Affiliate Marketing - The SMART Way

Right now I’m writing this from a (small) hotel room in Phuket, Thailand.

The weather here is hot and stifling, just the way I like it - and I’m about the color of your average beet - but we’re having a blast, and the food is great. And speaking of food, my wife and I had a bit of a dilemma today…

We went down one of the many side-streets branching off from the main “beach road” in search of some authentic Thai cuisine. (Somehow it always seems like the best food gets cooked up in the less-obvious places where the restaurant owners can focus more on making great food than paying big rent-checks.) We came across two quaint little places; one on each side of the street, directly across from eachother.

Both menus essentially had the same stuff, and they even looked the same physically - same chairs, same layout, etc.

But there was one major difference that led to our final decision:

One restaurant was packed full of people that looked like locals. The other only had one couple at a table, who were very obviously tourists. This subconsciously registered with both of us, saying that the “local favorite” had better food.

You can guess where we went…

So where am I going with this?

Why am I wasting your time with “food talk” when the title says I have a massive traffic secret to disclose?

I used food as an example because I want something to HIT HOME with you, and food’s a very simple thing to visualize and understand, because we all eat, and we can all relate to the satisfaction of finding a good restaurant - as well as the disappointment of falling for appearances that were big on promise, and low on “taste”.

And when we ENJOY something, or if something makes a substantial IMPRESSION on us in some way, then we’ll naturally talk about it. It comes up, and other people register that information for later on. The cycle continues until, eventually - if the “thing” applies to enough people - it becomes popular organically.

Because it’s noticeably GOOD.

Because it makes an IMPRESSION.

And it’s the same on the web. Word gets around, folks. If what you’ve got is really worth talking about, your traffic-generation efforts will be multiplied because your visitors will actually market it FOR you. Depending on the market and how much “talk” your site generates, this word-of-mouth effect could actually overshadow your own traffic from SEO and other avenues, even if sporadically.

Let me give you an example. It’s one that you’re already familiar with:

TheLazyMarketer.com

The story behind “Confessions of a Lazy Super-Affiliate” is one that might surprise you. I actually never intended for the book to take off, or get any kind of real exposure. I simply wanted to raise some quick cash to justify a sudden decision to do a Mexico surf-trip with one of my friends.

But since I didn’t “really” need the cash per se, I wanted to use the opportunity as an experiment to do something that I’ve rarely seen done before. Two things, actually.

1. I wanted the salesletter to be completely “hypeless” and lay out most of my secrets directly on the page, delivering crazy value up-front, no strings.

2. I wanted the product itself to absolutely, completely, ridiculously over-deliver. It took me 2 full weeks to complete the book, start to finish (61 pages), and I left nothing out. No remaining “secrets”, no hype, no incomplete info.

What I wanted to see is if the age-old mantra was actually true, the one saying that providing more value than what you charge is the key to success. I wanted to see how far “word of mouth” would actually spread, in real life, and in an ultra-competitive niche that gets bombarded with offers daily: internet marketing.

So I named the product, got a catchy domain name, and then paid $20 for the listing as a “special offer” on the Warrior Forum.

At first, the initial sales were dependant on the copy, and to be honest, my existing reputation on the forum. For the first few hours that the special offer was live, sales seemed to be “usual”. Good, but not terribly exciting. I was waiting with expectation - I knew that most of the people who would read the book would be pleasantly surprised.

And then the first wave of reviews came in - and everything changed.

People were amazed - literally blown away. They had actually learned something new. And for many others, they finally had that “light bulb” moment in regards to my first two chapters (what to promote and HOW to promote). Veterans and newbies alike loved it. It left a real impression.

Sales exploded.

I think I sold something like 250 copies in 72 hours, from around 1200 visits to the offer.

What followed in the next week was literally about 30 requests from a variety of marketers who WANTED to join an affiliate program and promote it - tell others. I wasn’t set up with ClickBank yet, so I told them I’d email them as soon as I had a CB referral link.

(I was also in Mexico at the time for the next 2 weeks, so all I could really do was respond to emails and make a “to do” list for later on, whilst getting some serious beatings out in the waves and a couple half-decent rides as well…)

I got back to Canada and set up the product with ClickBank a few weeks later. I delayed it a bit because I had another project at the time that had to take priority. Sales were still coming in strong - several copies a day, even after the first “WSO” had long ended.

When the product was approved at ClickBank, I emailed everyone who’d requested to be an affiliate with linking info. To make a long story short, let’s just put it this way:

Since I wrote it in September, 2007 until now (Jan. 15th, 2008), I’ve sold in total 2,341 copies, almost all of which have been sold through ClickBank.

To achieve these results - I must’ve been doing JV deals, PPC and affiliate recruitment like crazy, right?

Not exactly…

I’ve personally requested a whopping THREE deals so far, two of which materialized, and one that didn’t (yet). Those two deals brought in a fair chunk of sales (about 17% of the total). And the only reason they agreed to it was because I pointed them to unsolicited reviews and threads of praise of forums that my customers had started, going out of their way to review the book publicly and recommend it - which got their attention.

All the rest of the sales have been the result of word-of-mouth, organic affiliate recruitment from visibility on the CB network, and specific requests to promote it by several people who LOVED the product, sincerely.

Heck - I just found out that a UK small business magazine actually featured it in print! They called it “ebook of the year” or something like that, according to one of my recent customers, which explains the influx of recent sales with no affiliate referral…

All because of a simple experiment. All because I took the extra time to make sure that I delivered unprecedented value for the price.

“Confessions” was only meant to help me justify an impulsive surf-trip by pulling in like an extra $4k or something. I had over-delivered and gone a little crazy with the salesletter to keep myself entertained in the process.

Instead, what happened is that so far it’s generated $65,249.85 in gross sales, before affiliate commissions, the occasional refunds and CB fees, etc.

That’s what happens when you decide to make a strong impression with your visitors.

The truth is that I’ve been super lazy with this ebook, and almost on-purpose, truth be told. I’m simply amazed at how it just “keeps on ticking” from more and more referrals, recommendations, and so on.

It’s incredible, and it’s an inspiration for my niche projects, which I’m basically re-building around this model because it makes traffic generation SO MUCH EASIER.

Exponentially easier.

It’s like rolling a ball down a hill, instead of up. You still have to go from point A to point B, it’s just that when you’re working with real value - value that’s in demand - you’ll be starting with a major advantage right from day one.

This is the only possible “tactic” where your initial performance estimates might be severely understated.

Like mine were.

So that’s why my last post really encourages you to start building actual authority within your niche. Start giving your visitors something to talk about. Yes, you can still gage profitability and make some easy initial cash with the mini-site “kindling” strategy - but just make sure you’re eventually going to be delivering major value if it’s a niche you actually want to build a strong presence in.

It’s a million times easier…

All the best,

-Chris