e2′s last blog post: I will Read You

You are right, the only bulletproof way is to test, test, test and find what works best for you. It’s the journey, Man! :)

I think that the affiliate marketer have to pre-sell, not to be like a retailer. Why? You have to presell, because:

* If you try to sell (writing sales letters, pushing sales, etc.) when you send your visitor to the merchant’s site, he/she will find another sales efforts and could be bored and pissed of so much selling.

* If you give the customer the information he/she needs to make a purchase-oriented decision – that’s all you need to do. The rest will be done by the merchant’s sales page/site.

* If you do not try to sell to customer he/she will feel you as a friend, a co-buyer who shares his experience with him/her about the product. This creates trust.

But how to presell?

* Write your review for the product – be honest with your opinion (not sales-oriented one, but positive – you want them to buy this product).

* Give tertimonials and ratings.

* Give tables of content.

* Give graphical information – pictures of the product.

* Give them a friendly advices.

* Do not try to get them excited dirtectly but show them your excitement of the product and let them follow you. You want them to desire the product, to think that they “need” it.

* Call for action – gently make them to go to the merchant’s site for “more information” with intention to make them buy the product through your affiliate link.

The affiliate is not a retailer, because

* He does not sell, he just passes customers to the seller.

* He is more like a referrer, a trusted one, than like a retailer.

* The affiliate is like a consultant whom visitor could trust. If he/she feels that you trying to sell him/her something the trust is going to dissapear.

* You are right – part of the work of an affiliate is to be a reviewer of the product. But the blog is not the store, it is the “consulting center”, the “review point” from which pre-selled visitors are boing referred to the seller’s site.

So, I think that an affiliate who tries to be a retailer (which is – in fact – being a seller) will be less successfull than an affiliate who tries to be a trusted consultant.

Landing pages

Landing pages are your presell tool. They should inform the visitor, create trust in you and help him/her to make the RIGHT decision – to go to merchant’s site ana make the purchase. :-). Also landing pages are used as entry points for your PPC campaigns. This is the way to be more relevant and get targeted traffic.

Yes, you are right that people who don’t know you are not going to buy because of you. They will buy because of the relevant information you present to them on the landing page. I have bought “because of you” because I am one of the readers of your blog. But this is a different source of buying visitors than these that come from PPC campaigns.

The Ads

Concerning ads. I hate ads (I have two of them at my sidebar, though :)), most users hate them and do not trust them. Some researches show that visitors don’t even see the banner ads – this is known as “banner blindness”. The more efficient way to direct visitors to some decisions is to advice them, inform them and give them links to click! :) Do you know the saying “Banners are ignored, links are clicked”?

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I hope I gave you good and helpful answers. If I can help you with more information and co-operation, just drop me an e-mail and I will try to write my best. :-)

Note: These comments are representing just my opinion on the topic. I do not claim that they are the only truth. But from my experience and knowledge, I think that this is the better way to successful affiliate marketing.

William Profet’s last blog post: The Ultimate Guide to Installing WordPress 2.5

@William: Thanks for the advice, I’ll have to try to improve my landing pages – trying different versions sounds like a good idea! After all, I guess the only way to learn this stuff is by trying tons of different things and then keeping what works.

Then to the question I said I’d have to ask you. In your comment, you wrote: “Do not try to sell your visitors, but do PRE-sell. As an affilaite you are not the seller, you are the referrer.”

I’ve read that from some other sources as well, but still I have a hard time deciding what an affiliate marketer is supposed to be.

In this post, I took the side of thinking of an affiliate as a retailer who describes the product, does his best to explain the benefit and then sells it to the user. That was also some of the idea behind the store.

But then there is the other side, which is that the affiliate is a reviewer of products. And that the blog is the store – as you suggest in your comment.

Do you think that the idea of an affiliate as a retailer makes any sense? If not, what’s the role of separate landing pages and buying ads? After all, the people who come to my landing page from an online ad don’t know me, so how can they buy from me because of me?

And if the landing pages are a part of the blog, what’s the goal of the ads? To get people buy the specific producs, or to get more readers who will, in the end, buy something?

Enjoy,

Barbara

Barbara Ling’s last blog post: Make money by stop leaving money on the table

@Terence: Good that you are sharing the information so I know not to go hire marketing companies ;)

I added the all-in-one SEO pack plugin last night and created first versions of the meta tags… But I’m sure I’ll still have to tweak the keywords a lot – and start adding them to my blog as well.

@Nick: I love your idea (2) of adding banner ads at the end of each post. I have been quite afraid of adding ads to my blog so that it wouldn’t feel too much like selling. After all, people don’t come here to buy, but to read my blog posts.

But I’m sure there is still room for more ads on this blog… Or not really ads, but affiliate products that I’m proud to promote, like your book.

And my own product… I’m working on a few projects – and should be able to get the first one out in a short while.

