Chapter 7 Affiliate Marketing

Chapter 7, Affiliate Marketing

"Every Online Step.com Training Course"

As an affiliate marketer you really need to know what you’re doing, where you’re going, what to expect, how to handle and how to find and enroll prospects. Wow, sounds like a huge task right? It’s not if you have and use the right tools, the right training and take action daily.

What tools do you need? Instant messengers – doesn’t matter which one or two you choose – just make sure they're a major part of your marketing strategy. E-mail is critical. A well-written e-mail can work wonders in person-to-person prospecting. Use phone marketing even if you don’t fancy it all that much. One quick call a team member inviting them to a training session says lots about your commitment and leadership qualities.
So long as you use relationship marketing properly, it will guarantee you enroll loyal team members, and keep them. They will then duplicate your efforts.   Article marketing is smart marketing. YOU provide articles you've written to other Web sites, blogs and eZines for free. This sets you up as an expert, gives you leads, increased site traffic to your web site(if you don't have one of your own, chances are the company you are an affiliate for will have one) and improved search engine rankings.

Blogging and SEO (search engine optimization) are two other tools. Blogging provides an arena to combine text, images, links to other blogs, and web pages. About what? About your business, product/service.   You can post updates on what you are doing, what new additions there have been to your product/services, any specials/sales and even product photos.   SEO here means understanding what human visitors might search for, and to help match those visitors with sites offering what they want to find. To use any of these marketing tools successfully, it’s important to work with the right people. People who can help you build your business, and that means recruiting.

Everyone knows you need to recruit for your downline, to make your online business a success, to ensure a good income. The term good, qualified, or partner wasn’t mentioned. That's because the prevailing "recruit anything with a pulse" philosophy only fulfills the need for warm bodies. Bad move for your online business success. Why?

If you don’t take time to properly qualify your prospects, you can expect a) that they perform badly b) drop out quickly c) don't perform at all or d) cost you business by giving you a bad name and reputation. Spending time qualifying the people you are going to work with is worth its weight in gold. It takes some extra time, but you can’t afford NOT to do this.

If your business relies on cold calls, referrals, instant messenger communications, and e-mails, etc. you will know the importance of properly qualifying prospects. You learn about your prospect and their needs through your interactions with them and determine how your product can meet their needs.

What’s a qualified prospect?

A qualified prospect is a person (or business) who needs or desires your product because it satisfies a need or solves some problem they have. How can your prospect know if what you’re offering is going to help them since they’ve never heard of you or your product?   Easy – because you’ve done your homework prior to contacting them and know your product/service will enhance their business.

Homework in hand, you start getting to know the prospect otherwise known as relationship marketing. Over time talking to them, you’ll get a clear picture of whom you are dealing with and you’ll know if you want to work with them as a member of your team. Remember: your product/service/business is YOUR business and you don’t want just anyone to help you build it.

Some will let you know right away they aren’t interested. Some will call you names. Some will laugh at you. Some will rule themselves out with their questions. Like: How hard do I have to work to make any money? How fast can I make money? Right then you know your business isn’t for them because they will not work to make IT work for them or for you.
Don't waste countless hours of your time trying to convince people to work with you. They either want to because they recognize the value of the opportunity, or they don’t. They either want to succeed, or they don’t. There isn’t anything in-between. They either want to take action, or they don’t. They either want to build a business or they don’t. YOU need to figure this out by qualifying them. Once you’ve done that, look out, your business will grow rapidly.

Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing is putting the "CUSTOM" back in customer. This seems to be a radical idea in most marketing circles these days. The focus appears to be on attracting customers rather than training and supporting them so you keep them. This is also called offensive marketing. Things are beginning to change slowly, but not fast enough and if you want to keep your customers, then check it out and implement it. It will make you money.

Relationship marketing evolved from direct response marketing in the 1960’s, emerging in the 80’s to become a system that emphasizes the building of long term (relationship) customers rather than on single transactions. This marketing philosophy, called your customers "life cycle" offers a range of products/services, as people actually need them.

Why would focusing on your existing people be more profitable? If you’re constantly spending money and resources to land new team members, your profitability suffers. You aren’t building a loyal base of people who stay with you time and time again. Called "churn", these people won’t come back to you. Another term for attempting to keep people and increase their loyalty is also called "defensive marketing". Those who have already opened their wallets are the key to continued profitability and long-term residual income.

You can also view your customer lifetime value as a long-term asset. And what do you do with assets? You value them and treat them accordingly. You keep your customer assets happy so they wind up being loyal. Loyalty is worth money to your business, since the cost of keeping an existing customer is only about 10 per cent of the cost of getting a new one. Pay attention to your present customers.

