UNLIMITED CUSTOMER GOLDMINE BLOG POST 5

 Educate Those That Don’t

Have a Clue

So the first thing we should be looking at is

educating those affiliates that don't know what

they're doing, something that the people talking

about low sales figures from affiliates overlook.

There's plenty of ways to do this, for example,

producing your own mini-guide for them, or giving

away a small training course. If you're really

stuck you could always get your hands on a mini e￾book, but if you're going to go down that road,

please make sure that it actually makes sense, and

wasn't published in 1981. Education is a good way

to go, because these people who come into your

affiliate program, if they make their first good

amount of cash with you, they're going to love you

for it, and most likely promote for you again in

the future, especially if it's your guide that

taught them how to do so.Promote When You Need Them To

Promote

Next along the line you want to be thinking about

little tricks, offers and promotions you can run to

have your affiliates promoting for you at a

particular time. There's nothing more powerful than

an army of affiliates by your side ready to promote

for you, except that is, an army of affiliates by

your side, ready to promote for you, that know how

to promote and do so when you most want them to.

Look at things like seasonal bonuses. An extra

percentage push near Christmas time is always a

good performer, despite the lower visit to sales

ratios in the holiday season. Remember we mentioned

we‟re not just after sales here? It doesn't even

have to be a special occasion. If you need more

cash quickly you can always set a deadline for a

month or so down the road, and offer a big bonus to

the top performing affiliates or affiliates. In

fact this is something that worked real well back

at my old site, and was probably one of the very

first affiliate offers I put out early in my online marketing career.

I offered the first affiliate to reach 50 sales a

$750 bonus on top of their monthly earnings, and

they seriously went for this. I had all sorts of

traffic coming in from all over the place. Now be

careful with this. Don't go offering $5000 at the

end of the month to your top affiliate if you've

never tested this before. What we don't want to

happen is you having to pay 5k out to your top

affiliate who was the only one to make any sales.

Go about this in a smart way, and set a hard target

on the number of sales or amount of earnings needed

from an affiliate to earn the additional winnings.

This way at least you know how much you'll be

making with a particular amount of sales and won't

make any big losses, or any losses at all for that matter.

Test It Out & Have a Play
– You’ll Be Surprised

What I will say to you is test things out, and have

a play around. Carefully though, we don't want any

unexpected losses to creep up uninvited. Test out

different percentages at different periods in the

year. Test out big start up bonuses and a large

addition to month one commissions if you have a low

ticket membership site. What we're looking to get

is the most amount of affiliates promoting for you,

whilst spending the least. I would love to tell you

what works best all the time, however it varies

from product to product, business to business, and

of course totally depends on your affiliates, how

good they are at promotion, and whether they signed

up to promote you or just to get the freebie.

One thing I will say though is this. No matter how

much extra work this seems, or how little returns

it gives over a small number of people, remember,

that the numbers in your affiliate system will grow

over time. When it does grow, it's going to be your job to make sure you keep on top of the affiliates

and keep them promoting. Education and special

offers is the way to start.

Quick Start Bonuses Explained

Something else you may want to think about is quick

start bonuses. We mentioned these earlier but I

never really told you why they're important. Well,

it‟s for two reasons. For a start it provides a

viable option for your affiliates and makes your

program more enticing for them to join. Hey, who

wouldn't join an affiliate program that advertised

100% commissions for the first month or two? I know

a few people who went ahead and did this, and they

got one heck of a response. Remember always to put

yourself in the shoes of your target. Think like

them, and you‟ll be able to attract them.

The second reason for big quick start bonuses is to

actually get people promoting. It's amazing

sometimes how hard it is to get people to do

things. You know how you try your best to get

someone to do something or do a job well, and in

the end you end up saying something like 'Ah I'll

just do it myself'. Well this is the job of quick

start bonuses on a deeper level. If you're attracting affiliates that generally don't promote

very often or haven't promoted before, then this is

another reason for them to choose you. Once they're

going and start to make money, it's amazing how

much of a motivation enhancement it is to receive

an e-mail saying you've just made some cash. Quick

start bonuses are especially important when you

have a membership site that doesn't cost a huge

amount per month, but you can take advantage of a

big and powerful high commission headline to

attract them. Don‟t forget all of this is tied to

you and your business also, important for repeat

affiliate business. If someone gives you cash, you

don‟t forget it, and no doubt you‟ll be back for

more, as will your affiliates flood back to you

over multiple businesses.

Communication – The Key to
Profits

Which brings me to my final point, and probably the

most important one in this section. Communication

is the key. As well as sending bonuses and offers,

an e-mail with a 'Congrats, you've made cash'

subject can be one heck of a motivator. It's also

important to remind your affiliates, not

necessarily through offers, but often letting them

in on info like 'It can take seven times and

upwards of 10 times that people have to see your

offer before they will sign up'.

