How To Get the Most Out of Lead Generation Through Affiliate Marketing
One of the coolest ways to generate traffic for anything you do to make money online is to leverage an affiliate program. This is especially true if you’re operating a home-based business.
Now, although it’s completely possible earn a full-time income selling affiliate products, that’s not the focus of this post. Today I want to talk about using them as a “dangling carrot” for something else that you are building. I’m going to lay out the way that I’ve used them to attract new reps for my primary home-based business opportunity.
What is an affiliate program?
Short version: it’s a system used by individuals or companies to build a sales force to help market their products and/or services and split the profits with you.
For example, if you sign up for the Amazon.com affiliate program, they’ll pay you a commission on the sales made from individuals that you referred to their site. It’s a great way for them to gain exposure without a lot of advertising expense. Lest we forget the ability to build a list that can be marketed to for future sales.
For right now, let’s focus on the list building component of marketing affiliate products to lead in to what I want to tell you today.
You see, any time you send someone to a website and they submit their contact information to acquire (X) from that site, you just generated a targeted lead. Simple enough? Simple enough.
Every company has a primary “presentation” or sales pitch of some sort. This is positioned in front of the leads that you send the moment they hit the website. A percentage of those leads will act on the offer and thus a sale is made.
Now let’s tackle how to do this for your home-based business.
ATTENTION: THIS IS THE EXACT FORMULA YOU NEED TO USE TO GET PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOUR OPPORTUNITY USING AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM
1. Place an ad out in the marketplace for an affiliate program.
2. The prospect clicks on the ad to learn more.
3. They’re presented with the giveaway item (i.e. download, free training, etc.)
4. They’re asked to submit their contact information in order to get whatever the giveaway item is.
When they submit their information, they’re placed on an auto-responder list and the very first message they get is the welcome/congratulations video. In the welcome video, you congratulate them on downloading (or purchasing) the item. Also thank them for taking the time to do so. You’d be surprised how effective saying “thank you” can be. Then you ask if they would sit tight for just a few minutes. The reason is, in the video, you’re going to show them how to get the most out of the product they just received.
Blend the affiliate program’s benefits with a complete, yet to-the-point, presentation about your business opportunity! It’s a seamless process because you’re not marketing an affiliate program that isn’t directly relevant to your primary home-based business opportunity. It creates an amazing synergy. Plus, you specifically told them that the video would show them how to get the MOST out of their purchase.
Who doesn’t want to get the MOST out of something we spent our hard-earned money on? I know I do. I’m pretty sure you do as well. The people viewing the video are psychologically compelled to watch the entire presentation!
So here’s where the real magic happens: if they’re interested in your primary opportunity, they’ll act on it. Win! If not, you still win. How? That individual has already bought the affiliate item, which was they’re original intent. You got their contact information. Remember? Ergo, you can market your program to them in future messages!
Last week, a marketing piece I was testing out for a client yielded 29 leads. That’s 29 new presentations for their opportunity that were potentially seen in 1 day! The reason I say potentially is because not everybody opens their e-mail or follows through. But even if only 30% of them looked at the presentation that’s still 8 presentations on auto-pilot.
One marketer that I have the utmost respect for has recruited well over 500 people into his business using this method. It’s insanely effective and really quite ingenious when you think about it.
Give it a shot. If you need help or would like me to set it up for you, feel free to contact me.
To Your Massive Success,
Eric Williams
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When you are focusing on generating leads, it’s important to cover cost on advertising revenue. Covering those cost with affiliate programs is a great way to stay in profit!
Great point Brian.
Eric, very interesting site.
Thanks Donna. I try to keep my content fresh and full of value.