The customer lifecycle!

Not everyone is the same when they come to you for a product, service or opportunity. They all need something specifically for THEM. If you're marketing online, first start communication and build a relationship with people. The methods are endless, such as: email, instant messaging, community forums, blogging and websites. Your objective is to show them what you have to offer and getting them to your website. That takes work. Once they’re there, get their e-mail address by giving something away right on the spot. The instant reward will keep them interested.

Provide meaningful quality information and credibility. This will often translate into program registrations. THIS is the beginning of your relationship, NOT the end. This is where you start your long-term love affair with your customer and offer value added extras to their commitment to participate. For reinforcement, show them how to get the best value and usage out of their purchase(s). This more than anything will set you apart from your competition. This step will ensure you word-of-mouth referrals (Think team building!) and retention of people.

Last, but not least, provide your customers with the tools or feeling of being a valued member of a "community". This turns them into your biggest promoters and new team builders.

Your web site can use web-based relationship marketing, and it comes in two approaches: open content and premium content. Open content means your visitors can access everything on your site. Premium content access is limited to people who have registered their e-mail address or have bought something. Figure out what works the best for you and do not deviate from your plan.

Remember web-based relationship marketing means you are marketing person to person – not as a business to a person. The distinction makes a difference, as people will actually open your e-mails and read them as opposed to hitting the delete key because they’re sick of reading junk-mail soliciting something This does not take a lot of money nor does it involve a huge risk. It’s simply human-to-human communication, creating bonds with your existing customers, and generating referrals (Think: new customers).

Once you have a person as a customer doesn’t it make sense to keep your existing customers? Increase your loyal customer base? If you answered yes to these two questions, then relationship marketing is definitely for you. Keep your main focus on achieving loyal relationships with new and existing customers.

Article Marketing

Normally when one thinks of search engine rankings, you think of search engine optimization (SEO) work. The race to juggle and something called algorithms to get a higher ranking with the search engines. SEO is highly over rated and has been made way too complicated. What really happens is this: people go to search for something, say hair loss products, weight lifting information or home business opportunities, and they type certain search words into the browser. It’s the WORDS people use to search that really affect your rankings.

Key Effectiveness Index is the ranking of words used by people when they search for product X. They get site X through N etc. as a result because the words they used to search are prominently used on those sites (either in the meta tags at the top of the page - something you can not see) or they are used in your copy (most often the top 25 words as that is what the engines typically crawl). How does that relate to you and article marketing?

You’ll be delighted at how easy this is, because anyone can do this effectively. Article marketing means YOU provide something you’ve written about marketing, home business opportunities, training, etc. to other Web sites, blogs, and eZines for FREE. FREE? Yes, free! Because in return you get to include a short bio and links back to your site in the "resource box" that appears at the end of your article. Your article will fit into a niche that you pick. So if you want to write about affiliate marketing or blogging, then your site link should lead back to a site that most directly relates to your topic. If you don't have a site of our own, as an affiliate you will likely have one available through the company you chose to represent as an affiliate.

What a perfect opportunity for you to write something about being a marketing master, or lead generation. This establishes YOU as the expert and gives you several very nice benefits such as: lead generation, increased site traffic, and improved search engine ranking. This method of marketing is so popular you can find software packages and web sites to help you syndicate your articles easily to hundreds and even thousands of other sites. Imagine the number of people you could introduce to your business!

Here’s an example of what you can do: Marketer Jane Doe submits an article to iSnare (a web based article distribution service). It’s free to submit to them, but Jane decides to spend $2.00. Her article was sent to over 150 other distribution lists, which in turn sent the article to even more lists. Within a couple of weeks, Jane's article (she searched for it on Google) returned about 650 results. 650 other sites that posted her article and created links back to her site. THAT’S A LOT OF LINKS. That's a lot of team building potential.

Your article needs to be well-written, focused, easy-to-understand and helpful to your readers. DO NOT blatantly promote your product or service or it won’t get used. Put a link to your site in the resource box. Try to stay away from other links in your article because they will be removed by editors. Being subtle is the key with these types of articles. Subtle gets you a lot further in building your online business.

Here's where you can go to get started with your article marketing: iSnare and The Phantom Writers and ArticleMarketer. Google search for article distribution services and you’ll get hundreds of other places to place that expert article. You can choose to spend some money to do this, but if you do, research carefully to find the most cost effective way. In some cases you can even do this for free. This is a great way to accomplish your goals!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO started out being fairly straight forward, but as it got more popular, it got more complicated. Things start out as a relatively easy thing to achieve, then along comes someone who makes it more complex. This seems to be the case with Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing (fast becoming the MOST popular form of Internet advertising). It’s starting to become more and more complex and expensive. Pay-per-click means a search engine that bases its search rankings on a "bid for position" basis.

