The Silent Avatar Speaks

One of the ways to make money online is to become an affiliate and sell products for others and get a commission.

Commissions range in percentage, but you can expect somewhere in the region of fifty to seventy five percent of the cost of the product (less fees), so it can be a lucrative way to make additional income.

If you have a list to sell to then simply sending out a broadcast email to your list advising them of the affiliate product along with a personal testimonial can be all that is required to sell an affiliate product.

The amount of email which comes into my inbox each day is testimony to the number of product launches which continue to bombard the Internet marketing circles on a daily basis.

Along with product launches, it is not uncommon to see “contests” to reward affiliates to actively promote products.

Russell Brunson’s Dot Com Secrets affiliate contest came to my attention this week offering to win a lease of a Corvette for two years.

What jolted me upright was the inclusion of a photo of Mike Filsaime standing in front of an enormous Hummer, with the caption underneath reading:
“Mike Filsaime showing off his brand new Hummer H2 he won thanks to winning one of Russell Brunsons’ affiliate contests!!!”

If you have been in Internet marketing circles, then you would know Mike Filsaime. Mike shot to fame with his Butterfly Marketing Manuscript, and software. He has become a multi-millionaire, launching numerous products including Viral Friend Generator (which I spoke about in my post about viral marketing). He has built a list of over 300,000 subscribers (OMG), so does it surprise you to see that Mike took out line honours in an affiliate contest? Nope.

And what does this mean for people like you and me starting out?

It means this…I’ve got a better chance of winning the Lottery than winning an affiliate contest with Mike Filsaime promoting to his list.

And if you go up against someone with a list of thousands, then what’s your chance of winning such a contest? Not likely.

My question is this… does Mike really need a Hummer? My guess is “nope”.

And what’s this doing to those who are hell bent on making a career of Internet marketing, or those in the loop who keep Internet Marketing alive?

It kills any enthusiasm, stifles the very essence of “fair play”.

A contest open to to the big marketing gurus is like playing with a full hand of aces. How can someone with a list this big not win? (and let’s face it… Mike Filsaime has all the knowledge and resources he needs to make sales happen)

Forget the contests. It’s not even a level playing field.

You’ve got a better chance of winning the lottery, so save your time and effort and go buy a ticket and focus on building the list.

The money is in the list!

Tags: Affiliate Marketing by the silent avatar
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Give me $500. Come on! Give me $500!!! 

What?  You’re not going to just give me your money?

Why Not!?

See, when you ask someone to do something for you, unless they have some motivation to do so, they just won’t do it. No motivation.

So today I want to focus on motivating your current subscribers to grow your list (aka viral marketing).

Viral marketing makes use of the tendency of a person to share something found to be informative, entertaining or amazing. Viral marketing makes use of many mediums in enticing this behaviour. It might be in the form of an interesting story, an addicting flash game, an amusing video and many others that may catch a person’s fancy.

This ingenious form of marketing is typically low cost and is a wonderful tool for any company to utilise. The benefit greatly overshadows the cost or efforts to initialise this marketing scheme.
Viral marketing makes use of many mediums in enticing this behaviour. It might be in the form of an interesting story, an e-report, an addicting flash game, an amusing video and many others that may catch a person’s fancy.

Viral marketing is wonderful, but “True Viral Systems” are quite rare.

A true viral system is one with a “Spawn Rate” of x>1 Spawn Rate: The Rate at Which Your Viral System Grows – That is, for every one person who enters the viral system, they will, on average, result X number additional people spreading the word as well.
                        
If your spawn rate is greater than 1, over time you have something that grows and grows perpetually.

  Every viral system will die at some point even if they are truly viral, however your system does not have to be truly viral for you to benefit.  If you have a spawn rate of X < 1 you will still get growth – and growth, when you’re talking about an email list, *is* exactly what you want to achieve.

Ah, this is the *theory* of viral marketing.  It sounds wonderful doesn’t it?

