Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of five quick affi­liate tips by guest blog­ger Robert Plank. Videos of each are also pos­ted at the end of this article. Enjoy!
– Michel Fortin

Affi­liate mar­ke­ting is not a “push but­ton solu­tion”… it’s just a dif­fe­rent type of selling than pro­duct launch mar­ke­ting or AdSense marketing.

You are not going to be able to just sign up as an affi­liate to some pro­gram and expect to make money… you have to DO something with that link!

The big for­mula for inter­net mar­ke­ting is:

List + Traf­fic = Offers.

When you sign up for something as an affi­liate, that affi­liate pro­duct or ser­vice is your offer. Once you have that offer, you need a list and you need traf­fic if you ever expect that offer to convert.

You’d be sur­pri­sed at how many peo­ple for­get this step!

For this rea­son, I don’t recom­mend pro­mo­ting affi­liate offers right out of the gate in inter­net mar­ke­ting. Build up a list first, even if it’s built from a small $7 report or a free ethi­cal bribe.

Join list buil­ding givea­ways, place your sig­na­ture link at the bot­tom of your forum posts, com­ment on blogs, leave tes­ti­mo­nials for pro­ducts you own, publish artic­les about your niche… do wha­te­ver you can to get as many eye­balls in your niche in front of that opt-​​in box. Add an e-​​mail subsc­rip­tion box to sites that need it, such as your blog.

Bot­tom line: build a list first, and then send offers to that list once you’ve built up 100 subsc­ri­bers or more. Does that sound like a lot? Okay… then focus on 8 subsc­ri­bers a day.

Do you think that with forum, article, blog, and givea­way mar­ke­ting, that you could get a measly eight subsc­ri­bers in a day? If you can, then keep it up for 12 days and you have your­self 100 subsc­ri­bers pri­med and ready to receive your affi­liate offers.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of five quick affi­liate tips by guest blog­ger Robert Plank. Videos of each are also pos­ted at the end of this article. Enjoy!
– Michel Fortin

Stop being so lazy with affi­liate marketing!

An affi­liate pro­gram is where you can link to someone else’s offer with your spe­cial ID and get paid com­mis­sion every sale you make. This pro­cess “seems” really hands-​​off and easy because there’s no pro­duct crea­tion or cus­to­mer sup­port invol­ved… just send traf­fic to a pro­ven offer!

Here’s the problem.

Most mar­ke­ters are lazy and don’t rea­lize that affi­liate mar­ke­ting has its own disad­van­ta­ges. It’s tougher to build a list using affi­liate mar­ke­ting, tough to con­vert and split test, and you have to devote most of your effort to pre-​​selling and mar­ke­ting that affi­liate product.

What the heck do you need to know about affi­liate mar­ke­ting in order to pull in decent results?

If you’re serious about affi­liate mar­ke­ting, setup a squeeze page that gets peo­ple on a mai­ling list first and redi­rects to the affi­liate offer. Send traf­fic to that page using forum posts and articles.

Even if they don’t buy right away, you can keep broad­cas­ting to that list every day with remin­ders about bene­fits for that offer… things they might have mis­sed or even things you thought about the ven­dor didn’t.

For exam­ple, once I pro­mo­ted an affi­liate offer about how to create iPhone apps and I wrote a quick follow-​​up asking peo­ple… what if you thought of eBay or AdWords before anyone else? What if you regis­te­red even one or two English-​​word domain names like Busi​ness​.com or About​.com before anyone else? What would those be worth today?

What’s great about this is the pro­duct ori­gi­na­tor prac­ti­cally wrote your e-​​mails for you. You can copy huge chunks of the sales let­ters and add them as e-​​mail follow-​​ups… then add a call-​​to-​​action at the end of the e-​​mail so peo­ple can click your affi­liate link to get back to the page.

Even if they don’t buy that offer, you can even­tually hit them with a dif­fe­rent but rela­ted affi­liate offer as well.

When you sell anything on the inter­net… whether you do it using e-​​mail mar­ke­ting, forum mar­ke­ting, blog pos­ting… if you sell e-​​books, phy­si­cal pro­ducts, e-​​classes, even a news­let­ter… the best way to sell anything is using direct res­ponse sales copy.