You bid a price per click to be in a specific position of the search rankings for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. For instance, the #1 position for the search phrase "pay per click" needed a bid of $2.03 per click. The 15th position was a bid of $0.85. What position you want and what you’re willing to bid/pay to get the position is up to YOU!

Budget and willingness to bid impact your site's ranking position when the search engine displays searched for keywords or keyword phrase results. You’re not charged the PPC bid until a searcher actually clicks or selects your website name or URL.

If you want to drive traffic to a site (or blog, as your blog is considered to be a site as well) fast, THIS is the way to do it almost instantaneously.

There are hundreds of PPC search engines you can buy traffic from.
Here’s the top ten with some tips to help you out:

Google AdWords - biggest and best for volume, traffic quality and user interface. Most expensive.

Yahoo! Search Marketing - First GoTo.com, then Overture, high volume and quality with a few bargains still around. $50 credit on sign up.

MIVA - One of the best, and under rated PPC search engines.
$5 credit on sign up

Enhance - strong emerging PPC search engine, solid quality control.
$25 bonus on sign up

GoClick- Cheap traffic, fast growing, loyal following, lets you start an account with only $10 and bid from one cent.

MSN AdCentre – new player on the block, still has some glitches to work out as it’s frustrating

7Search - smaller engine, good quality traffic good interface.

Search 123 - One of the first search engines. Cost effective, good support. Fund with $50, they'll give you $20 free.

SearchFeed - Strong return on investment, reasonable search volume. Geographical targeting available with 11 countries

ABCSearch - Solid targeting, decent traffic sources, good customer service. Will Match your initial deposit up to $100

Marketing online with natural/organic seo

Marketing is about helping customers/ prospects find your website/business/blog because you want to grow your business, increase sales leads, or lower customer acquisition costs. Smart marketing means you’ll use a combination of SEO AND PPC. It's online search engine advertising, and it works and generates new business.

To be even more specific: organic/natural search engine optimization is the process of tweaking/optimizing a web site or page or blog so it ranks well in the free listings of the search engines. This is the best and least expensive option for getting visitors because visitors click on free organic listings more often than paid listings.

Roughly 65% of business websites were created for customers without any search engine optimization. That means two thirds of businesses on the web are in the bottom of engine results. Since some close to 85% of online sales come from search engine traffic, that is a problem.

Organic optimization involves something called the “White Hat” approach and has to do with keyword research, key phrase placement in your Meta tags and content, and the application of special formatting such as headers, bold and bullets.

You need to do online AND offline optimization. Regularly submit to directories, write press releases, submit articles, and get other links pointing back to your site or blog. To get relevant links, just start a blog about your key phrase. Link from it to your web site or another blog, and keep the content on both fresh and original. 70% of search engine users visit organic sites, and 50% of them select the top results. You could easily get a large number of visitors to your site or blog.

What Is Emotional Response Writing?

It's an e-mail, newsletter or sales letter written to persuade the reader to place an order, request more information, or to show support for the product or service. It nudges the reader to take a specific action by making an offer to the reader, NOT an announcement. The letter needs to go to the right target audience, appeal to their wants /needs and be useful and informative.

To sell also means you'll need supportive documentation, other flyers, pamphlets or what not, since the sales letter often doesn't do the entire job of selling for you. Mention that in your letter.

Getting started

It's easy to get started, you just need to know your products and services inside out, and of course you do, or you would not be in affiliate marketing. Nothing takes the place of your knowledge and how you present yourself. You'll need to have resources on hand in addition to what you know, things like – online resources, ads, articles, newsletters books etc.

Next sort out the benefits from the features of your products/business/service. What does the product do for the prospect who needs it? What do they get or gain from buying it? What is the unique selling point of your product/business/service (and this applies to prospective customers and to prospective recruits.) A benefit is the specific outcome of a feature. A feature is something the product already has. The benefits are what motivate people.

Before you start writing, you need to ask yourself some questions. For instance, how am I going to market this product/service? (Actually make a list of all the methods you want to use from the Internet to print advertising and read them frequently.)

Will you need other information to go along with your letter?
What do you need?

Who is your competition?
How are they marketing their product?

How much money do you want to spend on advertising?

Are you marketing goals/hopes realistic?

