"...But I'm Also A Client!" Become a Better Affiliate by Buying What You Sell

Call it what you like: "Eat your own dogfood" or "Drink your own kool-aid", but the fact is, affiliates who buy what they sell have a Distinct advantage. StomperNet Faculty Dan Thies sent out an email the other day, and one particular line struck me:

"After all, the Internet is full of lying weasels making crazy claims. We all need to see the proof these days - that's just common sense."

Isn't that the truth? And isn't that a shame, too?

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest business models to get into online. It's easy to learn the basics, it's easy to get signed up, and it's easy to start making a little money right away.

But it's also very easy to abuse. One of the banes of modern online business, spam, very likely wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for affiliate marketing. (If the spammers wouldn't get paid, they'd find something else to do.)

And that works for spammers, because they don't run a real business. They don't build a customer list as an asset. They don't care if the product is terrible. They don't care if the customer gets screwed so badly they never shop online again.

And that means those affiliates have to find a continuous stream of new customers to burn. They can't ever stop, or the money stops. So what seemed "easier" at first really means a constant struggle to keep bringing in cash.

But you can actually build an affiliate-only business and still create your own loyal customer lists - people who will buy from you again and again.

The larger that list becomes, the less work it is for you to make money on demand. But it takes a little work. Because you need to earn the trust of your customers. Rather than think of yourself as a nameless link-builder, take on the role of a trusted advisor.

You want to help your audience find and buy products they will really love, so that they come back to you to see what else you might recommend.

It seems like common sense, but so many beginning affiliates forget or ignore it. Or maybe it's that they were taught by bad teachers, who were taught by bad teachers, etc.

Well if you want the ease and low overhead of an affiliate marketing business, but want the long-term value of creating a REAL referral business rather than a tinker-toy money-getting scheme, I have good news.

In Volume 1, Issue 4 of "The Net Effect" (StomperNet's monthly online business action journal), Faculty member (and expert affiliate marketer) Jerry West shared 7 tips that affiliates can use to boost their sales, even in this economy.

But I think one tip in particular can help get new affiliates off on the RIGHT foot when it comes to building a solid business that will not only SURVIVE a recession, but can actually GROW!

Why do I say that? It goes back to that "trusted advisor" role. As money becomes tighter and people spend with more and more discretion, they will need advisors to help them weed out the "noise" so they can spend their money wisely.

To become that advisor, you can't just recommend any product. You need to recommend the best products available. And as far as I know, there's only one REAL way that anyone can know that.

That also happens to be Jerry's Tip:
Buy and Use the Product!

Even if the vendor will send you a free sample, you should go ahead an actually purchase whatever it is you intend to sell. You want to go through the exact same experience your potential customers will go through.

You should already be evaluating the seller's checkout process to make sure they have good conversion practices in place, but there's no reason you should leave any of the backend a mystery. Look for anything that could lead to shopping cart abandonment, or anything that sets off any alarms for you while you're wearing your "customer hat".

If you see anything that's going to lose sales and waste the traffic you're going to try to send, reconsider this particular vendor. In the affiliate model, your job is to send traffic, and THEIR job is to convert. Don't do your job if they aren't doing the best they can at theirs.

Here are some seller evaluation tips directly from Jerry's article.
1. Record your whole shopping process.

You can do this with screen-capture software like Camtasia. That way, if anything goes wrong, you don't have to try to figure out how to explain it in email and wait for the seller's tech team to figure it out. You can just email the video, and they'll see exactly what you see.

This also is a good point - notice Jerry assumes you're in direct contact with the sellers you're promoting. While it's tempting to remain anonymous as an affiliate marketer, if you're trying to make a REAL affiliate business, you need to create relationships with the people you do business with.

Good relationships can lead to all kinds of special treatment - negotiate higher payouts, participate in exclusive promotions... you can ask for practically anything that might give you a competitive advantage over your competing affiliates.

Chances are, if you bring the traffic, they will at least try to meet your demands. But that all starts with having a relationship in the first place.

2. Do you want to buy the product?

Is the offer clear? Is the "Call to Action" compelling? Put yourself in the surfer's shoes - when you send them here, are they going to find what they're looking for and whip out that credit card to get it? And do you know exactly what you're getting? Are there any dangling questions that remain after you read the copy?

3. How is the checkout process after the "Call to Action"?

Is the customer required to create a login before purchasing? Is the seller asking for too much personal information - more than is required to complete the transaction?

If you've made it this far into the process, that means the sales copy is doing its job. But the above factors can greatly impact conversions and cause massive shopping cart abandonment.

The checkout process should be a "greased chute" and make it extremely easy for the person to pay for what they've already decided to buy.

You should even count the number of clicks it takes to complete the purchase from the time you click "Buy Now". Every click after that first one will lose people.

4. After you've bought the product, then what?

Do you get a receipt email? If it's a physical product, did you get tracking information? Are there any unanswered questions about your order? If so, does the seller make it easy to contact them? (Unless you need to though, don't contact them yet. We'll get to that once we have the product in hand.)

Immediately after a purchase, a buyer can often go into a "cooldown" phase where the excitement generated by the sales materials begins to die down. For more expensive products, this can manifest as full on "buyer's remorse".

You want to make sure your seller is doing everything they can to deliver the goods as fast as possible, and keep their new customers happy and calm in the meantime. Any "instant" deliveries promised really should be "instant".

