words. But in the online world words often sell much better than pictures. Especially when they’re promoting your web site or affiliate programs.
Text Sells!
When you’re marketing your affiliate programs on the Internet try using text instead of pictures.
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To prove the sales benefits of text over pictures do a little test. If you currently have a picture link at the top of your web site, monitor the click-throughs you’re currently getting. Do this for two weeks.
Then change the picture link to a clever text link and monitor these click-throughs for another two weeks.
I would be very surprised if the results were not much better for the text link. I know from my own testing that text links always perform MUCH better than the graphic/picture links. Other successful affiliates tell me that they have also have had similar results.
You see people have trained themselves to ignore banners, and since most banners are pictures the banner click through rates have fallen through the floor.
But guess what?
Some banners are actually doing really well. Cleverly designed interactive text banners are getting very high click-through rates.
Why?
Online it’s words that sell best. Words prompt the person to find out more information. They’ll take further action, and click on the text link, where they won’t do this with a graphic link.
People are extremely resistant to being sold to. They want to get to know someone first. They want to be able to trust someone.
Someone who’s selling something with flashy pictures could be seen as untrustworthy. Text links however are more believable. Let me give you an example.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
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Often when I receive an email there’s information at the end of the email in the form of a text link. The text link could read something like ‘For more great ideas click here’.
Well if the information in the email was interesting to me then I’ll want to know what other great ideas the sender of the email has to tell me about. I want to see what other content they have at their site.
As affiliates you need to give your visitors great content. So, why divert their attention away from your great content with pictures?
Give them more content.
Give them quality content.
To get them to read your valuable content..
Use text links.
Use interactive text banners,
Use text links in your emails,
Use text links on your web site.
For affiliates, text links work!
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
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Are You Using Classified Ads in Ezines?
If not, then you should be. They are much more effective than traditional online classifieds. This is mainly because they’re more targeted.
How many ezines do you think there are on the Internet.
No one really knows. However there are some estimates of between 160,000 -
300,000.
And, guess what? Most of these ezines have a subscriber base of fewer than 2,000
subscribers. Few people target these low subscriber base ezines. The big boys just target the large subscriber base ezines.
So, there’s a huge overlooked market here that can get your targeted ezine ad in front of tens of thousands of people. Don’t overlook the smaller ezines.
These are three ways you can negotiate deals with ezine publishers for mutual profitability.
1.
Ezine Ad Swaps.
You can swap ezine ads with other ezine editors. The cost to you – ZERO! You just approach another ezine editor and ask them to swap 6 ads in their next 6 issues. And you will feature their ezine ad in your next 6 issues.
2.
Paid Ezine Ads
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You could negotiate a deal to pay for your ezine ads. If someone has a subscriber base of 1,000 subscribers and they currently run little or no ezine ads ask them if they would like to receive some money to run your ezine ad. I bet they won’t say no.
3.
Swap Ezine Ads for Articles
Instead of swapping ezine ads why not feature another editor’s article in your ezine and they feature your ezine ad in their ezine. Both sides benefit.
What about receiving money for running ezine ads in your own ezine?
Once you get to 1,000 subscribers you can run paid ezine ads. However, don’t run any more than 3 per issue. You do not want to clutter your ezine with a whole lot of ads.
Readers will “tune out.”
Ad rates vary tremendously, but let’s assume you negotiate a deal of $10 per thousand subscribers for each ezine ad. You run 3 ads per ezine.
If your ezine is a weekly publication then that’s an extra $30 per week, or $1,560 per year… a nice little bonus earner for little effort.
When you get to 2,000 subscribers this would be over $3,000 per year. Can you see the potential here?
So if you’ve never tried ezine classified ads, then give them a shot. Compared to online classified ads they’re more focused and it’s been proven by independent studies that they get a higher response rate.
You can find numerous ezines to advertise in at the granddaddy of ezine directories;
http://www.directoryofezines.com. The DOE team have a variety of advertising
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
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packages you can purchase, and in addition to this it’s an excellent resource for placing your articles. Many of the Ezines listed also accept articles. However, to access this resource you need to pay a very modest annual membership fee Does Your Headline "Grab" Their Attention?
The sole objective of a headline is to get the reader to keep reading.
Whether it’s an article, a sales letter, an ezine ad or just
the subject heading in an email, the objective of the headline is to get the reader to read more than just the headline. Its purpose is to get them to read the next ‘bit’.