Who is actually your buyer?
Why would they want to buy what you have to offer? The most common why is fear of missing out on something. Does your offer appeal to their emotional needs?

Ready to write

Start pulling your e-mail together. You have up to 50 characters for the headline/subject line. It needs to tell your reader what the letter is about, and make a promise about what the item you are marketing will do for your reader.   You have about 7 to 10 seconds to hook your reader, so use your main selling point first and add the benefit with it.

EXAMPLE: Imagine an inexpensive proven hair loss product without side effects. 100% money back guarantee.

Use power words and those are: free, proven, imagine, how to, fast, cheap, enjoy, now, learn, introducing etc. Use them, but don't abuse them.

The body of the message expands your theme, gives details and shows how you will make good on the subject line/headline promise. Your close, or call to action urges your reader to take the next step you want them to take.

If you cannot put two words together and have them make any sense, talk to a copywriter. This is one letter you do NOT want to mess up, as your business success rides on it.

In a conversational tone of voice, tell a story your reader can identify with. Almost like a testimonial. Make an announcement about a new product/service/business, maybe a one-of-a-kind event, or important news about your unique selling point. For instance, your new business offers free market evaluations on your antique jewellery.

Treat the reader as your equal – in other words, if you are selling hair loss products and services, then address your letter with Dear Fellow Hair Loss Customer. Look for a provocative quote for your hair loss product: "Product XXX grow now has a topical all natural proven hair loss product that will promote new growth."

You could open with putting your finger on a problem the reader has, one your product will solve. For example: tired of trying numerous hair loss products that don't work and cost too much. We've got a cheap solution – XXXgrow. If you use this approach, you could also think about telling your reader a secret, or some piece of information not many people know.   This is where your product research comes in really handy.

You could add more to your email, but you are best off keeping it short and to the point. The actual body of your message should be written in the same spirit as your headline/subject line. Quickly give the details of your unique selling point. Point out the benefits right away, don't keep them guessing and leave it until the end, or you will lose them. Prove your benefits claim, and this where the extra information you squirreled away may come in handy. Be creative, provocative, descriptive, moving, emotional, and build to the call to action.

The closing

This is where you ask the reader to do something, like order your product/ service or join your business etc. You must make it easy for the reader to contact you. Provide a form, a toll free phone number, an e mail link, your URL or even your blog site, and make sure they actually work. Test them first before sending the letter.

Close with thanks for their time and consideration. Many Internet marketers say save the best for last and put it in a PS. For instance, if you order before XXXX date, you'll get a free web banner. Actually, this kind of information is likely best put in the beginning of your letter, right after the unique selling point/benefits area.   It provides more incentive for the reader to keep reading. More initiative to keep reading to find out the benefits. Leaving the cost savings or free goodies until last is darn close to being a bribe. Not to mention the fact that if you don't grab them with the first 7 to 10 seconds, and that means putting your heavy artillery in the opening, you could lose them.

Before you send your letter, find test readers. Ask them to tell you what they feel is missing, how you could improve on your offer, and if they would buy from you.

Word Of Mouth Marketing

How many people a day do you talk to about various things, including a product, service or business? Answer likely is, quite a few. What you might not know is, major brand name companies are now hiring word of mouth marketers to talk their products up to friends and family. Proctor and Gamble enlisted 225,000 teenagers to rave to friends about things like Herbal Essence and Old Spice. And they signed up 500,000 volunteer Moms for something called Vocalpoint. Moms talk about pet food, paper towels, hair color, etc. The Moms get coupons and marketing materials free.

Moms are free to say anything they want about the product, but they don't bad mouth it, nor do they take advantage of the offers. It's because these word of mouth marketers feel like they're a member of an inner circle and that the companies recruiting them actually give a darn about them and their opinions. This is yet another way for you to promote your unique selling points and products and services, and it doesn't cost you very much to do it, other than some time. You get the idea.

Lead generation

How To Generate Leads

Lead generation is often seen as the dirty work of building a profitable business. Although it is hard work, it is the life blood of your business and a skill you need to learn. If you didn't have leads that turned into prospects that turned into customers, where would your business be?

Lead generation can be expensive, but that depends on what route you choose to take. There are simple, effective ways to generate leads that cost and arm and a leg if you are willing to work to learn the techniques.

Lead generation is looking for clients and customers and you get those leads in different ways and different degrees of potential. For instance there are cold leads, people you have not had contact with. Warm leads are people who have responded to a request (whether it's to respond back to you, or people who have visited your website or blog). Responding to you is called opting in. Hot leads are people who have responded, joined your team or have become customers. You need to follow ALL your leads, but each one has a different way to follow through. That is a skill you need to learn.