But not all of us can be world-​​class copyw­ri­ters like Michel For­tin. I con­si­der myself a pretty sloppy copyw­ri­ter, and althought I can whip up a head­line, quick story, bullet point list of bene­fits, test­mo­nials, fea­ture list, gua­ran­tee and a call-​​to-​​action… I will never be a great copyw­ri­ter.  Gary Hal­bert can’t hold my atten­tion for lon­ger than a few minu­tes, I’ve never read Scien­ti­fic Adver­ti­sing, so how do I scrape by wri­ting ave­rage sales copy?

The ans­wer is: prac­tice and resour­ces. I’ve writ­ten enough sales let­ters that I know what my audience wants and how I can pre­sent it to them to maxi­mize sales.  I rarely spend more than a cou­ple of hours wri­ting even 5 or 10 page sales let­ters, and some have con­ver­ted as high as 19 per­cent for me.

Even if you don’t have the skill or the prac­tice, you can still hit the follo­wing sites to pro­duce an ave­rage sales let­ter, enough for a copyw­ri­ter to rew­rite it or cri­ti­que it.

Site #1: Digg​.com
As far as I’m con­cer­ned, Digg is THE best place to find niche head­li­nes from popu­lar, spe­ci­fic and benefit-​​oriented, but funny news items.  Go to Digg​.com, type in your niche key­word and click Search.  Then refine the search to search by the title only (so your key­word is in the title), show all sto­ries (not just front page sto­ries), and sort by most diggs (so the news items “the peo­ple” like float right to the top).  Using the Digg tech­ni­que, I hel­ped a copyw­ri­ter come up with this head­line: “Man Wins Divorce Without a Law­yer In Sight!”  Makes you want to find out more, right?

Site #2: Hard​To​Fin​dAds​.com
Michael Senoff’s Hard to Find Ads is like an ins­tant swipe file.  He shows you ran­dom ads, most of them deca­des old, writ­ten by the most famous and best con­ver­ting copyw­ri­ters that ever lived.  You can take cle­ver head­li­nes, ideas and bullet points from these ads and rew­rite them as your own.

For exam­ple, the first ad I found reads like this: “Top Medi­cal Doc­tor Speaks Out!  An Open Let­ter to Anyone Who Wants to Lose Up to 20 Pounds in Two Weeks the Easy Way.”  If you were wri­ting copy for gro­wing orga­nic toma­toes, you might say: “Top Orga­nic Gar­de­ner Speaks Out!  An Open Let­ter to Anyone Who Wants to Grow 15 Pounds of Toma­toes in 8 Weeks the Easy Way.”  Obviously you’d change the num­bers to wha­te­ver you can prove, but that head­line is bet­ter than anything I could come up with from scratch.

Site #3: Ama​zon​.com
Amazon.com isn't just for buying books. You can use Ama­zon to find out seve­ral things: what KINDS of books in your niche are hot sellers right now.  You can also choose the top selling books and most of the time take a peek at the table of con­tents.  Bingo, ins­tant list of bullet points you can hit on with the sales let­ter.  Ama­zon also gives you a list of key­words rela­ted to that book, to give you even more ideas for bonus reports, videos, and emo­tio­nal hot but­tons.  If all that wasn’t enough, you can read through reviews of the book and make a note of the ter­mi­no­logy peo­ple in that niche tend to use.

Site #4: Archive​.org
Look at one of your com­pe­ti­tors’ sites in your niche.  Then look their site up on the Internet Wayback Machine to see how their page has chan­ged over time.  The other day I was watching the TV show “Mad Men” about adver­ti­sers in the 1960’s.  In one epi­sode, the men in the ad agency are tal­king about a maga­zine ad by Volks­wa­gen.  The ad was ugly, and the car was ugly, and the guys were baf­fled because Volks­wa­gen kept pla­cing the same ad… so it must be pulling in money!

This is the inter­net equi­va­lent of that.  If you know a site pulls in lots of sales, and it was writ­ten by a copyw­ri­ter who tests the head­line, phra­sing, bullet points, call-​​to-​​action, offer, and so on… you can open up the web page as it looks now, and the web page as it loo­ked 6 months or a year ago, and see what chan­ges have been made.  If a copyw­ri­ter kept twea­king the head­line over time but kept switching back to one in par­ti­cu­lar, you know it’s a money-​​maker and you can look at what makes it such a great headline.

