Don’t send the same standard e-mail. It’s worth taking the time to make it as personal as you can (as they’re more likely to read it). Get to the point quickly and give them all the information they need.
Write your conversion rate, who else is promoting, and how much the best affiliates are making at the moment with the product.
Make sure you follow up until you get a reply (and do not be surprised if this does not happen on the first, second or even third attempt). Being consistent, brief and polite will go a long way.
How to Motivate Your Affiliates
The frustrating truth is that many affiliates won’t do anything. They won’t promote, or they’ll promote halfheartedly.
You need strategies in place to motivate your affiliates into action. Keeping in touch is vital.
1. Training
The more training you can provide for them the better. Mix it up. An affiliate newsletter, a blog providing new training, and e-mail updates outlining new tools you’ve created or conversion tips, are all good examples.
2. Competition
Perhaps you could hold a competition (two weeks is an optimal time frame).
Have a prize for whoever makes the most sales, and also give the same prize to any random affiliate (that you pull out of a hat) who makes at least one sale.
This gives hope to some of your smaller affiliates who will be willing to give it a go. Knowing they too have a chance of winning the same prize as a super affiliate, can be extremely motivating.
Affiliate Recruitment and Management
You win, because more affiliates are going to make an effort to promote you. Collectively, all these small guys add up to significantly more sales.
This strategy works particularly well during a launch.
3. Phone
Phone your up-and-coming and super affiliates. It’s a fast (and more personal) way of building your working relationship.
Star Struck? How to Handel the Super Affiliates The truth is most affiliates will not bring in any sales. Perhaps only about 5%
will bring in the majority of traffic and sales.
It makes sense to focus on the small (but very productive) minority. It’s not just the size of their list; it’s how responsive they are that counts.
The super affiliates who bring in the bulk of the traffic and sales need to be looked after, and looked after well.
Make it easy for them by having your affiliate manager custom-create promotional material for them. If they have proven results, this is definitely worth it.
The big guys won’t want to send out the same material other affiliates are sending out. Having the same swipe copy you give to everyone else is not good enough.
Go the extra mile and create a free report tailored just for that super affiliate to give to their list.
Pay super affiliates more. This makes sense if they’re the ones bringing in the bulk of the sales. You may also consider opening up a second tier commission for them, if they can bring in more affiliates for you.
How to Set Up Your Affiliate Program the Right Way: 6 Tips All affiliate programs are not born equal.
The trick is to identify what is already working and then model those same aspects. This will ensure you have a strong affiliate program from the beginning.
Here are six quick tips to ensure you set up your affiliate program the right way.
1. Stable System
www.dlwmmm.com/cb, www.dlwmmm.com/fusion, www.dlwmmm.
com/cj and www.dlwmmm.com/pay are a few examples of stable affiliate systems.
You want to make sure your affiliate tracking and management system is tried and tested. The disadvantage of ClickBank however, is that it’s difficult to manage affiliates, and you cannot provide them with custom tools without the use of a 3rd party service or script.
2. Pending Period
It’s recommended you set up a pending period where affiliates can’t access the commissions they’ve made until that time period is up.
This is to allow time for product refunds. Let’s say you have a 60 day refund period, you don’t want an affiliate to get paid for a product that’s been refunded.
3. Affiliate Links
With some affiliate systems you have to manually copy their affiliate link (and their names) and insert it into the e-mails.
Whereas, some affiliate programs allow you to send e-mails with the affiliate’s link automatically embedded into the e-mail. This saves them time and effort and therefore increases the chances they will promote.
Affiliate Recruitment and Management
If you choose to use many different services patched together, this can be difficult (or in the case of ClickBank where you cannot contact affiliates directly, impossible).
Integrated systems such as FusionHQ makes this easy and your affiliates will appreciate how easy it makes things for them.
4. Providing E-mails
Ensure you provide a variety of different e-mail subject lines and a choice of e-mail body content. This way affiliates have the freedom to choose which one will appeal most to their list.