The bottom line with lead generation is you will get out of it what you put into it. Lead generation is merely your starting point. From there you need to build relationships based on your lead generating efforts.

The wanted results

You will only get the results you want if you go at it with the right attitude. You really have to want it! If you don't, people will know that. You don't have to be desperate, you just need to be positive and confident. If you're new to networking and aren't sure what to do, then fake it. You will over time "get it!"

To be positive and confident you have to: be proactive in lead generation and take action daily, learn new skills that push you to your limits, be patient and persistent. You will also need to KNOW who your client is, and be willing to choose the right types of clients. Taking action means not waiting for them to make the first move. Be creative in your approaches to prospects and potential customers. And above all else, listen to what your client/prospect/customers want and need. In a nutshell, if you want your team to produce, then you have to do that first and show them how.

E-Mail Marketing

One of the more important aspects of network marketing is the e-mail. But there is a draw back to that these days, as people often regard market messages as spam. Are you afraid your e-mails will get deleted? They might anyway no matter what you do, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do this type of marketing. Targeted e-mail marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available when done correctly. Your e-mail strategy is the foundation for relationship marketing.

You can achieve outstanding results with email marketing while investing only a small amount of time and an even smaller amount of money. E-mail marketing is inexpensive. There’s no production, materials or postage costs, and, it’s 20 times more cost effective than direct mail.

The major selling point about e-mail marketing is you are proactively talking to your prospects and existing team members. You’re waiting for them to come back to your web site or blog. It’s also IMMEDIATE communication. Your call to action is clear: "Click here to take advantage of this offer", or "to learn more about this service". On average, responses to this type of e-mail occur within 48 hours of being sent.

Types of e-mails and examples

Opt-In direct e-mail is sending e-mail to recipients that have already approved of and are asking to receive commercial e-mail. They’ve agreed to receive (opted in) offers like yours. You can pay for a service like this, but why would you when you can write your own opt-in e-mail. If you do not know how to write one of these, or any of the other examples here, talk to your upline. Any company you are acting as an affiliate for will have examples you can use for marketing your business.

Promotional Postcards are efficient, easy-to-create powerful marketing tools and are useful for customer up sells and cross sells, direct purchase, lead generation and brand awareness. An effective postcard email will normally do the trick, but AFTER you’ve done your relationship marketing. In some cases, but not all, a postcard email promotes an event.

Promotional Teasers are exactly what it says – teasers. A snappy line or two that promotes something in a unique manner, a manner that catches people's attention and makes them want to click.

Promotional Catalogue email is one that literally contains a catalogue of all your products. Sort of like everything, including the kitchen sink. Before you write this kind of email, you need to know how to match your competition or beat them. If you don't have any competition, that's a major selling point.

Ask yourself if your competition has something you think you cannot compete against. You need to know these things so you don’t step in it if you honestly can’t offer something the other guys are offering.

Relationship prospecting is pretty straight-forward and is based on you having already built a relationship with your prospect. Give them enough information to become informed about you and your offers. Enough so they can make an informed decision about joining. Keep it at about 400 words - but it must contain at least 3 calls to action and the same call to action. In other words, you will be asking them to DO something, the same something, three times. Aim for one postscript for sure, two to be thorough (a PSS) and that last PSS should be a call to action.

The Relationship informative arena is something usually used in newsletters and ezines. You’ve seen them – the large one page infomercials, that don’t ask anyone to buy anything, they just provide information. Don't come across as an aggressive marketer in these types of emails. Your goal is to merely provide information in an informational manner. Usually in about 1,500 words give or take.

Watch your step when you use this kind of email, and make sure it’s well written etc. as studies show e-newsletters that are informative, convenient, and timely are preferred. However, a new study shows only 11% of newsletters are read thoroughly. The lesson here is layout and content are critical. Readers are critical of newsletters that waste their time, and will ignore or delete them if they aren't regarded as useful. Since your whole reason for marketing is to retain customers, this is a skill you NEED to master.

How To Write An Email

Sure, you already know how to write emails, you do it everyday, but you're writing to people you know and don't get stopped by a spam checker all that often. Writing business e-mails is a different can of worms and needs some finesse your part to get them opened every time when they hit someone's e-mail inbox.

What's the first thing you do when you check your inbox? See who sent you e-mail, and check the heading to see what it says. If the heading doesn't interest you, what do you do? Right, you hit delete. Since you are an affiliate marketer, you want your mail opened and read.

