Winning Affiliate Strategy
If you earn money as an affiliate, you’ve probably heard all kinds of strategies about how to earn more commissions such as adding your own bonuses, providing more content, writing reviews, etc. They’re all great strategies. Today I want to examine another model.
Surf on over to Ben Settle’s Copywriting Grab Bag.
Spend some time looking around his blog.
What do you see? You see a lot of the normal blog elements. You also see quite a few blog posts that are audio interviews Ben has done.
The is a link in his navigation on the right that says, “Copywriting & Marketing Interviews.” All the links under that section take you to posts where he has interviews you can download and listen to.
Spend some time listening to a few of the interviews. Ben really does a good job in getting the experts he interviews to share good content to help you in your business, but is Ben doing all these interviews simply because he’s such a great guy?
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve spoken to Ben over the phone, we’ve interviewed each other, and I’ve corresponded with him by email. He is a great guy, but he doesn’t post all those interviews simply because he has nothing to do (he is a very busy copywriter).
Those interviews are his affiliate strategy.
Ben has his interviewee share good information throughout their time together. Then at the end Ben makes you an offer on their product where he receives an affiliate commission.
Ben calls these audio infomercials.
Here it is in Ben’s own words from the interview I did with him.
Yeah. An audio infomercial is really just an audio sales letter. I have a friend who really taught me this skill whose name is Michael Senoff, and he calls it copy talking instead of copywriting. It’s the exact same thing. All you’re doing is taking a sales letter and putting it into the human voice.
There are some differences obviously and I’ll give you an example. In a good sales letter you’ll do a lot of demonstrating of your knowledge and maybe even give some tips away and that sort of thing.
In an audio infomercial, for the most part — and I’m applying this to selling informational products, this could change depending on what you are selling — there’s a lot of demonstration and you’re just giving away a lot of good tips.
You’re trying to be free with your knowledge. You’re not holding anything back. You’re just telling people really good things that they don’t already know, building trust, not being pushy, and if you do it right you’ll find that you really do get a lot of response to it.
In fact, I sell a lot of different affiliate products. I’m not always the highest selling affiliate as a lot of this depends on the market and what they want. I find that when I use audio to sell affiliate products I often get a significantly higher response than even some more well-known and bigger name people selling the same product. It’s all because of the audio interview.
That’s the only difference that I’m doing. In many cases they weren’t even that good of audio interview. It’s just that, and this is another reason you might want to consider doing this, is because a lot of people don’t like to read.
I think the statistic is — I’ve heard this number bandied about by different people — but about 42% of college graduates who have had to do a lot of reading just to graduate college, never read another book after they graduate because it’s very hard for most people to read.
People like me who like to read are really freaks of nature in some way. Most people just don’t like doing it. A lot of people in the internet marketing world like to read. A lot of people that are in business tend to like to read, but most people don’t. Most people would rather watch a video or listen to an audio or something.
Ken McCarthy actually told me this once. He knows because he studies neurology and things like that. He told me that a lot of neurologists still can’t figure out how human beings can communicate through the written word. It’s a big mystery to even the neurologists.
When you give somebody a sales presentation via audio and you wrap it up in a way where you’re actually giving away good information, then you’re selling without selling so to speak. You’re not being pushy and you’re just giving a good offer at the end so a lot of times people will want to buy from you over and above anyone else if it’s done right.
When asked for an example of his affiliate technique, here is what he shared with me:
Yes. I’ll give you an example. There’s a guy named John Anghelache and he sells a course on how to use a swipe file. I’m a good friend of his and so it was no problem getting him to do an interview.
He had a lot of people selling that product. He had everyone from Bob Bly to Jim Straw and different marketers selling that course at one time.
My list is significantly smaller than a lot of these people’s lists, especially then, which was last summer. The only thing I did differently — while all of those guys were just plugging the affiliate link and making it an affiliate link — I said, “John will you let me interview you about your techniques?”
He said, “Yeah, no problem.”
So I sat down with him, I interviewed him, and he gave me a lot of good information on how he uses a swipe file — how to properly use it, how to use it in a way where you’re not breaking the law and you’re doing everything right.
At the end he gave a pitch for his course. At the end of that pitch for the course I edited in my own voice saying, “And if you buy it from this link (and I actually bought my own unique URL for it) I will give you XYZ exclusive bonuses that you can’t get anywhere else. Just email me your ClickBank receipt.”
With ClickBank, I can’t figure out another way to make this automated. So they just email me the receipt and last I checked I was his highest selling affiliate. This has been the case with a couple of other products I sell, too. To me it’s almost a must if you’re going to do affiliate marketing, if you really want to stand out from all the other affiliates.
Basics of the Strategy
Remember that one of the best ways to learn the strategy is by examining the model as someone else is really using it. So go over to his site, download a few audios or PDF transcripts, and look at how he does the interviews for his affiliate commissions.
If you’d like the full interview, it is now part of Ultimate Product Solution Interview Kit I did with Fred Gleeck which you can find out more about by clicking here…
- Interviews and Teleconferences
- 2 Day Special Coupon
- How to Record Interviews
- 5 Keys to Making Money With Affiliate Programs
- Two Products In Two Days
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Great post and right on the money.
May I add that interviews also connect you to the seller in a way that is almost like hearing a friend or mentor in person. I buy more stuff based on audio interviews than any other technique. Audio is king in my world as I can play them when I am driving, waiting for an appointment or even relaxing looking at the lake from my front lawn.
On the other hand – put up a video to sell your product and I will NEVER see it (unless you put up a transcript or audio only version as well).
By making a video the only way of communicating your launch or product you are forcing busy entrepreneurs to sit in front of their computers and stare at a screen. Sorry I do enough of that running my business.
Maybe I am a huge exception – but I have missed most of the recent launches because when I see that page with nothing but a video – I am outta here.
On the other hand when Terry offered his internet retirement system I bought right away. No videos got in the way of the sale. BTW: The audios alone in that course are worth more than the price – I listen to them regularly on the road.
I got productive things that need to be done – I have a book with a message that can change folks entire world that needs to be promoted – and staring at a sales video for 20 minutes is a waste of valuable time I can use to build sales of my book.
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What is “good information”?
Each reader wants to decide this for themselves. Even within the context of a single page, web surfers are typically scrolling around, grabbing bits of info from here and there.
Audio and video are really neat, but they put a lot of pressure on the producer. You had best be delivering something truly compelling nearly constantly in these media, or those scroll bar habits take over, and the viewer is lost somewhere in the middle.
Very short and small videos sprinkled throughout a presentation, designed to make and keep a personal connection, seems like a good use of audio and video.
Wonderful! Brilliant!
Another new way to out stand the normal affiliates.
Thanks for sharing this useful article, Terry.
Having a strategy like this where you interview product owners and give great content to your subscribers definitely makes you stand out from other affiliate marketers.
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