Everyone has their own writing style. Although you’ll never appeal to everyone, aim to appeal to the majority. At least give them a starting point to write their own e-mails if they prefer.
If your system allows (as talked about above) be sure to include the affiliate’s link embedded into the e-mail.
5. Banners
Despite their bad press, banners do work. Even if people don’t like them or think they’re ugly, they still convert if used correctly.
A warning! So many internet marketers cram their banner with text desperately trying to sell their product in the banner.
Others use an image just for branding.
Neither of these approaches is effective for most campaigns.
The aim of your banner is to entice customers to click on it. Your banner is selling the click only, so keep it simple. It’s the job of your website to sell the product.
Ensure your banner is one of these 3 sizes: 160 x 600 pixels, 300 x 250
pixels or 90 x 728 pixels.
Use an image that grabs attention and then text to create a desire and a call to action.
6. Custom Tools
There are all different kinds of custom tools you can create. For example, FusionHQ has an HTML tool that allows you—as a product owner—to create a big HTML page, or create HTML based promotional tools.
You may consider shooting a video explaining the wonders of your product. Underneath the video you could put some bullets. With software you could have a ‘Download Now’ button.
Once you’ve set all that up, you can convert all of that HTML code into a single line of JavaScript code.
Then, get your affiliates to copy that single line of JavaScript code and place it on their website. The video, bullets, download buttons (anything you’ve put on the JavaScript) will show up on their site—all tracked with their affiliate link.
One tool I created and included on my website was a tell-a-friend form that gave a bribe for sending traffic to the affiliate’s page. Good for me and great for my affiliates.
If you ever wanted to update the page you created, you simply log-in as the product owner, make your changes and update it.
Because your affiliates are using that single line of JavaScript code, it automatically makes those updates in all the other sites where your affiliates have already used that code.
Other custom tools you can consider doing include text ads, blog posts and reviews—the possibilities are endless. Take note of what other affiliate programs are doing and try the things you like.
Affiliate Recruitment and Management
Chapter 16.
Action Steps
• Decide if you are going to use an affiliate manager (recommended).
If so, then find one and let them complete the following list. If not, then you will need to do these action steps yourself...
• Setup your affiliate program.
Decide which affiliate software you wish to use and create an account, or buy and install the software. (If you have the free trial of FusionHQ you already have this set up. If not give it a try, www.dlwmmm.com/fusionhq) Even if you are using ClickBank as an affiliate system, you may choose to use FusionHQ as a way to manage your affiliate tools and training.
• Set the commission levels for your different products, and write descriptions for each.
• Write your affiliate agreement, or modify the template if one is supplied.
Create a set of affiliate tools for your affiliates to promote with. Start with a standard link, then a couple of promotional e-mails and banners and expand from there as appropriate. Add these tools to the affiliate system.
• Create your affiliate recruitment page. Remember to make it like a sales page. You are selling the benefits of your affiliate program. Include why they would want to promote your product, what benefits there are to them, what commissions they can earn, what tools are provided, and what support they will receive.
• Research and recruit. Find affiliates and get them signed up.
• Let them know what to promote, how and when. This should be part of your marketing plan—if not, then add it now.
Chapter 17.
“Sales without
customer service is like
Customer Support
stuffing money into a
pocket full of holes.”
~ David Tooman
Customer Support
Customer Support
Customers: The Heart of Your Business
Customer service is generally awful. If you can be excellent, you will stand out a mile, and your customers will love you for it.
Past experience leaves us wondering if decent service even exists anymore.
Some of us have had such bad experiences, we don’t even bother to get support any more, as there doesn’t seem to be much benefit.
Because of this, it’s important you make your company stand out and shine.
Great customer service is so rare that people will rave about it when they get it.
When you put your customers first your business will automatically make more money.
Your customers are the heart of your business. Without them, you wouldn’t have a business. So you have to look after them, and look after them well.