How you get your e-mail opened

You have 50 characters in the subject line including spaces you can use. Make them count, because what you say will make or break your next e-mail campaign. The subject line needs to be catchy and grab their attention.

The best place for headline/subject line ideas is your local newspaper. Like newspaper headlines, your e-mail subject line need to tell the recipient what to expect in the e-mail. This might not always work. That's life. One campaign may take off like crazy, the next flop. With practice and a few hints and tips, you can be certain you'll have more hits than misses.

To cut down on the number of misses, follow the first rule of e-mail marketing which is TEST, TEST, TEST and then TEST some more. You are testing styles and trends that seem to work. Pick your subject line BEFORE you write your body content. It needs to be the first thing you do for any e-mail campaign. Then test it on your team and perhaps a part of your email contact lists.

Let's say you have an e-mail list of about 300 people. Try testing two different subject lines and keep track of the results. How many responses did you get to each heading? Review the most successful one, then change one word and resend it to your list. You need to do this continually because each e-mail campaign will be different by choice and by necessity.

Keep track of the rate of conversions to opened e-mail. It's one thing to have your e-mail opened, but quite another to have someone either reply or sign up. So while you may have a successful subject line, and it gets opened, if it doesn't translate into conversions, it's a failure.

The second rule of e-mail marketing is personalize your subject lines, which means one of the words of the 50 you have to work with needs to be the name of the person you are writing to. At least it does if you are suiting the content and interests of the e-mail to your prospects interests. If however it's a bulk e-mailing, then this doesn't apply.

The third rule of e-mail marketing is tell the truth.   Do not mislead your prospects and promise more than the e-mail can deliver. If your subject line doesn't reflect what's in the body of the message your prospect will distrust you and the next email will go straight to the trash bin.

The fourth rule of e-mail marketing is create a conversation. Without a conversation and a relationship, you're cold e-mailing to someone you do not know. And that means you'll have a harder time trying to tell them about your business. If you have a series of e-mails you send prospects, and each one is a continuation of a conversation from a previous e-mail, that is conversation.

The fifth rule of email marketing is make sure you tell the prospect who the e-mail is from. Remember you have 50 characters in the subject line, so, just make sure the from line has your name. The first thing people see is your subject line, so it must grab their attention.

What about content?

Content must follow on from the subject line, and it better be interesting. Interesting enough to have your reader actually read the whole e-mail. The body of your email must have a call to action in it asking people to do something, like click on a link or fill in a form etc.

Don't stop sending emails. You keep sending them until your prospect signs up. Not everyone is ready to join something when first asked. If you have patience, they might sign up later.

And the spam checker?

You'll know the most common Spam filter words like Internet Marketing, or Business Opportunity, or Make Money From Home. But you're not going to know about other triggers because spam filters change their word criteria every month.

All you need to do is use Spam Check. It's FREE! All you have to do is cut and paste the following URL into your browser and follow directions:

http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/ (copy and paste into a new brouser to visit)

You're aiming to be a welcome guest. If you stick to the rules, you will have a successful e-mail campaign.

IM (Instant Messenger) Marketing

There are quite a few Instant messengers available on the Net, some good, some bad and one of two are really bad. You need to choose which one works best for you.

Here's some of the more common messengers

AIM – 60 million current AIM users

YAHOO - 250 million people online

SMS – 50M –70M

MSN.com – 150 million people worldwide

ICQ – 150 million people worldwide

GoogleTalk – 7,126,000 and growing

Windows Live Messenger – 8M and growing

What do i do with im?

The short answer is, meet people with IM. You do that by finding the best places to talk to them. You will be surfing for people who have like interests for example: internet marketing, networking, home business, making money at home etc. When approaching people on IM first start by being friends (relationship marketing) before you jump in and get enthusiastic about your business opportunity.

Once you start a conversation with them you can figure out within the first 10 seconds if they are going to be a valid prospect for your business. You just read the signals they give back to you and read between the lines. The longer you do this, the easier it gets. It's just chatting with friends, but it's called networking.

Chatting with someone who has similar interests is the best way to introduce yourself and your business or product. This is the most easily duplicatable way of making friends, developing relationships positioning yourself to tell anyone about your business/product.

It's not hard to find people with common background and interests. What are YOU interested in? Chances are there are others who share your passions too. You just have to search for them and start talking. And, once you've starting talking to them, you need to stay in touch as well. No sense in just having the odd conversation now and again and expecting them to want to join your business is there?

When you are sitting three feet in front of the world (meaning your computer screen) you can reach out and touch anyone, anywhere in the world. The world is your oyster, the pearl your potential customer/recruit sitting within the shell of your computer.