We've seen those before, and that is the purpose. I

have found to an extent that with mailing list

advertising, this is indeed true, provides a good

excuse for you to mail your affiliates, and also

provides them with the confidence they need to know

that send out another mailing to their list isn't

going to be a waste of time. They‟ll gobble up any

free info and tips you can give them, simply

because it means more money for them. (And for you in this case)

Crafting Your Welcome &
Congrats E-mails

Make sure you craft your congratulations e-mails

and welcome emails well. Still on the subject of

mailing your affiliates, it's important for

everything to be smooth, quick and easy for them.

Some just have lists that they want to blast your

ads out to. Your job is to make that as smooth as

possible. Send them a log in link in the welcome

mail, tell them again how much they'll earn, give

them some small stats and figures; „With just '10

sales, you'll earn $7000‟. Emphasize the second

levels, no matter how small. This passive earning

is really important to a lot of marketers.

Think of this as kind of a small sales letter, but

crossed with an instruction manual. They've signed

up, now sell onto the promotion with how much they

can earn and how quickly. Don't forget to tell them

to click the link below, copy and paste the pre￾written ads, blast them out to their lists or the

list of provided e-zines, and await the congratulatory e-mails from you, saying they have

cash. Don‟t just suggest an action and expect them

to do it. Close the sale. Tell them to do it, and

your response will increase dramatically.

Emphasize pay days, and tell them to look out for

special promotions and bonuses from you that will

give them the opportunity to promote your other

products, or even promote this product at a higher

commission. This really should have gone in the

bonuses section that we talked about earlier, but

since we're here, try not to give the reader any

excuse to hold off.

For example, I remember four years or so back I

joined a membership site and was all ready to go

off promoting for them as an affiliate, then when I

saw the welcome mail, I was told to look forward to

an e-mail soon that would entitle me to extra

earnings promoting the product. Just that wording

almost put me off. I later found out that it was

actually bonuses and top affiliate rewards for the

previous couple of months, but see how that mail seemed like a good deal, but made me wait? No doubt

this was the opposite effect they were looking for.

You don't want your affiliates to think twice. This

letter will have them log in, grab the ad and blast

it out. As quick and as easy as possible for them

with the best possible rewards, which in turn means

the highest amount of additional income for you.

Give it a try. You won't be disappointed.

Don’t Mistreat Your Affiliates

This also brings up an even more important point

that I see a heck of a lot. Ever had this? You join

an affiliate program, do a little promotion,

receive your cash, and before long you're receiving

ads because the persons affiliate program added you

to an all out advert list that they're charging to

send to? Granted it's not so bad if you know the

person, have bought or expressed interest in the

products they happen to be selling, but I'll be

honest with you, if you just add affiliates to a

mailing list, you're missing out big time.

They're going to get annoyed at getting something

they didn‟t sign up for, and if just one good

affiliate un-subscribes... I'll leave that to you

to figure out exactly how much money that could

mean you lose in the coming months or with the

launch of your next product.

Some people don't agree with me here, I have to

admit. But the general rule is, if your affiliates really are valuable (which they should be) and have

been promoting for you, don't send them adverts for

anything. The only exception is for a special offer

for the affiliate program, notification of a new

product they can promote, or something of that

sort. Like your list, and on a smaller but more

personal scale your JV prospects. These are not

people you want to annoy, because quite frankly,

they'll just leave and go elsewhere and you'll lose

wads of cash, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,

but in the future, you will lose long term. Way too

many small businesses seem to do this. I wonder if

they know what they're doing to their earning

prospects.

General rule of thumb here, if they asked for it,

send it to them. Marketing is only intrusive and

annoying if it‟s not wanted. If they signed up for

something, don't start sending them unrelated

information, which will only annoy them and lose

you money. This doesn't just relate to affiliate

programs either, this goes for mailing lists,

newsletters, e-zines, personal lists and more than

anything, especially joint venture prospects. A Final Word

I'm glad we got that one covered here in the time

that we have, because it really is as important as

I keep saying. In fact, in case I still haven't

managed to convince you, I want to finish with one

more example of a high ticket item. Let's say

you've created a guide, on a subject you find

interesting, and sold it for $1000 including audio,

video, consultations, and DVDs. You make fifteen

sales from joint ventures yourself in the first

month, and make $15,000. Now with 150 affiliates,

just ten percent of them making two sales each at

50% commissions. You've just netted yourself an

extra… I'll let you do the math on that one so it

really sinks in how powerful this is and gets the

juices flowing.

Alright, before we move off the subject of

affiliates into the other attached manuals, I just

want to re-iterate. Affiliate growth is

exponential. It's slow at the start, and gets faster, depending on your joint ventures, list size

and the number of affiliates you have. Every

product, every single piece of software or

information you release relating to your business

should have this in mind.

