Author: Patrick Griffin

Patrick Griffin has been marketing online for 15 years. He's a serial entrepreneur and an avid email and content marketing enthusiast with a background in publishing and journalism, including a UK Press Award.

Affiliate Marketing (i) Choose Your Affiliate Products With Care

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Affiliate Marketing

I had a couple of questions about affiliate marketing recently so I have chosen to address them in two RocketResponder blog posts.

The first question I got was: “How do I know what affiliate products to promote?”

This is a great question because there must be hundreds of thousands of potential products out there from which you could potentially earn good affiliate commissions.

It is really tempting to think along the following terms – well if I choose products which have relatively high price tags and large affiliate payouts then this is the quickest way for me to make a lot of money.

I think there are many people who think exactly like this but I am not sure it is producing particularly good results.

The problem is that this approach looks at things from the wrong perspective…you are looking at the problem from your own perspective and not thinking at all about the point of view of your customer.

Instead focus on the product or service you are thinking of promoting and fully investigate what it has to offer a buyer.

Here are some questions I would ask myself when looking for affiliate products to promote:

  • what does the product actually do?
  • does it deliver what it says it will deliver?
  • would I use it myself?
  • would I be happy recommending this product to a close family member or friend?
  • is it good value for money?
  • do I feel good about myself promoting it?
  • can I get excited about this product?
  • does the company or person behind it have any proven track record?
  • what do existing customers say about the person or company behind this product?
  • is this product likely to be here for the long term?

These are just some of the questions that I came up with off the top of my head but they are all important questions which need to be addressed.

Notice that the entire focus is on the product or service…ie what benefits it could have to the end user, because this is what you are selling.

Satisfy yourself that the product is good, then learn how to use it and you will be best placed to sell it to your customers.

The commission structure…well that should be the last thing on your mind.

Email subject lines – another six real life examples

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Choosing Email Subject lines

Choosing email subject lines. You should know by now that at RocketResponder we love our subject lines.

Get them right every time to get your emails opened. Put at least as much thought (if not more) into your subject line as you do to the main body of the email.

Here are another six subject lines which caught my eye this month…

  • Sunday – take a rest breath deep in your chest – Ok well I have no idea what any of that means but on this occasion it doesn’t matter. Rhyming “rest” with “chest” means some thought has gone into this and I am wondering what it is all about. I would open this. Well done.
  • CLIXSENSE AWSOME PTC!!!!! – Three words and three huge red flags for me. All capitals – wrong. Spelling mistake – wrong. Five apostrophes – wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Awful subject line – worst of the bunch this month without any doubt.
  • Disappointed with ListNerds? Have you tried.. – This is the “ask a question, then leave them hanging” approach to subject line writing. Highly effective. Works very well. Try this technique for yourself. Best of the bunch this month.
  • You upgrade… you get your ads seen on me! – The opposite of the example above but not in terms of effectiveness. This tells you exactly what you can expect to find in the email. I would expect this to be a cool incentive to upgrade in a program from either an owner or a switched-on affiliate. Either way I would open it to find out more.
  • Internet marketing with a cube. Get free UNLIMITED traffic for ever!!! – I am actually unsure what I think about this one. It is a bit long, I hate the three apostrophes (only ever use one, and even then only if you really must) but the use of capitals works. It sounds as though it may be a bit complicated or gimmicky (what is marketing with a cube all about?) but I probably would open it to find out more. What do you think of this subject line?
  • My Favorite Promotion Product – This is good. If I have signed up to someone’s list then it follows that I have at least some interest in what you have to say. So by telling me you have a favorite promotion product and leaving it at that I am going to open the email and find out more. A real winner. Excellent subject line.

Look out for more subject lines next month.

Why You Need To Constantly Get New Subscribers

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Get New Subscribers

The more you put into getting traffic to your website or advertising page then the more easily you should be able to get new subscribers to your RocketResponder lists.

Obviously the numbers will start small and then they will get bigger as you:

  • get better at online marketing
  • feel more confident at what you are doing
  • gain more resources (through reinvesting profits) in to bigger and better promotional efforts

It might be tempting to think something like: “OK so when is a good time to stop building my list of subscribers?”

The answer is that you need to keep building your business for the entire time you plan to stay in business.

Many studies have shown that the longer people stay on your list the less interested they get with what you have to say.

Remember that so many people are hooked on chasing after the latest bright, shiny new object and once the gloss wears off what you have to say then they will have moved onto the next thing.

Some of these people will do you the courtesy of actually unsubscribing from your list but others will just stay there and do nothing at all…except to periodically delete, unread, your emails from their inbox.

That is why you need to constantly to be promoting and advertising to keep getting fresh eyes on your offers and new members signing up to your list.

Now I am not saying that everyone on your list for more than say, six months, will stop reading your emails but a significant proportion of them will.

You can’t stop people losing interest but you can counteract the effect of this by continuing to work hard to ensure that new subscribers are constantly signing up to your RocketResponder lists.

 

Don’t Be Afraid To Warn People When Things Go Wrong

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When Things Go Wrong

Some people think that using a service like Rocket Responder is only there for sending out marketing messages or other promotional offers but it can be great at many other times too, such as when things go wrong.

As we have already seen an autoresponder is much more useful than that – you can actually send out messages where you for example:

  • give advice
  • offer tips and tricks
  • tell stories about your life (yes you really shoud do this) and
  • solicit feedback

But you can also use emails to break bad news and manage expectations.

Say if you know that you have to take your website offline for a few hours or more (maybe you are having a major server upgrade or some such other major event).

Or maybe the launch that you were planning has been delayed for a month…or you have run out of stock…or the affiliate product you are promoting has run into problems or any one of 101 other things.

Then inform your subscribers about the bad news and while many may be upset, many will welcome you being upfront and honest with them…and in any event they will be less upset than if you had not told them in the first place.

Here are some points you might want to cover in a “bad news” email:

  • Explain exactly what is happening (eg our current servers cannot cope with demand and we are moving so a super new system)
  • Explain what the effects will be on the customer (as a result we expect our site to be offline for anything up to 24 hours from this time)
  • Suggest what your subscribers should do. (so don’t panic if you can’t access the site during this time as we we should be back up and running by Monday)
  • Apologize for any problems the issue may cause. (We are really sorry that you won’t be able to access the site during this time but this is to ensure that you continue to get a great customer service from us.)

You don’t have to write it exactly like that but if you are stuck to know what to write then those points should form a solid platform for your email.

Also don’t forget that when the problem is solved then send another email saying that everything is good again – this might also be a good time to offer some sort of offer or promotion as a mark of your goodwill.

 

Why You Might Want to Prune Your Subscriber List

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Your Subscriber List

If you have been building your list for any period of time it is a good bet that you will have a varied group of people on your subscriber list.

It is likely that they could fit into the following categories:

  • super fans – open all or almost all of your emails, click on links and take the action you want them to take
  • fans – open most of your emails and click on your links more often than not
  • lukewarm subscribers – open some of your emails and click your links sometimes
  • cold subscribers – open the occasional email but rarely, if ever, click anything
  • dead subscribers – no activity at all.

Don’t think twice about removing inactive people from your subscriber list, rather like you would remove dead leaves from a plant.

The cold subscribers are good candidates for pruning too – especially if they used to open your emails in the past but have stopped doing so for a few months or so.

The benefits of this include:

  • you are no longer sending emails to people who don’t want to hear from you any more
  • you reduce the likelihood of getting spam complaints from people who are on your list but had forgotten they had signed up
  • your overall open rates will increase as you will have a smaller but more responsive list.
  • if you have a very large list it could end up saving you money in reduced fees.