Another "gotcha" is any time the seller requires the customer to take some additional action after the purchase in order to complete the order. This will drastically reduce conversions, because most customers won't take the additional action, they won't get what they expected, and they'll ask for their money back. So avoid sellers that have too many hoops to jump through post-sale.

5. Does the product arrive as expected?

Is it packaged well? Does it include any needed instructions? If anything is out of place, it's time to test their customer support and you can jump ahead to #6 below.

If everything's fine, you should actually use the product as directed. Does it work? Is it easy to use? Does it perform like the seller promised? After a thorough evaluation, are there ANY lingering questions remaining?

If not, don't consider yourself a satisfied customer yet. There's still another couple of things we need to do.

6. Time to test Customer Support.

Call them up. If there's an automated phone system, is it fairly fast and easy, or is it too complicated and slow? When you do get a representative, do they handle the call directly, or are you transferred around? Is the representative knowledgeable about the product? Are they friendly and helpful?

Note: Take good notes, but don't record any of these calls. That's illegal in some states, so unless you know for sure, don't.

And a tip from Jerry: Don't just inform the merchant of a terrible experience. Let them know if they did a good job, too! They almost never hear that, and you ARE trying to build a relationship with them, remember?

7. Test the guarantee and return the product.

Now, if you love it, keep it. I'm not trying to make you into a serial refunder here. The only way to really know how returns are handled is to actually complete one.

But with that being said, if your seller has done an amazing job so far on everything else, you could just test them all the way up to the point of shipping your product back. I'm sure they won't mind that you "change your mind" at the last minute and decide to keep it.

The point is to have an authentic and complete customer experience. You may be causing a slight inconvenience to the seller, but they have accounted for returns, and if they pass the test, you will more than compensate them as their affiliate, right?

So get into it. Do they stand by the terms of their guarantee? If they said "no questions asked" did they mean it? Does the representative try to talk you out of a return? If they did so, did they do a good job? Saving the sale isn't always bad.

Remember, you want the customer to have a good experience, but you also want the vendor to do everything they can to keep the customers you send them so you get paid.

If they have an RMA process, does it work well? Was the product easy to return? How long did it take to get any refunds?

Note: You may wonder why you care about how long a refund takes when this is a sale you've lost commission on. But don't forget, we're talking about building your own list of loyal buyers. Just because they've had a bad experience with one product doesn't mean they don't still trust your recommendations. A refunder on product X could very well love product Y instead.

So that's it. You've gotten the complete customer experience. Share any feedback with the seller that you care to pass on. If they seem to be working hard at succeeding, you could even go beyond recommending fixes for broken items. You might even offer suggestions for improvement. After all, there's plenty of advice you can pick up for free here, right?

If the seller is inflexible, or just hopelessly bad, it's best to move on. There are plenty of opportunities out there for affiliates, and no time to waste having to teach someone to do business online.

Nor do you want to work with companies that are non-responsive to affiliate requests. If they don't care about your concerns as their business associate, how much can they care for their customers...  Your customers?

And of course the final benefit to going through this process is what will make you a better affiliate marketer. You'll have intimate, hands-on knowledge of the product, the sales process, and the delivery process.

Your sales copy will drastically improve, your ability to overcome objections will improve, and the responsiveness of your prospects will improve, too!

And remember, most other affiliates won't go this far to learn about the product they're promoting and that gives you the distinct advantage.

When the market is tired of taking the weaselly affiliates' bad advice, they'll be looking for a trusted advisor to turn to - someone who really knows what they're talking about when it comes to the product in question.

And you'll be there, ready! And not only that, you'll only be promoting products that have made you a satisfied customer personally. Chances are, any buyers you refer will be happy too. Plus, you can rest well at night knowing that you're promoting a quality product from a quality company.

A few final tips before we wrap up today's "Cheat Sheet"...

Final Tip #1: What about launches? Sometimes as affiliates, we have the opportunity to promote products during a launch, in which case, such a hands-on evaluation is not possible. In those cases, I tend to rely on the reputation of the seller in question. In this industry at least, it's really not hard to discover how someone stands behind their products and customers.

I haven't ever promoted a launch unless I know the seller personally. Has it ALWAYS worked out? No, unfortunately. But if you want to take advantage of the profit potential of playing the launch game, that's a risk you sometimes have to take.

Final Tip #2: Keep an eye on the products and sites you're promoting. Any time they make a major change, you should re-evaluate them. Go through the whole process all over again. Major changes on the front-end can sometimes indicate major changes on the back-end, too. Make sure that any changes don't erode the customer experience, and hopefully are actually IMPROVING conversion for you.

Even if you aren't an affiliate marketer, I think there's a good bit of food for thought here for sellers. Make sure your own offer and order process create that "greased chute" effect that the SUPER affiliates are going to be looking for. So I guess that's...

Final Tip #3: If you are a seller, and you don't have an affiliate program, you're leaving money on the table. Really. Every single day. So start one already! :)

If you make your product easy to sell and provide great value for your customers, you'll have an affiliate army beating down your door in no time.

Until Next Time,
Keep Stomping!
~Andy Jenkins and the
StomperNet Faculty and Staff

P.S. Nearly all the tips and advice above are extrapolated from just one of Jerry West's "7 Steps to Boost Affiliate Sales in a Recession". That article appeared in Volume 1, Issue 4 of "The Net Effect."

That issue contains over a dozen more easy-to-follow tutorial articles by our expert online business education faculty. Even though we put out a brand new issue every single month, you can still get instant access to this back issue (or just browse the full table of contents) here by visiting here www.trcb.me/snblog

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