Don't worry if when you first start building

affiliates they don't quite make you as much as you

hoped. This is totally normal. What you'll find is,

in every twenty, thirty, fifty, or even 100

affiliates, there are a couple of real gems there

that make you (and them) a whole lot of cash. Take

it from me, take your affiliate building as

seriously as everyone‟s been telling us to take our

list building and direct sales recently, and you'll

see some amazing results.

Summary

● Ok, we've had a look previously at some of the

statistic based aspects of selecting percentages

and commission levels for your affiliate system.

You should already have a good idea of what works and what doesn't allowing you to select the right

numbers for your business.

● Let‟s move on now from percentages and look at

some important ways to get your affiliates

promoting, and keep them promoting while touching

on some of the biggest mistakes people make when

setting up and managing their affiliates from the

start. Lets finish creating a solid foundation for

your business.

● First and foremost, something that also applies

to list building, something that many marketers do

for one reason or another, that's starting again,

but this time instead of straight up deleting

important resources, they're doing something even

worse.

● Here's what you'll see from a lot of marketers

out there. They create a product, gather their

resources including affiliates, and when they're done and move on to their next product they don't

take their affiliates with them.

● Why not? They worked hard to get them, they're

just as important as any other resources, if not

more important, yet they're throwing them away.

Even if your affiliate system doesn't support

multiple products and multiple domains, it's a

simple case of exporting and importing, and firing

out a special higher commission for people who have

promoted for you before. There are no excuses for

not utilizing this powerful tool, after all, we've

already talked about how the hardest and most

expensive part of marketing is getting new

customers, new affiliates, and new subscribers.

Don't throw them away when you begin to get them.

You earned these resources, you deserve to keep

them, and keep making money from them, as they make

money from your products too.

● Next up, lets move onto a fundamental of

business, not just for affiliate programs. That's

give your customers a path to follow, and a call to action. I've seen sites that have great sales

letters, or great products and at the end of it,

when I come to order there's just a dead end. No

order link, nothing, and I have on several

occasions had to search for the order link, even

from well known sites that reach millions every

day. Who knows how many sales they're losing by

cutting off the customer‟s path and their flow.

● To begin this flow of affiliates, you need to

link to your affiliate program on every page of

your site, and when this link is clicked, there

should be a sales letter there, not just a signup

form. Shorter than the product sales letter, it's

still there to persuade people and sell yourself

and your products. Without this, you're selling

yourself short.

● After this, and most importantly, a call to

action. Don't just give them a form, or worse

still, leave them with a dead end. Place your

signup form or link to signup after a call to

action to do so. Don't let people have to search for anything. Remember what we said heavy hitting

affiliates like? Straight in, blast ad, straight

out, earn money. It's a simple as that, and the

easier and more flowing you make your affiliate

signup process, the more affiliates you're going to

see signing up.

● Here's an example for you, I go to signup for an

affiliate program, and they have this great sales

page that tells me how much I'm going to earn per

sale, a really nice bonus scheme for top affiliates

etc, and I got to the bottom of the page, and guess

what I found? Well, not much actually. They sold me

on this affiliate program, but the page just ended.

No click here to sign up, no nothing. Ever seen a

site like that? Whether it's affiliate programs or

sales letters? If you haven't, you can bet you'll

start to notice them now.

● This is something that loses marketers literally

wads of cash, if you remember back to the

difference to your income just fifteen affiliates

can make, and you should be able to see how devastating mistakes like this are. Worst of all,

they probably don't even know they're doing it. If

you want the potential customer or resource to do

something, you have to point them to it, giving

them a gentle shove in the right direction.

● If I click on your 'Affiliates' button on your

website, I don't want to be presented with a form

that asks for my details. I see this all too often.

Write a mini sales letter that explains some things

to the potential affiliate. Information you must

include can be as basic as how much they'll earn on

how many levels, and for how long, and any bonuses

they may get for a particular amount of sales in

any given time, and of course, how often you pay

out. This is what‟s going to get me (as a an

affiliate of yours) promoting for you.

● Another tip, something to do for your own benefit

and the affiliates benefit. You'd be surprised at

how powerful a signup page for an affiliate system

becomes when you've proven the product they're

promoting is quality, and that the sales letter selling it has been tried and proven.

● I'd be happy about an affiliate program that pays

me $500 per sale, but I'd be even happier with an

affiliate program that pays me $500 per sale, when

the sales letter has been proven to have a specific

click through to sales ratio. It‟s just like your

sales letter writing. Eliminate risk, and build

confidence in your product, only this time around,

your affiliate program is your product. Never

forget you're always selling, this is no different

to writing a sales letter for your products.

● On a similar note, of course we're going to need

a terms and conditions section in there. Don't hide

anything in it. Tell the affiliates the whole story

on your sales letter, everything from when payday

is to how much they'll earn and how many sales they

need to make to get to a certain level of

commissions. Keep the terms and conditions for

legal stuff, like pointing out you can't guarantee

any earnings and you're not responsible for them if

they give their details out and the like. You're..

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