Before you even consider offering a rebate or a discount on a product or service, think about the reason that you became an affiliate marketer in the first place. Did you become an affiliate marketer so that you could just barely scratch out a living, or did you plan on making a very nice annual income that would provide a very nice lifestyle for you and your family? I doubt that scratching out a living was the top reason that you chose to become an affiliate marketer.
Look at it like this: every time that you accept less than you could get for a product, you are giving away the lifestyle that you have been working for, and you are settling for less than you deserve, not only for yourself but for your family as well. It really is never necessary to settle for less. It just isn’t necessary to offer a large rebate or a deep discount to sell a quality product or service. People need, want, and will pay for the products and services that they need. It isn’t necessary to give away your profit if you just work harder and find incentive bonuses that will entice your customers to buy the products and services that they need from you.
Don’t discount the product or offer a rebate. Increase the value of the product instead. Remember this: increasing value is better than cheapening the product or service that you are trying to sell. People don’t always see a discount or a rebate as value. They sometimes see it as an attempt to entice them into buying a product that wasn’t worth the full price in the first place.
Only the cheap customers will go for a rebate or discount. The good customers will be shopping around to see what the best incentives being offered are. If you make your bonus incentives the very best, then you will attract the best customers, and you can charge the full asking price every time and for every product or service that you promote.
How To Win The Affiliate War
Winning the ongoing affiliate war isn’t easy, but (unlike some wars) it IS winnable. The affiliate wars cannot and will not be won by lazy affiliate marketers. The affiliate marketing wars will be won by aggressive strategists who are willing to work hard and long.
Affiliate marketing is not for the faint of heart. If you had really known how tough the competition is in affiliate marketing, would you have joined the fray? It doesn’t matter. You are in the midst of it now, and quitting simply is not an option for a true warrior. The only option is winning…and winning BIG! Winning the affiliate marketing wars means winning the small daily battles and minor skirmishes one at a time and winning them decisively. You want to become one of those super affiliates. You want to become one of those big earners who make an annual income that has more than one comma in that number on the bottom line, right?
Then, you need to be prepared to work hard. You need to be prepared to do more than what is required. You need to be prepared to go that extra mile. First and foremost, reputation counts in affiliate marketing. There are thousands of affiliate marketers out there, but the ones who make the big bucks are the ones who have established high visibility and great credibility for themselves.
Establishing credibility and visibility go hand in hand, and establishing both is critical to your success and your victory over your competitors. Credibility and visibility are established in several ways. Two of the most important ways of establishing credibility and visibility are by writing and marketing articles and E-Books that relate to the products and services that you sell. You must establish yourself as an expert…a guru if you will.
You need to become the guy or the gal that others go to when they need information or need questions answered. Writing articles and E-Books (or having them written for you by a ghostwriter) is one of the very best ways of establishing your reputation as a person who has answers. Articles that you write or have written for you by a ghostwriter will be uploaded into article banks for other website owners of E-zine publishers to download and reproduce free of charge. At the bottom of each 300-400 word, keyword-rich article, you will include a resource box that has your name and your website address in it. This helps to spread your name and news of your knowledge around the Internet to those who are the most likely to be your customers.
E-books should only be 10 to 12 pages long, but a link to your website needs to be included on every single page as well as in the resource box at the end. E-Books are uploaded to E-Book repositories where others may download them and reproduce them just like articles. Because it is required that E-Books cannot be altered and that resource box information must be included when E-Books are downloaded and reproduced, your reputation as an expert in your field will be enhanced each time anyone chooses to use them.
Another way to build your visibility and credibility on the Internet is to post to blogs and forums that have topics related to the products and services that you sell. It is a very simple matter to find these forums and blogs. Simply type your related keyword into the search box of your favorite search engine, followed by the plus sign (+) and the words blogs or forums. You will get many hits.
Choose three or four of the ones that have the largest number of active members and join those blogs or forums. Be careful here. Posting to blogs and forums effectively is going to take several hours of your time every week, so don’t choose too many. Once you have joined three or four blogs and forums, do not go in with guns blazing and posting blatant advertisements. The idea here is to build visibility and credibility. Introduce yourself and behave as though you have just moved into a new neighborhood. Your signature tag that appears at the bottom of every post that you make should have your name as well as a link to your website.
Take your time to get to know the other posters in the community and become a valued member of the group. You will be building a good reputation, visibility, and credibility. It takes time to build your visibility and credibility. While you are building them, you will also be promoting and selling products and services, and you want to establish a good relationship with those who buy products and services from you. Be sure that you provide good information, good service, and a guarantee if one applies. Go to great lengths to never appear to be a cheapo or corner cutter to your customers. Always treat your customers like they are your most valuable asset…they ARE your most valuable asset.
Never discount products or services or offer rebates. You don’t want to build that kind of reputation or that kind of customer base. Instead of offering discounts or rebates, take the time and put forth the effort to add bonus incentives to the products and services that you promote to give them added value. The winners of the affiliate wars are the men and women who go to the trouble and take the time to build excellent reputations as experts and as fair and honest merchants.
People buy things on the Internet from people that they feel like they know and can trust. People buy things on the Internet from affiliate marketers who have a reputation as experts or gurus and who actually care about the people to whom they sell products and services. A positive and hard-working, fair–dealing reputation will help you win the daily battles and, ultimately, the affiliate war.