When It Comes to Affiliate Marketing, Are You C.I.A?
By Rebecca Taylor
As an affiliate marketer, you often work behind the scenes. Think about that. You are not always directly promoting your affiliate products. Many times, you are disseminating information on topics related to your affiliate products. Hence, you need to know, are you C.I.A?
However, there’’s no cloak and dagger here. What we mean is, are you Controlling Information Appropriately to further your business? As an affiliate marketer, you”re in the information business. You need to get out the right information through the proper channels. The following are five ways to be C.I.A in affiliate marketing. Employing these methods will help you build links to where you can sell your prospects.
Article Writing To The World
A great way to build traffic to your website is through article writing. With article writing as part of an article marketing program you control the topics you write about. Of course, these topics will relate directly to what you are selling. These articles will give useful information to your target audience establishing you as an authority.
What happens next? What happens is that your readers will tend to investigate a topic further. The easiest way for them to do so is to link back to the originator of the article. That’’s you, and by association, your website. If readers of your articles believe you are a credible information provider they will likely believe you are a credible marketer too.
Blogging to Build Relationships
A blog is your chance for two-way communication with your target market daily. You can post information on a blog that you pre-write just as you do with your articles. However, you can also quickly input off the cuff content as you see fit. That means you can update a blog multiple times a day, quickly.
Each posting gives your audience a chance to respond as well. This two-way communication or dialog builds a rapport between you and your niche. They learn to trust you as an information provider, provided the information is useful. Use your blog to keep your audience informed, and watch traffic to your website grow.
E-Mails That Inform
If you have built a list of contacts, you no doubt engage in e-mail campaigns. Are they effective? Are you getting the response you want from these campaigns? If not, it may be the information in your e-mails is not really information at all. It may be a rehash of your product advertisements.
Those who opt-in to receive e-mails from you do not want you sending them commercials. They can turn on their TV for that. They want you to send them quality information that helps them make buying decisions.
Sales hype that does not answer their questions or impart new information to them wastes their time. Make sure your e-mail content is of the same quality as your article writing efforts. Write to inform, not to sell.
Press Releases Par Excellence
Yes, the same goes for your press releases. You should use the media to spread the word about your products or services. Just make sure a press release has vital information in it. Again, is a rehash of your basic advertising newsworthy? It isn”t and therefore don”t do it.
Make your press releases information pieces that speak matter-of-factly to your audience. Use a press release to give new information about your enterprise, product, or service. This would be the launch of a new product or service. It may be an announcement concerning product updates. It may also be an announcement educating consumers on new studies related to your product. This is what is newsworthy and gives value to your target market.
Web Pages That Wow
We”re not talking visuals here, although that’’s good too. We”re talking about content that wows. You want information on each of your web pages that enlightens. You want your audience thinking, “Wow, I never knew this product was good for such and such, what great information!”
Let your advertising spark interest that leads to further investigation. Let your web pages be the culmination of that investigating. Those pages have to be rich with information. Those pages must give the details about your business, products, and services. No generalities here, in depth information is the order of the day.
The information you impart to support your affiliate products is essential to your business. Be a Bond, not James, but a Conduit between your customers and your products via your information. Control Information Appropriately and grow your affiliate business effectively.
About The Author
Rebecca Taylor is a coach for the Affiliate Program at Article Marketer. She assists and coaches Article Marketer affiliates. Are you an Article Marketer Affiliate?