When using IM the first thing you need to have is buddy or contact lists of everyone you know. Keep track of them and make sure you have them in an organized fashion on your computer. You can track up to 5,000 people this way. You likely won't be doing that, but the point is the possibilities are unlimited. If you think you're not going to remember what you said to whom, Yahoo records and saves all conversations.

Where to find people!

Cruise the member directory. There's an amazing amount of personal information about people listed there. You can strike up a conversation with anyone, about anything in their personal profile. What if they say NO when they find out what you are marketing? Again, that's life. That's what happens when you talk to people you don't know. But if you use their personal information, you have already have an in. You don't spend one cent generating leads. Market like this when you have time – say three people a day – but stay in touch.

How do you get people to talk to you?

Create a unique screen name, something that makes people curious about who you are and what you do and that means they will contact you. The name you will set the tone for all your future conversations. Example: say your screen name is Life Style Designer and you happen to have a web site that promotes dynamic personal lifestyle changes to enrich your life. You can write to other lifestyle coaches and say you just love your work, don't they love theirs? If they do not like what they are doing, they will tell you. The door is now open for you to tell them what you do.

In most cases, you will be asking questions. That's the key to pre-qualifying people. Ask questions and you will be able to tell quickly within a few short conversations, if they have the potential to be a part of your business.   You will know them by how they answer your questions.

When you're talking to people online via instant messenger, don't send them long notes about what you are doing.   They don't care and don't want to hear it. Proceed slowly and parcel out bits of information based on their replies to your notes. Go slow, use your head, keep it short, and read between the lines. You WILL know when they have lost interest or are losing interest by the way they reply to you.

Community Networking

Community networking is all about promoting your business/product/service in a community setting in online communities like Ryze, Yahoo, Direct Match, My Space, Circle of Friends and other forums that have like minded people and marketers in them. You can do community networking in just about any online group. Your goal, plain and simple, is to talk to people about what you have to offer.

You can find people by doing searches and contacting them based on the information in their profiles. It sometimes takes a bit of work to find people's e mail addresses, but with Googling and cross checking on the Net, the people you would like to talk to can be found. If you know they are already online marketers (or not), and then gage your approach accordingly.

Community networking can accomplish business development, sales, general marketing, recruiting, job-hunting, knowledge exchange, strategic alliances, joint ventures etc. Business development and community networking are closely related.

Community networking is about partnerships. You are striving for a coming together, or meeting of the minds. You want to explore the relationship to see if it can be mutually beneficial, and if the answer is yes, then you work together to make that happen. It is always easier and less threatening to talk about partnering rather than purchasing something.

The relationships you are working on developing are an end, not just a means to an end. However, despite the relationship aspects of your approach to your prospect, your ultimate goal is still a sale of some sort.

The traditional point of view for the sales relationship you have with prospects is that the success of any sales person is measured in sales, not relationships. That's what's wrong with most traditional online marketing approaches. The relationship part is missing. People delete marketing messages from people they don't know, and don't have a relationship with. If on the other hand you do have a relationship chances are they will always open email from you. That is why your focus needs to be on the relationship itself and not just the short-term objective of a sale.

What other things can you be doing to establish a relationship while you are community networking? Research your market, and listen more than you talk. Marketing groups are usually really candid with their opinions about things. This is valuable information for you.

Be viewed as an expert in your field and this will give you more social standing and greater access to your audience. Speak up and out in a forum, blog, mailing list, and reach untold numbers of people. Talk about what you know the best, and if you make it original or thought provoking, you'll be quoted and linked to. That is great exposure! By the way, while you are at it, include your business name/site/blog link in every signature in every email, every Web transaction your do and in every profile you create. Invaluable exposure.

Word-of-mouth spreads like wildfire through social networks. Make use of that fact when community networking and you will soon have the world beating a path to your door to find out what you have to offer.

Phone Marketing

Phone marketing scares many people, and with good reason. In a lot of cases, you're talking to someone you do not know and cannot read over the phone. The added disadvantage is you cannot see their face. However, with phone marketing, if you pay attention to how people respond to you, and listen to what they are saying and how they are saying it, you can become quite adept at reading a prospect/customer over the phone.

The biggest fear to overcome is the fear of the unknown on the other end of the line, fear of what they will say or do. Most people are willing to talk to you particularly if they opted in to get a phone call in the first place.   So really all that you have to do is talk!

This is easier than you might think. Try the following in a conversational manner, not in sales pitch mode. Substitute words that you think would work better for you and your style.