Your headline is a sales tool that sells the rest of the article to the reader.
So what makes a headline an attention grabber?
Let’s look at 4 elements within a headline that will “grab” the reader’s attention, and keep them reading.
1. Ask the reader a question
If you ask a question in your headline the reader will be more inclined to get an answer to the question by continuing to read. The reader becomes intrigued. This prompts them to read on. Asking a question is one of the best ways to ‘grab’ the reader’s attention.
2. Use Inverted Commas
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Use inverted commas around a single word, such as I have done with the word
“grab”… or around a group of words…or even the whole headline. The inverted commas themselves actually highlight something that the reader can latch on to. If you had ten headlines and one used inverted commas in it, then it’s more likely it would be the most read headline.
There is another benefit in using inverted commas around the whole heading. It often means that in an alphabetical listing of headlines you will be near the top. This is because inverted commas come before the letter “A”.
3. Capitalize the First Letter of Each Major Word in the Headline Capitalizing each ‘major’ word in the headline grabs the
reader’s attention. However do not capitalize every word, such as ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘of’, ‘to’,
‘on’, ‘in’ and ‘an’ unless they’re the first word of the headline. It’s unnecessary.
Take a look at the ‘headline’ above (Point 3.) The words ‘the’, ‘of’ and ‘in’ are not capitalized. Let’s see what this headline would look like if they were: Capitalize The First Letter Of Each Major Word In The Headline See how capitalizing each word reduces the impact of the headline. It just does not impress as much. There is no distinction between the words. The ‘major’ words do not stand out as much.
However, in the headline (Point 3) the main (selling) words stand out more because they’re separated by the not so important words:
Capitalize
First Letter
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Each Major Word
Headline
4. Use powerful words
“Grab” is a powerful word. So is “Free”. Even “Powerful” is a powerful word for that matter. Use at least one or two powerful words in your headline. These powerful words will draw in the reader’s attention and prompt them to keep on reading.
These 4 techniques will help you to write better headlines. When you get the headline wrong there is no use in writing the article, the ezine ad or the sales letter. However, get the headline right and you’re half way to making the sale or obtaining a new ezine subscriber.
A Guide to Creating Your Own Affiliate Newsletter
Want to publish your own affiliate newsletter?
It is something that you should think about doing. This is not something you need to publish every day or even every week. Publish it once a month if you want.
And it is so easy to do, as it’s all done by email.
Publishing your own affiliate newsletter is a great way to get your message across and to keep people informed about your web site. You can update people on your affiliate programs, any changes that have taken place at your site, and any new ideas or articles.
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Also you can do ad swaps with other newsletters. This is actually a really good way of marketing your affiliate
programs. You do an ad swap with another newsletter and place an ad for one of your affiliate programs in their newsletter. I have had very good results using this technique.
But isn’t it a lot of work to publish a newsletter?
Not really.
Let’s say you publish your affiliate newsletter
once a month. You could have a couple of articles that you or someone else has written as well as some information about any changes made to your web site. You could also include information on a new affiliate program that you’ve recently joined and offer your opinion about it.
Then as an additional marketing tool you can publish each of your newsletters on a separate page of your web site. This enables people to have a look at your newsletter before they decide to sign up.
To get people to sign up to your newsletter need not be
difficult task either. You could just ask them to send you a blank email or an email, which includes the word ‘Subscribe’ in the subject heading.
Some of the most important things to consider here is to make sure that your newsletter is professional, that it invokes trust with your subscribers and that it has NO SPELLING MISTAKES. I’ve received newsletters in the past that were riddled with spelling mistakes and the first thing I did was unsubscribe. Poor spelling means poor attitude.
And, that’s another thing. Make sure it’s easy for subscribers to UNsubscribe. Put a message at the bottom of each newsletter giving them the option to unsubscribe. The
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message could be to simply send an email to you with ‘Unsubscribe’ included in the subject heading. Of course, if you’re using an automated mailing system this will handle these unsubscribes automatically.
One final thing…TRUST.
If you can build trust at your site then you will get more subscribers. People want to be able to trust you before they give you their email address.
Tell your visitors before they subscribe that their email
address will never be sold or given away to anybody, under any circumstances. People are very concerned about spam and the last thing they want is a whole lot of junk email because you gave their email address away.