Site #5: Goo­gle Ans­wers, Goo­gle Alerts, and (Your Niche) Forums
These sites “should” be a no-​​brainer for any copyw­ri­ter, but so few peo­ple pay atten­tion to them and as a result write very “flat” copy.  When you’re selling something, you’re selling a solu­tion, which means you’ve fixing a pro­blem.  Peo­ple are in pain whether that pain means not having enough money, gro­wing tiny toma­toes or not being able to play the piano.  Look at what ques­tions peo­ple are asking in question-​​and-​​answer sites like Google Answers and in the forums in your niche by searching for your niche key­word plus the word “forum.”

Site #6: Goo­gle Insights, Goo­gle AdWords, Yahoo! Search Mar­ke­ting, Quantcast

Can you tell I’m a fan of Goo­gle?  The fact is, simply searching for your key­word in a search engine and seeing what ads appear on the right side is the per­fect way to see what head­li­nes pull the best.  That’s the most logi­cal place to go and works won­ders com­pa­red to pulling out a head­line or a hook from thin air.

With those six free resour­ces at your dis­po­sal, you have finally run out of excu­ses.  You can write half­way decent copy for your next promo e-​​mail, blog post, or sales let­ter just by seeing what great copy is out there, and “cop­ying” it!

Whether you’re an entre­pre­neur, an Inter­net mar­ke­ter, or a small to medium-​​sized busi­ness owner, Mar­ke­ters Board is defi­ni­tely the place to be.

This blog is not your typi­cal blog. It’s a soun­ding board for mar­ke­ters, where they can get tips, advice, and ideas to help build and grow your busi­ness using the Internet.

On here, we will ans­wer some of the most pres­sing ques­tions mar­ke­ters have. Not only that, but users will have a chance to submit their questions, too!

With the help of brief, step-​​by-​​step tuto­rials, occa­sio­nal strea­ming video les­sons, and inte­rac­tive, on-​​demand con­tent, Mar­ke­ters Board will offer straight­for­ward, no-​​nonsense advice to guide you in your mar­ke­ting efforts.

Some­ti­mes we will be blunt and una­bashed, and we won’t hold anything back. If you’re going down the wrong path, if the stra­tegy you’re imple­men­ting has been pro­ven not to work, or if you’re about to make some of the stu­pid mis­ta­kes we see mar­ke­ters make, we’ll make sure to give you our opinion.

Who Are Michel and Syl­vie Fortin?

Michel is recog­ni­zed as one of the top copyw­ri­ters on the web. For exam­ple, one of his clients gene­ra­ted over a million dollars in a sin­gle day with his copy. Another gene­ra­ted over a million in just one week. Many others have gene­ra­ted hand­some pro­fits with his help.

His wife, Syl­vie For­tin, owns one of the lar­gest outsour­cing firms online. She still hand­les much of the cus­to­mer sup­port work, pro­duct crea­tion, and mar­ke­ting cam­paigns for these top marketers.

Since 1992, they were both ins­tru­men­tal in gene­ra­ting hun­dreds of millions of dollars online for them­sel­ves and their clients. They have wor­ked with many of the Internet’s most suc­cess­ful mar­ke­ters, entre­pre­neurs, and busi­nes­ses span­ning 200 dif­fe­rent indus­tries and niches.

Their client lists read like a who’s who of the online mar­ke­ting world. They inc­lude Shawn Casey, Yanik Sil­ver, Armand Morin, Jay Abraham, Kirt Chris­ten­sen, Stephen Pierce, John Reese, Mark Joy­ner, Corey Rudl, Ryan Deiss, Frank Kern, and too many others to list here.

Also, Michel and Syl­vie often speak on stage at events around the world. And they have coached tens of thou­sands of peo­ple all over the globe on buil­ding suc­cess­ful Inter­net busi­nes­ses and crea­ting money­ma­king web­si­tes. So they do know a thing or two.

They “Preach What They Practice”

Michel and Syl­vie For­tin know what it takes to build a suc­cess­ful busi­ness on the web.

In fact, they own hun­dreds of web­si­tes and Inter­net busi­nes­ses them­sel­ves, ran­ging from blogs and mem­bership sites, to selling soft­ware and hard goods. More impor­tantly, the vast majo­rity of their busi­nes­ses create pas­sive reve­nue for them, even without any work or invol­ve­ment on their part.

