Once you start making sales for the merchant, send him and email or call him on the phone and ask him to increase your commissions. That sounds rude at first, right? bu t here are some things you need to keep in mind:
You are in this business to make money. I hope this doesn t come as a shock to you. Higher commissions will allow you to make more money per sale.
Even if the merchant doesn t want to increase your commissions, you still lost nothing. I have never heard of a merchant saying WHAT? YOU DARED ASK FOR MORE? I WILL NOT PAY YOU EVEN THE BASIC COMMISSIONS I OWE YOU!
That s the stuff that bosses do. Remember them? Those Vampires that suck your blood. That s why I never had the nerve to ask for a raise in my earlier job. The moment I managed to gather all my inner strength and say so (I thought I d have a stroke), that was all she wrote. I left a few weeks later .
BUT THIS IS YOUR HOME BUSINESS the merchant is not your boss. HE needs you way more than you need him. Keep that in mind! Worst-case scenario, you will just keep getting paid as much as you used to. Nothing to lose.
There are smart ways to phrase the raise request. For example, you can say things along these lines:
I have been promoting your product for the last 2 weeks and have already made 17 sales. My affiliate id is so and so (so they can verify the sales). This means that I have made $510 in commissions.
However, I have spent $330 in advertising to make these sales. So, I m only left with $180 in profits. At this point, I have figured out that it s not really worth it for me to continue promoting your excellent product unless I
somehow increase my profit margins. I was wondering if you could increase my commissions from 50% to 65%. That would make it worth it for me to continue promoting your product.
Differently, I m afraid I cannot justify promoting your product.
You would still keep making profits by sending back end promotions to the customers I send you so you are not really losing that much.
Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you, Your_Name.
At this point, the merchant will have to decide. Do I want to continue making money from this affiliate? Or am I not interested in making money anymore? Most merchants will be OK with it especially if you are one of those affiliates who make business happen (and there are not that many of those).
Note that the merchant will have no idea how you drive traffic to his site. You may well be promoting his product only with free methods (see later). So, you saying that you want a raise because advertising is expensive makes total sense to the merchant. It s your choice how much you want to stretch the truth.
People who ethicologize (I just invented a new word) all the time have obviously no idea how competitive the game has become and how challenging it can be to survive. They probably have a trust fund that they inherited from their parents and they have never fought in the field.
Ok, here s another way you can shakedown (ahem, I meant convince ) a merchant to give you higher commissions:
Instead of saying that advertising doesn t leave you with much profit, you can say something along the lines of:
I was interested in entering your market. That s why I started promoting your
product. I basically wanted to test the waters. Now that I see that prospects in this market buy, I have decided to create my own product and enter the market as a merchant. I ll create a product, start sending all my traffic there and create even more competition for you and your affiliates. Got it?
If this doesn t scare the hell out of them, nothing will.
Then tell them that you are a nice guy and that you want to work together. So you won t create your own product, if the merchant is a good boy and he increases your commissions substantially.
If the merchant uses Clickbank and he gives you BS like: I d love to do it man but I use Clickbank and there s no way for me to set a different affiliate percentage for you.
... then tell them something like: I don t care MAN. Create a second Clickbank account and use it only for me. And don t even dare put that thing on the Clickbank marketplace for others to discover or I ll know and I ll visit your house at night while you sleep.
Or: Then set me up with a different affiliate platform and pay me with Paypal.
Are the creative juices flowing yet? Good.
YOU are in charge. You have to understand it. Say it to yourself: I rule. I m it.
If you want to survive (and thrive), in today s environment, these are some of the things you should seriously consider doing.
Most people won t do them of course. But that s ok. Because,as I like to say,
natural selection can be a bitch and those who don t treat their affiliate business like THEIR business, will become extinct sooner or later. You don t have to believe me. Just wait and see how much more competitive the game will become in the next months and years. If you do the above, you will be kicking everyone s ass and bringing home the bacon.
Something else you can do, is ask the merchant to send you the details of the customer (full name and email). Mind you, not all merchants will do it (because they are closed-minded). But many will - especially if you have started making sales for them.
Of course, if you promote a Clickbank product, you can see in your account the names and emails of the customers you referred.
You can just click on their email address and send them a short thank you message. You can thank them for buying. Then, give them a link to a page that has some special reports (or full products) on it (the salesletters for them). Then, tell them to email you and choose 1 or 2 of the products. I always do this with my customers. Yes, each and every one. I exchange real emails with them. Automation is good but in my opinion it's a little overrated.
Exchanging real emails with your customers and offering them extra value builds relationships like nothing else I ve seen.
Now, if you did all the naughty things above, I can guarantee you that you would do much, much better than if you had just promoted the "straight" site. You would make much more money than the other affiliates who promote this product and they wouldn t be the wiser.
But, can we do even better? Of course. Can we be even naughtier? Hell yeah...
At this point, let's not judge the ethics of the next method. If you feel uneasy doing this, then don't. I'm not saying that I have done this or that I approve of this. But I have heard of people doing this and this technique is available to you.
Let's say that you want to promote a specific information product because you know it's good stuff and your market will like it. What you can do is
something like this: - Buy the product and read it. As you go through the product, note down the main techniques mentioned in it. Note down the good stuff in a text file. If a technique is there just to fill up space (most merchants do it), just ignore it. You only want the best techniques.
- You will create your own product. Rewrite the parts that were worth it, in your own words. If you know of even more techniques, include them in your new manual as well.
Many people feel uneasy doing this. They think along the lines of I would never read a product and get ideas from it I would rather hire a ghostwriter (and he can copy other s ideas all he wants). Can you see the irony? - If you need to brush up on some of the techniques, you can search your favorite forum or search engine.
- You don't need to create a 200-page mammoth. A 40-page guide full of valuable content and "do this, do that" tips will have a much higher perceived value.
- If the original product was selling for $47 and was paying 50% commissions, you can sell your product for $27 or $37. Your visitors will pay less, they will get more value and you will get more money in your pocket as well. Plus, "affiliate tracking" will be 100% since the sale will have to go through you.
- For the salesletter, you can write a short one - just write like you talk. You can get ideas from the original product's salesletter. You can even get ideas from salesletters promoting similar products in your industry.
- If you want a shortcut, you can even buy resale rights to a product or private label rights and then put your name on the product.
- Post on your favorite forums saying that you have just finished a product and that you are looking for 10 people who will be willing to give you a
testimonial in exchange for a free review copy. Mention shortly what your product is about (or, just point them to your mini salesletter). Say that they should be able to provide the testimonial within 3 days. As soon as you receive the testimonials, add them to your salesletter. This will increase its "pulling power." Some freeloaders will not give you a testimonial even if they love the product. Don t worry about it. - And of course, you can even start an affiliate program for your product so that others can start sending you their traffic. You can put your product on Clickbank.com or PayDotCom.com so affiliate marketers can find it and promote it. Don t forget to set up a page where your affiliates can find emails, ads and tools to help them promote your product. Make their life easy.
So, that pretty much covers it as far as the offer part of the equation goes. The things I mentioned are creative but not tough to do at all. But they will increase the money you put in your pocket substantially.
Later in this manual, I will talk about how to get dirt-cheap (or dirt-free ) super high quality traffic to your site.
But, before we start driving visitors to your site, I need to talk about email marketing. You need to be building your list. I will give you some ideas and food for thought so that you can create effective email follow up sequences.
Writing your emails is something you can do for free. But it s a task that can increase your profits dramatically. And not just by 30-50% due to the extra buyers for the main product you promote.
By building a list, you can broadcast an offer to those people and have money appear practically out of nowhere...