If their trust in you is broken, they will have no hesitation in turning to your competition. Remember you need your customers more than they need you.
All it takes is a handful of unhappy customers who have had bad experiences with your business to ruin your reputation.
You are in the process of building an on-line business, and on the internet, word spreads quickly. A scathing post on a well-respected forum can lose you a lot of potential sales.
If your customers have taken the time and effort to look you up, show an interest and buy your product—you must honor their trust in you by delivering outstanding customer service.
What is Outstanding Customer Service?
If you cannot compete on quality and price, you can differentiate yourself on the service you provide your customers.
Strong customer service cannot be easily copied.
If you are a small company, you can not only compete with, but surpass the big companies by giving excellent customer service.
Fantastic customer service is where the experience your customers have with your company and your product, not only meets but exceeds their expectations.
Your aim is to leave your customers feeling good. So the experience they have with you is glowing, whether they buy your product or not.
Everyone wants value for their money.
And when your company provides excellent customer service, you are adding value to their buying experience.
Ask yourself how you can serve your customers more than they expect? How can you go the extra mile and help them out? And how can you best care for your customers?
If you can help your customer solve their problem, you often won’t need to refund their money.
Rectifying their problem promptly and nicely will make your customers think more highly of you; and think they never had the problem in the first place.
Customer Support
4 Invisible Benefits of Giving Outstanding Customer Service When you deliver outstanding customer service, your business can only benefit…
1. Raving Fans
When you give great customer care, you will create devoted customers.
They will rave and rave about your fantastic service, spreading the word on your behalf.
And even if you refund a customer’s money, you can still create a raving fan.
They will tell others that even though your product wasn’t right for them, they received excellent customer service. Or they may recommend your product to others who they think it’s more suitable for.
2. Valuable Feedback
By listening to your customers you can find out what areas are weak for them.
Especially if the same comments come up, you can implement your customer’s suggestions and provide them with an even better product.
Remember to thank them, as their feedback is valuable for your business.
3. Lifetime Customers
There is no doubt that when you treat your customers with the respect they deserve, they will want to do business with you again.
Repeat customers is the easiest way to enjoy more profits. Be nice and you’ll be financially rewarded.
4. Up-Sell Opportunity
When you listen to your customers and find out what they really need, you may be able to recommend them another or a different product or service.
Understanding what your customers need and educating them on their options provides a powerful up-sell (or affiliate referral) opportunity.
Experience Customer Support First-Hand
Having an on-line business, your customers may seem invisible to you.
Although you cannot see them, they are not less important.
If anything, you have to work harder to provide a personable, human connection with them.
Customer support is such an important part of your business, that you must experience it yourself. You will gain a new perspective of how your customers use, interact and view your product.
This means do the customer support yourself when you first release a new product.
Later on you can hire or outsource another person or a team of people to handle your customer support requests. But first, you personally must master customer support from the very beginning.
Part of providing outstanding customer support is knowing your product inside out. You must know the reasons behind commonly asked questions.
As well as being thorough in your knowledge about your product, you must handle your customer support requests as quickly as you can.
Have a system in place to make it as efficient for you as possible. For example, you may want to create videos showing people the answer to common questions.
You can then simply refer customers to the correct video.
Customer Support
Fix the Underlying (Not Superficial) Problem
The surface problem is to satisfy your customer and give them an immediate solution that exceeds their expectations.
But it is no good only stopping here.
You must take each complaint and frustration seriously to prevent any other customer having the same problem.
When you look for the underlying solution and fix it, you enhance your product.
Every situation is different. You may have to edit your setup program, provide an article with FAQs or improve the wording of an error message to make it less ambiguous.
Investigate when and what caused the problem to arise in the first place, and then do whatever it takes to prevent it occurring again.
Your technical support must work alongside your programmers to solve each problem quickly. It’s difficult to do this if you outsource your support to a developing country.
