Affiliate Marketing Is NOT About Selling, Or Is It?

Do You Need Sales Experience To Be Successful With Affiliate Marketing?

Sales are sales, right? You absolutely detest salespeople in the ‘real world’ and you certainly NEVER wanted to have a career in sales, either. But now, here you are, trying to cut it in affiliate marketing online and you’re probably screwed because you don’t like sales… and you don’t know a thing about it, either. If you can’t SELL something, how in the WORLD can you ever succeed in affiliate marketing?!?!? You’re not making much money in commissions (if any), so your lack of sales training and sales skills MUST be the problem, right?

WRONG!

Yup, WRONG! Affiliate marketing is NOT about selling. It’s not. Argue with me all you want to, but it’s just not. Affiliate marketing IS about recommending, and at worst, referring. Affiliate marketing IS about getting a reader into the right state of mind TO BE sold to next….and getting them to the next site where the actual selling takes place.

Let the vendor SELL… it’s not your job.

No Sales Experience = No Sales?

Yes… and No. (How’s THAT for a definite answer? )

If you’re trying to sell and you don’t know how to sell, then yes, your lack of sales experience may be getting in your way of commissions. Why? Because of that angel/devil on our shoulder thing.

I can remember my early days of “trying to sell stuff online” – and that is exactly what I was TRYING to do… trying to sell stuff. Any stuff, I didn’t care….just sell in hopes of a sale. However, my nature is to help people and explain things to such an extent that I could bore MYSELF (‘brevity’ is NOT my middle name….haha!)

What I ended up being was a contradiction in my marketing efforts. I had the little angel on my one shoulder softly whispering, “Just help them….. ” and that little marketing devil on the other shoulder screaming, “SELL!! SELL!!! SELL!!!!”

Ugh!

I remember the feeling as I was typing along…

The “angel” would start out with something like –

“Buying widgets can be a confusing process. I have found that researching the benefits of each widget weighed as heavily as the cost of the widget itself. When searching on the internet for information, make sure to look for weight, optional accessories, and warranty availability…”

Starting off ok, right?

Then, here comes the marketing devil, and that above paragraph would become –

“Buying widgets can be a confusing process. I have found that researching the benefits of each widget weighed as heavily as the cost of the widget itself. When searching on the internet for information, make sure to look for weight, optional accessories, and warranty availability. ::enter marketing devil::: The best widgets in the WORLD for the lowest price EVER can be found here. CLICK HERE NOW!“

OMG! Did I really do that? Yes, yes I did. And there just might be a few of you who are reading this nodding your head.

What IS it with that marketing devil that turns us into a late night infomercial???

I’ve learned that in order to sell more…. you sell less. In My recent post about fear-based marketing, I talked about how you can lose 90% of your readers by only trying to SELL. That leaves you maybe 5-10% of all that hard-earned traffic that might click thru to see what you’re YELLING at them to CLICK NOW! You just made your marketing efforts that much harder, didn’t you?

I know I’ve done it. Show of hands? Anyone else want to speak up? =)

When you learn to quiet the marketing devil, you will actually start to sell more. I know it sounds contradictory, but you will start to see more commissions when you leave the selling part up to the sales page.

Oddly, it’s called a sales page, isn’t it? Clickbank calls it a pitch page. Hmmmm…could that be because it is a form of a sales pitch? =)

Things I’ve Learned By Being A Clickbank Vendor

In ALLLLLLL my experience being a Clickbank publisher and having affiliates of my own…. (ok, the whole past 10 days)… I have witnessed some very interesting and eye-opening things about affiliate marketing and Clickbank.

It has been nothing short of an enlightening experience as I watch my stats, see what folks are clicking thru from…see who opts in…who busts out of there…who buys. Watching this grow has been amazing.

By being a product owner, I will become a much better affiliate. MUCH better.

Here’s the thing. I’ve gotten a boat load of AMAZING emails and messages about One Week Marketing. So many people just let their natural writing show when sending a simple email, and they express to me very clearly exactly how OWM helped them.

These emails are works of ART! If I was reading that on a web page, you bet I’d be clicking thru so fast to see what this whole One Week Marketing thing was about!

Here’s the “secret” – I already had a problem and then I was put in the right frame of mind to receive a solution to my problem. And I’m telling you, affiliates of OWM that are putting their readers in the “right state of mind” with genuine info and genuine feedback of OWM are making sales. Some are converting at 1:6 and 1:10. The average for “all time” for all affiliates is a conversion rate of 1:16. That means for every 16 people they get to click thru, one buys! That is really good. But the ones that are seeing 1:16 or better are the ones who a) talk about a problem and then recommend a solution that helped them, and b) are getting targeted eyeballs on their web page.

They are attracting folks that are struggling to learn how to make money online with affiliate marketing, telling them what really helped them tackle that hurdle, and recommending OWM.

They aren’t selling OWM. *I* do the “selling”.

And boy oh boy, the ones that have actually bought OWM and read it….they are really kickin’ it!

Now, before y’all go all hatin’ on me and sending me emails thinking I am talking about any ONE in particular…. I’m not.

I have a point… it’s just taking me a long time to get to it. 🙂

When Promoting A Product For Affiliate Commissions…

Take the time to research and see what the product is about. Find a little out about the author or company or something, too. I actually see some OWM campaigns out there that have my first name wrong! Please, one quick scan of the OWM page and you can find out what my name is very quickly….lol !!!

Take the time to really think about WHO would want this product. Who would your product help? What benefits would interest them?

Then, target that market with optimized and relevant content that helps the reader. Don’t be afraid to give.

That little marketing devil can just get over it!