For exam­ple, last year Syl­vie had breast can­cer. Luc­kily, she’s in com­plete remis­sion now. But during those long months of chemo and radia­tion the­rapy that follo­wed her sur­gery (mas­tec­tomy of her left breast), they were able to take some time off and still make money, hand over fist.

They’ve wor­ked with clients who made them­sel­ves rich. Extre­mely rich. The kind of rich that is so awe-​​inspiring, it makes you won­der if what they did was legal! But at the same time, they’ve wit­nes­sed count­less fai­lu­res, too, inc­lu­ding some of them of their own.

Wor­king clo­sely with their million-​​dollar clients, they are privy to — and often the brains behind — a lot of what goes on “behind the cur­tains.” They have the inside scoop on what works, what works really well, and what doesn’t work at all.

Wor­king behind the sce­nes, they both have a leg up on things. As a result, they pro­vide you with a dif­fe­rent angle and a uni­que pers­pec­tive other money­ma­king pro­grams don’t have. It’s like tap­ping the minds of the most suc­cess­ful and envied entre­pre­neurs on the web.

Here’s Your Chance to Pick Their Brains!

Mar­ke­ters Board will the go-​​to place for get­ting ans­wers to some of your most bur­ning ques­tions about: mar­ke­ting, selling, researching mar­kets, sour­cing pro­ducts, desig­ning web­si­tes, blog­ging, gene­ra­ting traf­fic, crea­ting pro­ducts, and a lot more.

So stick around. Subsc­ribe to be noti­fied when new posts and upda­tes are made. Enter your email in the box on the right, and click the sub­mit but­ton. You’ll be glad you did.

If you’re an entre­pre­neur, a mar­ke­ter, or a small busi­ness owner, this is the place to get ans­wers to your most pres­sing mar­ke­ting and online busi­ness questions.

Hi. We’re Michel and Syl­vie For­tin. Michel is a sought-​​after Inter­net copyw­ri­ter while Syl­vie owns one of the most in-​​demand free­lance outsour­cing com­pa­nies on the web.

Yes, we’re married. But what you may not know is that, both indi­vi­dually and together as a team, we were ins­tru­men­tal in gene­ra­ting hun­dreds of millions of dollars online since 1992.

We were the “sec­ret wea­pons” wor­king behind the sce­nes of some of the most suc­cess­ful and most envied online mar­ke­ters in the world, as well as some of the most pro­fi­ta­ble mar­ke­ting cam­paigns in the his­tory of the world wide web.

If you have a ques­tion about mar­ke­ting online or off, this is the place. In here, we will ans­wer some of the most bur­ning ques­tions mar­ke­ters have. In fact, they will be your questions!

Yes, that’s right! You will be the one hel­ping us gene­rate con­tent, because you’ll be able to ask your ques­tions. If selec­ted, we will ans­wer it right here on this board. We might even have spe­cial guest experts, or even create videos to show you how.

Best of all, we will do it for… FREE!

We Might Sur­prise You, Even Shock You.

We won’t hold anything back. Yes, we are posi­tive peo­ple. But don’t kid your­self. Life is not all roses. In fact, if you’re not suc­cess­ful yet, chan­ces are you’ve been duped, carrot-​​dangled, or dis­trac­ted at some point. And we’re sorry to say, but a lot of it is your own fault.

So be pre­pa­red, because we will be going off on rants from time to time.

If you’ve read Syl­vie Fortin’s scathing and highly con­tro­ver­sial exposé on the stu­pid mis­ta­kes mar­ke­ters make, Internet Marketing Sins, or Michel Fortin’s white paper on the dec­line of worn-​​out, overhy­ped sales tac­tics online, The Death of The Salesletter, you know we don’t sugar­coat or pull any punches.

We’ll try to keep this blog clean. But we will be blunt. We will be straight­for­ward. And we will peeve a few peo­ple off. So if you’re faint of heart, this is not for you. Con­si­der your­self warned.

Howe­ver, if you’re ready to hear the solid, unvar­nished truth, and you’re ready to make an honest living online using pro­ven stra­te­gies and tac­tics, then stick around. You might learn a thing or two.

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We will offi­cially launch by the end of January, 2009. So if you want to be noti­fied when we do open our doors along with post upda­tes, subsc­ribe to our list to be noti­fied. Simply enter your email address below and click the but­ton to regis­ter for free.

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