Be prepared to pay for highly skilled support staff, even if you have just an informational product. You can be sure you will get many questions that go beyond just refunds. If support can help answer them, your customers will love you all the more for it. At the end of the day you won’t regret this decision.
If you have a software product you must identify and communicate with your developers to fix a problem as soon as possible. Nobody likes to wait, that’s the simple truth.
When you fix that particular problem quickly you save hundreds of other customers complaining about the same thing.
When you outsource your support for one-fifth of the price, you will save money in the short-term. However, in the long-term you will fork out more money in refunds and in time addressing the same problem multiple times over.
Call centers rarely have the ability (nor the inclination) to fix your product’s root problems.
For excellent customer support it’s simply not good enough to teach them 10 common complaints and give them a template to copy and paste. Nothing frustrates a customer more than an obviously canned response where their question has only been half addressed.
7 Easy Ways to Diffuse Angry Customers
It’s likely most of your customers will purchase your product with their credit cards.
If you don’t refund their money, your customer will go to their bank and get a refund from them.
You will also be billed for a charge-back fee. If this happens too often, your processing fees with your bank will increase or worse, you can get your account banned. So it’s best to avoid charge-backs from angry customers occurring in the first place.
Here are seven quick ways you can diffuse an upset customer…
1. Refund Readily
Be forthcoming with your refunds. If your customer requests a refund, give it to them.
It’s not worth arguing with a customer if your product is not working for them, for whatever reason.
When you issue a refund willingly and quickly, your customer will leave with a positive experience of your business.
Customer Support
Give a generous refund time (perhaps 60 days) so your customers have enough time to trial your product. Even if your customers request a refund outside your specified time, give it to them.
2. Respond Quickly
Respond to each customer as quickly as you can. There is no time to waste with a dissatisfied customer.
Your time is better spent concentrating on generating more sales than arguing back and forth with an unhappy customer.
If you can set up systems to get a human (not automated) response within an hour, do it. The most someone should ever have to wait is 24 hours.
3. Be Cool
Everyone has their own problems and you don’t know what is happening in your customer’s personal life.
Don’t take things personally or get defensive. There is no point.
4. Empathize With Them
Everyone wants to be listened to.
Let your customer know that they are correct in feeling the way they are, and that you too would feel the same way too.
5. Understand Their Concerns
Identify what their problem is. You cannot help them unless you know what their main concern is.
If you are not 100% sure, ask for clarification. It’s important you are crystal clear what they want from you.
6. Rectify the Situation
Assume full responsibility for whatever the problem is. Admitting something is your fault (even if it is not) will instantly diffuse the situation in most cases.
Apologize, assure them it will never happen again and thank them for letting you know. Go the extra mile and give them one of your products as a gift.
7. Leave Them Feeling Good
Whether your customer buys something from you or not, it’s important your customers have a great experience with you.
Treat every customer like a king or queen. Creating good feeling in everyone will only come back to financially reward you in the future.
Make them feel listened to.
Highly Qualified Staff
After you have mastered customer support yourself, it is time to hire highly skilled staff to take your place.
As soon as you can afford to, you should get someone else to do your customer support. This will free up your time to work on your business (and not in it).
Remember that the person or people you employ (or outsource to) are representing your company.
When a customer files a customer support ticket with your company, it may be the only contact they have. So it must be a positive experience!
They need to be thoroughly trained and understand completely their role.
Providing them ‘canned answers’ is not good enough.
You can only give excellent customer service if you have excellent staff on board.
Customer Support
How to Support Your Staff
Providing customer support can be a stressful job. Bearing the brunt of annoyed customers day after day can be tough.
Your staff is acting on behalf of your company, so they must not take anything personally or get abusive towards your customers (even if you feel they may deserve it).
Letting your staff know you understand what they have to do, and that you appreciate them, goes a long way.
Find out which aspect of the job stresses them out the most, and then do all you can to alleviate this.
By looking after your staff you are looking after your business.
Chapter 17.
