you can receive commissions for conceivably a life-time! Often times, the effort you will need to put into generating a sale in a residual program is much-less as well, because the upfront price tag is significantly less.
So, are the benefits of promoting continuity programs starting to click with you yet? It’s not too hard to see the benefits is it? Would you rather receive $150 for selling to a customer one time, or receive $120 a year for the same customer? The benefits of a continuity program provides are really unwise to ignore.
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Always Use Juicy Snippet Text
I already know what you may be thinking… what is snippet text? Well to put it simply, snippet text is the top line of an email which is displayed apart from the subject line.
Normally your email inbox displays the first line of an email message (the snippet). It is tiny but, a very significant part of the email message. This one line in an email message actually helps tilt the balance in the sender’s favor, when the recipient scans through their messages, searching for the most relevant ones and deleting the rest.
Because of this, it is just as important that you begin your marketing emails with a juicy “snippet” in order to truly optimize the email and make your marketing message stand out from the rest of the emails battling for your prospects reading pleasure.
Depending on what software or online provider your prospect is using will determine how your email will be shown in the display pane. Yahoo! Mail for example, displays the snippet in a pop-up text box when the cursor is brought over the subject line. Google Mail shows the snippet in a shaded area after the display of a subject line.
So are you ready for today’s golden nugget?
Online marketers that suck at email marketing always have a juicy headline and crap for a snippet!
In fact, most of them have great headlines but, fail miserably at the snippet game. I just opened my Google Mail account and it is loaded with failed email snippets. Here are some examples for your viewing pleasure.
- Hi, we sell replicated swiss watches with O…
- Newsletter removal instruction: If you no longer wish to receive our tips &…
- –Ads Axcel-GScope)~~Snuggie, the blanket with sleeves~~…
It doesn’t take a word wizard to understand how horrible these emails are right from the start. So what does a good snippet look like? Again, taken right now from my Google Mail account.
- Hey Troy, by now you’ve probably heard lots about our most popular…
- The message below applies to all Internet business owners…
- Hey Troy, I didn’t believe it at first but, until my good friend…
In the first set of examples, the writer either wrote about the product or service first or invited me to unsubscribe from their list! While the service or product might be valid to my interests (they are not by the way), they should never be mentioned in the first line of an email. Instead it must be used to generated interest, value and excitement like the second set of snippets above are doing.
Remember, a correctly framed snippet helps the reader, especially a busy, in deciding whether they should read the email immediately or delete it. Apart from the subject line alone, more words are available in the snippet or the top line of your email to build brand recognition. This top line facilitates the snap decision of the reader when he or she is in the middle of inbox triage. Furthermore, some providers preview panes block images by default, which again increases the importance of the top line.
If your emails are not conveying the offer or purpose of the email, the reader is left to rely on the subject line alone for a hint. And what do you think the chances are that they are even going to bother? My statistics prove they won’t!
To make your snippets Juicy always make a new one every time, even if a few extra minutes are required to complete the job, it will be worth it in the long run when you receive a better open rate for your marketing emails. This applies even if you are sending the exact same offer to someone who already received it previously.
So before you send out your next marketing email to your prospects make sure you take the time and write a juicy snippet and then send it to yourself at a couple of different places (Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) to make sure it appears like you would like.
Just like you probably already do with email subject lines you should test the variations of the snippet as well. Send your email list test pools different variations of the snippet to see which one is getting the best open and click rates.
The bottom line is that not even a single line of the email message should be wasted. The aim should be all business and no nonsense text.
Like this blog post? Buy me a coffee or send me a tip! Keeping Your Sales-Force Motivated
Running a successful affiliate program is easier than ever with the software and help available now. However, keeping your affiliates motivated and selling is just as challenging as it has always been. If the success of your business rests upon how your affiliates perform, you should already be providing them with the right tools to get the job done successfully.
I’m going to bet that if you are not providing the tools they need to succeed then you probably have a large amount of affiliates in your program that you never heard from again shortly after they finished the sign-up process.
You can however, begin reducing this number of non productive affiliates immediately by getting in touch with them right now, and remaining in touch with them constantly.
Get started by sending them an e-mail reminding them of their username, password, and affiliate link. Tell them where to log in to check their stats, or doing anything else you can think of to get them excited about your program again. Feel free to get creative. Always keep them informed of new product lines or changes in policy or procedures.
The key to motivation is making sure that you stay in touch. Always pay attention to who your top sellers are, and make sure that you contact them on a regular basis. But, don’t forget to pay some attention to your worst producers as well. You will be surprised but, many super affiliates could be hiding in your program because they saw potential with your product or service but, were dissatisfied with your execution of the program. One small change and… “BANG” they are off to the races!
The main reason the majority of affiliates don’t perform well is because they don’t possess any leadership or guidance. This can easily be changed by writing a detailed marketing course or producing marketing videos, which you can even offer for sale to non affiliates to offset your production costs.
Always keep your sales copy up to date. You should also provide new material for your affiliates to use on a regular basis. Providing them with nothing but a text link and one banner just doesn’t generate much excitement at all. Remember, provide the right tools and reap the benefits. Need some ideas?
Here are some tools you can easily provide your affiliates that have proven success:
- A “Tell-a-friend” form that they can fill out in your affiliate area that is preloaded with high conversion e-mail copy.
- Multiple sets of e-mail copy that they can cut ‘n paste, change a little bit to personalize and send off to their own mailing lists.
- An assortment of example signatures ads that they can use in all of their outgoing e-mail correspondence.
- A bunch of articles that they can change a little to personalize and submit to article directories, post to their own websites, or even provide to e-mail newsletter owners as content.
- A large variety of text links that they can include on their websites.
- A couple of example reviews that they can use as posts on their Blogs.
- Some MP3 audio, or video (YouTube, etc.) content that they can use on their landing pages, blogs, and websites.
- Cut ‘n Paste pop up code, or the new “Peel Away” corner advertising code for their websites.
- An assortment of example tags (keywords) they can use for pay per click advertising or for submitting their affiliate pages to social bookmarking services.
- A special report or eBook preloaded with their affiliate links. (There are even scripts available that can generate them on the fly for you so you don’t have to manually create each one for them).
- Press Releases that they can submit to various places that accept them.
- Example, PPC or Google Ads.
Make sure that your affiliates know the material is there for them to use, and feel free to explain exactly how, when, and where to use the marketing materials. Make sure you ask your affiliates for feedback on the materials you are providing and act on that feedback.
To really provide the best marketing materials you should create, use, and test them yourself so you are providing them with the highest possible conversion producing materials at all times!
The list of tools above can appear to be a daunting task to setup and it can be but, there is a great tool available to you that will cut the setup time for all of your affiliate programs by a TON (and it does everything I described and more)! I personally use it and highly recommend you take a look to save you time and increase your affiliate sales quickly. You can check it out by clicking here.
The best affiliate programs out there also provide video training for their affiliates. You can get started using this strategy by holding live online video training sessions with your affiliates and recording them to post in your affiliate area. But, don’t stop there. Hold live training sessions on a routine basis to really kick it up a notch. Make sure you invite questions before hand and discuss them during the training.
Giving your affiliates the credit they deserve is also extremely important. Each month, you should give credit to the best performers in your affiliate mailings. Give nice bonuses to those that perform well (like cash, or free products), and you can even set up a payment structure that rewards higher commissions and bigger volumes of sales.
Assisting your affiliates to succeed with your program should be a top priority. If they maximize the amount of money they can make – then so are you! Their success is your success.
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