Sunday, August 26, 2012

Affiliate Marketing Tips

Selling to customers has changed shape - even in affiliate marketing. The hard sell doesn't work any more - now it's all about education and building relationships. Education can produce trust and the potential to build a relationship with your customer as opposed to being too hard core with the selling techniques.
Successful business depends on giving before you get - and the same goes with affiliate marketing. By educating your prospects you craft an opportunity to prove that you know what you are talking about and they receive the added value of finding out more about the niche that you are operating in. If you provide top quality material, then they will be seeking you out to find out more in the future. They'll also trust you - and you'll be able to sell more of your affiliate products to them.
It's not just about educating about the topic that you deal with, you also need to educate them on the products that you are selling. One way to do this is to offer a comparison on what your product does compared to the products of other companies. Provide a chart so that the comparison is easy to weigh up.
Another way to provide education in affiliate marketing is to develop an FAQ page. You can even save yourself time by doing this as you then won't need to answer questions sent via email. Keep in mind that people are lazy, if your prospects can find everything that they need easily, then you are less likely to lose them as they leave your site looking for an easier site to navigate and one that has all the answers easily available. The development of brochures can go a long way with education too. Put yourselves in the shoes of the consumer. You need to know a lot about a product before you feel comfortable enough to buy it - especially in these economic times, so ensure that your prospects know all that they need to and they'll be more likely to spend.
Have you ever been to an electronics store, and then you find yourself leaving empty handed as the sales people just didn't know enough about the products to be able to satisfy your thirst for knowledge? You end up going back home to the internet to read up on reviews on sites such as Amazon - because other buyers have got a clearer understanding on what your questions as a buyer might be.
When you produce the marketing material for your affiliate marketing activities, remember that you will also need to provide information on the downsides, in addition to the upsides. This will help to build trust and don't forget to ask for the sale! You've got to be savvy to be a success at affiliate marketing.
Other ways to educate your prospects are by sending them relevant and timely information when there has been a significant change in the industry. They will be able to clearly see that you are staying in the know - and that you are reliable as a source of information. You'll be seen as an expert - thus growing their opinion and respect of you.
Stay on top of the news and affairs by following others on social media and by setting Google alerts to send you emails when particular keywords are discovered by Google spiders.