Preselling for profit
The number one strategy to increase your affiliate sales is preselling.
First, what is preselling? Well, it is an art. And it’s also a science. It’s a process of taking your reader and getting them ready to buy. Then when they’re ready, refer them to the product website so they can buy it. When done correctly, your reader will not even notice.
The issue is that you give your reader some useful information. And then refer them to the product website. In a second we’ll talk about how to do actually it. But before we do, you need to know why it’s so important. Some major benefits of this process:
- It builds trust – Readers who trust you are more likely to click your links. And the more clicks you get the more sales you’ll make.
- It takes your reader out of defense mode – When you’re not hyping or pitching a product, your reader lets their guard down. And in turn they read to understand what you’re saying. So your content get absorbed.
- It creates buying readiness – Your readers are now receiving your message. And in turn, they’re open to other messages, as well. For example, the sales message on the page you’re linking to. Sending them to the sales page in this state makes them more receptive to the actual pitch.
- It increases your sales – Now your reader arrives at the sales page in a buying mood. With the guard down and trusting your recommendation. This dramatically boosts your sales rate!
- It increases customer satisfaction – Plus, they feel they’ve made the buying decision on their own. Instead of being manipulated into buying. So they are happier with their purchase.
- Preselling increases your bottom line – Happy customers ask for refunds much less often. Which means you keep more of your affiliate commissions.
Obviously, it’s important to presell. You increase your profits. And produce happier customers. Everybody wins!
Now, here’s how preselling works:
You’ve learned the importance of preselling. And hopefully you’re convinced you need to start doing it. So, it’s time to break down how it works. Like we talked about before, it’s an art. And it’s a science.
Becoming an artist
First, you have to gain the trust of your reader, so they let their guard down. This can only be accomplished by providing actual value in the information you’re presenting. The art of this is to provide enough information to be of value, but not enough to satiate the hunger. The idea is that they want more and the sales page you send them to gives them more. Plus they’re not guarded, so they’re more open and likely to purchase the product.
The science component
There’s also a specific formula you need to follow.
The first is how you present the information. You need to know where you’re going before you begin. Your end goal is to make a sale of the product you’re preselling. There are two ways to accomplish this with great content. One way is to give them enough info to whet the appetite, but not enough to satisfy it. The other method is to explain all the details and expose how difficult it is to do what you’re explaining. Whichever method, you send them to a product website that solves the problem you just created.
Next, you have to use “convert linking” methods. Instead you link directly to the product sales page. This increases your clicks. But how will you earn affiliate commissions if you don’t use your affiliate link? Well, that’s part of the science of this whole process. You use an image tag to cookie your reader before they leave your site.
You also want to link to the sales page from inside your article’s content. It’s habitual to click on words and phrases that are hyperlinked. And when the words are in context like this, it makes perfect sense for your reader to click them.
Putting all of this together creates a powerful affiliate marketing formula for success.
OK, here’s the not-so-good news:
Doing all of this right is really hard! Let’s look at the skills required to pull it off: Awesome content. The entire process depends on your being able to provide useful information to your readers. To do that you have to have enough information to be valuable and be able to present it in a useful way. Preselling skills. Yes, you must providing useful content. You also have to present the info in a way that provides real value. While at the same time making them want more. Or make the information so overwhelming they realize they can’t do it on their own.
Choosing your products. You also need to determine what products you’ll be preselling. If you can manage to get the article written well. Your efforts are completely wasted if you don’t pick a winning product.
Technical skills. And finally, you need the technical know-how to embed your image tag and make sure you get credit for the sale. This is fairly simple – you use a 1 X 1 image and set the “source” to your affiliate link. (Just don’t mess it up. Otherwise, you won’t get credit for your sales.)
Summary:
Now you’re armed with the information needed to effectively presell. And doing this increases your affiliate commissions by over 500%! It’s absolutely critical to do this every time – and to do it correctly. Take action now. Put in the effort to reap the greater rewards.
Incredibly… My partner and i could not have said that better personally!
I was orignally Googling for information on what to plant in my garden. I do not know why but Bing pulled up your post. And I really found it might be worth reading. So I decided to read it. I’m glad I did because I can safely say I came away with an interesting read.
Nice article.