The $6.5 Billion Marketplace
When you watch a football game on TV, you can easily see
how games are won or lost in the battle that takes place on the line of
scrimmage. Offensive plays are designed to protect the quarterback and/or to
open up holes in the defense so that yardage can be gained. Defensive plays are designed to sack the quarterback or
close holes that would allow yardage to be gained. Quarterbacks and coaches get
the credit for wins and blame for losses the battle is
won or lost in the trenches. Affiliate marketing is a lot like a football game
just without the bruises and sore muscles. An affiliate marketer must design
offensive plays and defensive plays that will put him in a position to win the
affiliate wars. When you are one of many marketers who are trying to sell the
very same product to the same consumers, you had better have a plan to get at
least your fair share of the market or more. Every niche market on the Internet
is highly competitive. If it isn’t competitive then there can’t possibly be
much of a customer base to sell to. That is just the nature of all Internet
marketing and in every niche.
Maybe you do have a long and impressive list of paid customers. That’s
great! It means you have already won several of the affiliate marketing
contests and come out on top. The problem is there are always those up and
coming marketers who want your customers on their lists. Your list and your
competitor’s lists may well contain many of the same names and email addresses.
Just having a list will not be enough to assure you of a victory when selling
an affiliate product. You have to design some offensive plays that will assure
that your customers buy from you and not from your competitors.
So, you ask, what is it that I can do that will assure that my
customers will buy from me? The answer is just one word... unique! You have to be unique. You have to offer something that sets you
completely apart from your competitors. You have to make your offer for a
product or service for which you are an affiliate more attractive to buy from
you than it is to buy from your competitors. If you simply send out a marketing
email advertising a product or service that you are an affiliate marketer for,
you need to remember that there are dozens or maybe even hundreds of other
marketers who are sending out marketing email advertising the exact same
product or service and many of them are sending them to the same people that
you are. You have to do something to make sure that your customers buy from
you...you have to be unique. There are several ways to achieve uniqueness. One
way is to have established yourself as an expert in the field for which the
product or service is being sold.
You have to have become not only visible but credible, as well. This
visibility
and credibility is not easily achieved. It takes a lot of hard work,
time and effort. Visibility and credibility are established by taking such measures as writing and marketing
articles and E-Books, posting to blogs and forums, appearing as an expert on
teleseminars and webinars, etc. The fact is that when people know you and trust
you, they buy from you. They will buy from you even if your competitors are
offering a better deal or more incentives.
People
do not like to buy from strangers. The Internet
is a big impersonal and even frightening place to many consumers. They want to
feel like they know and trust the people that they buy products and services
from. The time, effort and energy that you put into becoming visible and
credible will be the
best time, effort and energy investment that you will ever make.
Reputation is everything in the world of Internet marketing. Credibility makes
you unique. Another very important thing that you can do to insure that your
customers buy a product or service for which you are an affiliate marketer and
not from one of your competitors is to give them a very good and compelling
reason to make the purchase from you. Offer something extra or a lot of
different extras that will enhance the value of the product that you are
marketing. No matter what the niche or what the product is that is being
marketed, there are free gifts that you can find that will make the product a
better value if it is purchased from you.
For example if you are marketing an E-Book about Internet marketing,
you could add several additional free E-Books concerning different aspects of
the
broad subject of Internet marketing. E-Books can be downloaded from
PLR sites or even from E-Book banks and repositories. Another free gift that
people can’t ever seem to get enough of is free utilities. There are many on
the Internet and you can bet that there are some that will fit right in with
whatever product or service that you are promoting. While other marketers who
are selling the very same product that you are, simply send out marketing
emails that recommend the product to their lists, whereas you will be adding
value to the product and doing it for free to boot.
Add
extras! Add free gifts! Even better than extras
and free gifts is additional help to use the product or service that is being
sold. You can offer a free teleseminar for those who buy the product or service
from you that will make the product or service better or easier to use. You can
most likely even get the producer or the product or service to speak at your
event if you plan far enough ahead. People just love teleseminars and they love
freebies, when you add a teleseminar and free bonus together, you will have a
winning play that might just score the proverbial touchdown for you.
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