Hi (name). This is (your name) calling from (your city). (Name) this is just a short courtesy call, but you stopped by my web site and filled out a form asking for information about developing an income from home.

Do you remember doing that?
(Wait for the answer even if there is a moment of silence)
Perfect!

I just wanted to give you a quick call to introduce myself. And to fill you in a bit on our (product/service/opportunity) and let you know why this opportunity would appeal to you – because it has no other competition in the network marketing industry – and that is VERY unique and unusual.

So how serious are you about developing an income from home?

WAIT FOR THE ANSWER – it will tell you tons of things about the person you are talking to. If they ask if this an MLM scheme – right away you know you do not want to work with this person. If they say, well sort of, but how hard do I have to work, your reply would be something like this:

"You know what, I don't think this opportunity is really suited for you. Thanks for your time."

And then, you MOVE ON! You cannot force someone into being interested or wanting to work, they either do or they don't.

IF however you get a response like – I'm very serious, really serious or words to that effect, you move into part two of your phone call and say:

Perfect! Do you have about 5 minutes for me to give you some information about our (product/service/opportunity)?

WAIT FOR ANSWER. If they say YES – move on to the following

"I am a member of (your group/your business etc). And I have some interesting information for you about (group/business/product). Are you ready to hear what we are all about?

WAIT FOR THE ANSWER!

If it's No, fine move on. If yes then here is where you present a brief version of your product/company/services etc. You need to have all this written out like a script or you will lose track of where you are. When you are done, ask:

Pretty interesting concept right?

WAIT FOR THE ANSWER

If the answer is no, move on. If the answer is yes, invite them to join your team/business/buy your product.
.
Some areas of a call like this may go off the rails, but you're talking to a person who will have questions, and that's the good thing. So long as you know your products, your business plan and your team, you can talk to anyone about what you do.

Bottom line is this, talk to the person like you were talking to someone sitting across the table from you over lunch or coffee. If your prospect isn't interested or doesn't want what you are offering, then that is their choice. There is no sense in arguing with them otherwise. If you do, you will become another one of those annoying Internet marketers who don't understand what the word NO means.

Accept a no with grace and dignity. In most cases it is not a personal rejection. Leave it be and accept their decision for what it is. You will gain far more points in the long run by respecting their desires. You can always re-visit the proposition again later. Sometimes no only means no, not right now.

Don't by any means try and bribe them into joining you with promises of unlimited income, or a promise that it is SO easy to earn money or build a business with you. Why not? Because the simple truth of the matter is that building a business is hard work. Be honest and right up front. Yes, it takes hard work, but you will be there to help them succeed.

Bounce Backs

Bounce backs are used in response to someone sending you information on a business opportunity. You need to respond to them on a personal level with a short and to the point note, as they are obviously actively marketing and you could use them for your team/business. To get opportunities like this add your business email to a FREE auto responder test site. Many of these sell the emails and you can get on hundreds of lists in no time flat.

An auto responder, is an mail utility that automatically sends a reply to an email message. They send back information on a topic without having the requester do anything more provide an e-mail address. They are also used to send a confirmation that the message has been received. A lot of bounce back emails wind up in your bulk folder or in your spam filter box depending on which email service you use and how aggressive their filters are.

Getting on lists

Do a search for specific target markets you're familiar with, or general searches for business opportunities.   Keep track of the URLs you have visited and signed up for so you don't subscribe twice to the same list. Don't just use one engine to search, because different engines will return different results. Try these engines:

http://www.google.com

http://www.yahoo.com

http://www.lycos.com

http://www.hotbot.com

http://www.altavista.com

http://www.overture.com

Search terms you can use

Try some of these, but you can get creative and do other searches as well. Some of the following search terms are classified as Spam by filters. If you bounce back on e-mails from those who reply using these headings, be prepared to check your filtered e-mail and hope their e-mail accepts your reply.

Home Based Business

Business Opportunity

Working From Home

How To Make Money From Home

Network Marketing

Party Plan Companies

Direct Sales Companies

If the return email gives you a website to view but the email address they sent with the website link looks bogus, check the web site and see if you can find their real email address. You might find additional name information on their website. Once you have viewed their email, and their website, you'll have a feel for the people you are emailing.

Google their names and see what else they might be promoting online. How they lay their e-mail out and what they say will give you an idea of how much or how little marketing experience they have. This is another good thing for you to know when you draft your e-mail to them.

You have the basics on how to get going with bounce backs, and what to say when you start responding to them. The more you do this, the easier it gets. Happy affiliate marketing!

Continue To Chapter 8, Search Engines...

HomeBusinessMarketers