So think seriously about starting your own affiliate newsletter. You can publish it as frequently or as infrequently as you like. It is a great marketing tool for your affiliate programs.
Put Your “Resource Box” on Autopilot
If you write articles then you’ll also need to include a resource box. Have you thought much about what to put in your resource box?
If not, then you should. It is probably the most important part of your article!
Here are three different techniques to use with your resource box to maximize its selling potential. Remember, a resource box is a call to action. You want your reader to take some action. That action should be to either to send you an email or to visit a specified web site.
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Your resource box can prompt a reader of your article to…
1. Subscribe to your Newsletter
Write a couple of different resource boxes that promote subscription to your newsletter. Make sure you have sign up instructions, a link back to your web site (so they can sign up there if they want to) and try to give something away for free as an incentive for signing up. Telling your visitor that they’re going to get something for free when they sign up is a great way of encouraging people to subscribe. All this information needs to go in your resource box, so make it concise and catchy.
2. Sell Something
Got something to sell?
Tell everyone about it in your resource box. Make sure you include a link back to the particular page on your site where you sell the product or service. Make it as easy as possible for them to purchase. Also make sure you include your email address in the resource box so people can contact you for further information.
3. Promote Your Affiliate Program
If you are in an affiliate program, you can promote it in your resource box. Have a link to the product or service itself, or better still, provide a link back to your web site that then redirects to the affiliate program site. You will need to set up a separate page to do this.
However, make sure the affiliate program site you are promoting ties in with the content of your article.
The resource box is a powerful, yet under-used marketing tool. By using a number of pre-written resource boxes in these three key areas you can put your resource box on autopilot, and market yourself in three different ways.
This will mean more traffic, more subscribers, and more sales and affiliate commissions.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
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Chapter 5 – AFFILIATE MARKETING
TECHNIQUES
Tips for Writing Articles To Promote Yourself
Writing articles is an excellent way to promote yourself, your web site and your affiliate programs. Here are some helpful tips for writing articles on the Internet.
1. Use lots of white space in your articles. People like to read on screen information in ‘chunks’, so always use lots of space.
2. Use short paragraphs. Following on from tip 1 keep it short and let your visitor read little pieces of information at a time.
3. Use the occasional exclamation mark (!) to get your readers attention. But please do not overuse this, as many people now appear to be doing.
4. Ask a question so that your visitor will read on to find the answer. This focuses the attention of the reader.
5. Put a lot of thought and effort into your heading. If the heading does not get the visitors attention straight away then they will just move on and not even read your article. Here’s an example:
Try ‘The 7 success secrets of breeding Cane Toads’ rather than ‘How to breed cane toads’.
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6. Use bullets to quickly outline a number of points that may be important in your article. Readers can scan through these.
7. Use numbers, if this is appropriate in the article. For example the way I am writing this article.
8. Outline the benefits to your reader. They want to know what they can get out of reading the article so portray the benefits of what you are writing about.
9. Do not waffle. This is never more important than on the Internet. People get bored quickly and there are a million other articles they could be reading instead of yours.
Get to the point quickly, in the very first line!
10. Target your article. Make it on one topic only and stick to the topic. Do not try to write about 2 or 3 things in the same article. Keep your focus on one topic to keep the interest of your reader.
11. Conclude with a strong message. A message that summarizes your article or gets your reader to take further action.
12. Be humble. People admire people who are humble. And, never talk down to your readers.
Learn as much as you can about writing on the Internet. It’s a different form of writing than that used in the offline world. Read as many articles as you can. Study those that you find easier to read. Find out why, and then duplicate the techniques used.
©2002 David McKenzie, A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d
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How to Market Your Free Articles with No Money
What? You mean that you’ve written these great, informative, valuable articles and now you have to market them! Surely if they’re free, people will just come and read them.
Ah, the Internet.
Thou shalt market, market again… and then market some more on the Internet. It does not matter if you’re selling a product or service, or giving your information away for free. You still have to market your stuff.
Otherwise no one will find you to read your excellent articles or content.
These twp free marketing techniques will help increase the readership of your articles.
1. Newsgroups.
With google groups, newsgroups are suddenly easier to use and easier to post to.
Google groups are basically newsgroups in html form.
Here’s a quick action plan for getting your article read by people in newsgroups.
Go to http://www.groups.google.com
and search for groups related to your topic. Either search using the search box or by manually scrolling through the newsgroups. If you’re familia