Action Steps
• Set up your customer support desk. Make sure links to it are clearly marked on your thank you pages and from your website or websites.
I suggest using something like Zendesk. This is sufficient for most people.
Got to www.dlwmmm.com/zend
Check it everyday, or outsource this task (highly recommended), or assign it to someone in your business. It’s amazing how quickly customer support will suck up your time.
Chapter 18.
“Testing is a skill.
While this may
Testing and Tracking
come as a surprise
to some people it
is a simple fact.”
~ Graham Fewster
Testing and Tracking
Testing and Tracking
The 2 ‘T’ Words (Testing and Tracking)
It’s really important when you launch a product that you engage in testing and tracking.
You need to know what’s happening. And if you don’t know what’s happening in your business, then you won’t know which areas need improving.
Once you locate the ‘blockages’ in your business that are reducing sales, then you can work on fixing them.
The longer you leave it and ignore tracking the testing, the harder it is down the line for you to improve it.
Where are your customers getting stuck? Where exactly in your sales process are the weak spots?
Don’t underestimate the power of a single split test.
Implementing one simple change that you discovered from a split test could increase your conversions up to 2 or 300 percent.
Even if you look at a moderate increase in your sales of one or two percent, this can be the difference between breaking even and enjoying a healthy profit.
It’s important you carry out your own testing.
While there may be some generic principals the majority of us can apply, don’t always trust other people’s testing results for your product. Each product and audience is different. Use other people’s data as a starting guideline, not as gospel.
What Factors to Test?
Everything! You want to test every factor you can…
The colors of your site, your headlines and your sales copy. Test your price-point, images and your ‘buy now’ buttons.
Test your bullets, opening paragraphs and your close. Test your PS, PPS and PPPS’s.
Split test your entire sales process, to find each element that converts the best for your product.
Test only one element at a time.
If you have two pages with 18 different things, then you’ll only find out which page performs the best. You won’t know which single factor is strongly influencing your results.
Have page A as your control and change one element you are testing in page B.
If page B converts better than page A, then page B is your new control.
Then have a new page B and test another element. By methodically going through this process you’ll slowly improve your conversions.
When you keep refining each element, you can apply this knowledge to other areas of your business. This new knowledge can be used to gain new customers and for your future launches.
Why Test Your Front End First?
Focus on testing your front end first. This is because you want as many people entering your sales funnel as you can. There’s no point testing your back end if your front end is not working efficiently.
Test, test and then test some more!
Once you are happy with your front end conversions, then you can focus on your back end.
Testing and Tracking
Which Testing System to Use?
Some split testing systems are tricky to use.
Ensure that whichever split-testing system you use, sends the same customers to the same page.
Let’s say you have 2 pages you’re testing. You must ensure Customer 1 sees page A each time they look at your site. It’s no good if Customer 1 sees page B
should they return at a later time to your site.
This can confuse your customer.
It may put them off buying your product, or simply prevent you knowing which page convinced them to buy. It’s crucial each customer is served up either page A or page B—and not a mixture of both.
You also want to make sure the split testing system you use does a random split across your incoming traffic.
It’s pointless testing SEO traffic against affiliate traffic, for example.
Different sources of traffic respond in different ways, and it may not be a true reflection of say a change in headline you may be testing.
The source of your traffic must remain the same when you’re carrying out a split test.
Be as fair and even as you can, so you can gain accurate results.
Tracking your visitors
Tracking where yout visitors are coming from can give you some valuable data. You can see which sources of traffic are converting to customers and where to focus your energy.
There are many tracking systems out there, but www.dlwmmm.com/analytics is free and an excellent choice. It can give you a good overview of how your website is performing and very detailed information about where your traffic is coming from.
Determining the Lifetime Value of Your Customers Through tracking, you’ll be able to identify where the bulk of your customers are coming from.
Are you making the majority of your money the first time they buy from you?
Are you making the most money the third time they buy from y