@Others: I’m running out of time now, but I’ll get back to respond to your comments later today. (William, I have lots of questions for you.)

I don’t think that a single landing page for a whole retail store will help a lot. Marketing separate products with landing pages is quite different than promoting a whole store. :)

I think you can structure your marketing in three layers here:

1. Promote the store – you can make it through a blog or a complex of marketing strategies. The best case scenario is if you have a content providing website in front and use this site to presell the products of the store.

2. Run the store – make the this store the best store ever – organize products very well, make a good web-site design, put great pictures, make it easy to order and pay.

3. Landing pages for each product – make each product description a mini-landing page: use emotions, testimonials, nice pictures and strong calls to action (buying calls). :)

That’s what I can tell without knowing anything about your store. If you tell me more about your idea I could give you more specific ideas.

Cheers,
William

William Profet’s last blog post: The Ultimate Guide to Installing WordPress 2.5

Thank @Nick and @William both.

Can all of you give me some suggestions about landing page for online retail store?

I am always wondering how an one page landing page work for retail store, which is selling multiple products. Any suggestion are welcome.

Thanks!

Terence Chang’s last blog post: Entrecard – Should it stay or should it go?

Thank you for mentioning my book and for the good words about it.

Also I think this post is a part of a great series of money-making case-study articles. I like it very much and I would like to share some ideas and thoughts that came to me while reading:

* Your store is great, it has cute design and it is very well organized and structured.

* Pay-per-click is a hard-to-win business, especially on the competitive keyword-fields. I think that you have a few points to put the pressure and improve performance:

– Your ads: make them interesting, compelling, inspiring, curious. The headlines have to catch the attention and the body text must have a strong call to action.

– Your bidding strategy: some PPC-masters recommend to make a lot of different ads (even an ad per keyword/key-phrase) and make them ultra-relevant. This will lift your quality score and you will get feedback about the performance of every ad-keyword pair.

– Your landing pages: add more juice in these landing pages. Put testimonials in there. Add some fun. Add a 3D visualization of the books/products – people like to see what they are buying. Try to make several landing pages for each product, rewrite them and make a split testing.

* Do not try to sell your visitors, but do PRE-sell. As an affilaite you are not the seller, you are the referrer. So you are not supposed to sell things, but to review, present and discuss products. Then – refer the visitor to buy the product if he/she is interested of it. If you establish trust and some kind of a relationship with your visitor he/she is going to buy more through your links. (Example: As I am one of your fans, I’ve bought two of the books you present throught your affiliate links. I make these purchases BECAUSE OF YOU, because you recommended these products.)

* Although your store is very nice, I don’t think you even need such kind of site. Just use this blog, prepare separate landing pages and recommend the products in your posts, links, banners… Your loyal visitors will do the rest.

I am sorry for the long comment text if it was boring. These were just my ideas popping-up while I was reading your post.

Good luck!
William

William Profet’s last blog post: The Ultimate Guide to Installing WordPress 2.5

There is an art to writing AdWords ads. When I launched Todoodlist, I ran an AdWords campaign that generated roughly a 2% click-through ratio. I hired a copywriter with a talent for sales copy, and the CTR more than doubled overnight.

It’s all about benefits. You have to pack in the actual benefits of whatever product you’re selling in as few words as possible and condition people to take action. If you’re going to continue playing with AdWords, I’d recommend you do some research on how to write great ads or pay someone to write them for you (not that your example was bad, but I know from experience that a benefit-rich ad would convert better).

Some other things worth considering:

1) I’ve found banner ads on well-chosen, related sites to be more effective than AdWords in certain cases, particularly when dealing with niche products with a fairly narrow appeal or at products aimed at the particulalry computer savvy crowd (who tend not to click on search ads as much)

2) I also recommend (relatively) discrete banner ads at the foot of pages before the comments section to reinforce whatever message or sales drive you have higher up. It’s a natural place where readers stop to take action, and it converts pretty well. I spent 3 months experimenting with placement, and ads in each post footer really work for me. The famous statistic is that viewers have to see your ad seven times before taking action. It’s why smart companies run campaigns across many forms of media. Online, that translates to ads on multiple related sites, or in multiple areas on the same site.

3) Consider creating your own product. This was the clincher for me. I didn’t write Todoodlist to get rich (although it’s doing well), but the natural act of switching my tact from affiliate sales to writing a book on a subject I’m passionate about after I’d built a big enough audience has been a great experience in itself, both financially and in other ways. It’s created opportunities I’d never have had through affiliate sales alone.

4) Never knowingly oversell. Your blog is both beautiful and informative. I think you’ve got the balance of information and sales about right. Be careful not to get too sales-orientated. It’s a fine balance and a tough one — keep playing, testing, entertaining and doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine!

Take care, thanks for your support, and very best of luck.

Nick Cernis’s last blog post: Put Things Off Relaunches With Bigger Kitten!