The problem is, getting the actual result is the problem.
Here’s where the real value of what I have to tell you surfaces.

So just how do you increase the Spawn Rate of your viral system?, or put in layman’s terms, how do you get people to spread your marketing message for you?

 

The Golden Rule of Viral Marketing:
“If there is no motivation, there is no viral  growth.”          

You weren’t motivated to give me $500 were you?  Unconsciously you were looking for the “What’s In It For Me” answer.

And if you weren’t offered a reason to give me $500, or you couldn’t find one then you simply won’t do it. Put simply, there has to be motivation.

Whoa! I can hear the naysayer loud and clear…

 “But what about if I just wanted to give for no real reason at all?”.

Then I say your motivation is to please the asker, or you want to avoid the pain you will  experience when you say  “No”.           

So in order to motive people to do something for you, you want to motivate them by giving a compelling reason to do so.

The classic way to motivate people to spread the word is to offer them an incentive: “Pass this on and we’ll give you ____” (fill in the ____ with your creativity).            

Motivating doesn’t need to be overt as sometimes people are motivated to pass things on for more subtle reasons. Ever noticed how many jokes get passed on from one email address to another? The reason they get passed on is you generally found them funny and want to share the humour with a friend.

Knowing the value of viral marketing, a number of software applications have been spawned to assist your viral marketing efforts.

There was plenty of hype around Mike Filsaime’s Viral Friend Generator when it was launched and I recommend as the best viral marketing tool to use for your website.

Tell A Friend Script

One of the easiest methods in viral marketing is using a tell-a-friend script. This is a simple programming script that you can attach to the programming of your website. Generally, tell a friends script are installed in pages where a media is placed so that a person can easily send the media to any of his friends or his family members.

The basic concept of  a tell a friend script is a script wherein a person may input his name, e-mail address, the recipient’s e-mail address and send the media to the intended recipient much like an e-mail with an attachment. As the recipient receives the e-mail he wouldn’t think of the mail a spam mail because he would see the sender’s name as someone he or she knows and trust.

Tell a friend script eliminates greatly the chances of being blocked because they use the information inputted by the sender. This allows for wider spreading of this marketing method. It can be quite sneaky but it is very effective.

 With the e-mail sent and opened the sent media will either be read, viewed or played. Also along with the mail would be a brief description of the company or site that sponsors the media sent. This allows for the introduction of either the site, company name or its products. The along with it is another tell a friend script.

Then the process begins again. As more people use the tell a friend script, more and more people will know of the existence of the sponsoring company or site. People who read the ads inside the mail who liked what they see would go and click on the link and visit the site. This drives traffic into the site resulting to great number of potential customers.

 Tell A Friend Script Availability

 A tell a friend script is very simple and does not require a complicated method of programming. In fact, you can copy paste a script and simply put it on an intended page. Finding one is even simpler. All you have to do is go to a search engine and type in the search box “tell a friend script” then press enter or click go.

In the search results page you will see many links that will direct you to a site where you can get a tell a friend script. It would just be a simple matter of looking and searching for the script and copying it to your intended web page.

With a tell a friend script viral marketing strategy you can drive traffic into your site which could potentially spell profits. This is a simple harmless script that offers great benefits for low cost paired with great creativity and foresight.

It is imperative that you have patience in using a tell a friend script. If your chosen media doesn’t get the mileage that is expected of it, it may take some time before it gets spread or shared. But surely many people will see your ads and there is great probability that they will visit your site increasing your traffic flow.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Tools For Your Business by the silent avatar
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In my last blog post I spoke about the value of giving good service, and the benefit of giving away something free to your customers or clients.

Today I am going to share with you some tips to reduce customer dissatisfaction and retain customer loyalty.

Often overlooked, one way to reduce customer dissatisfaction is to make it easy for your customers or clients to voice their concerns and complaints.

It seems so obvious yet often times a web site has a contact form, details of phone numbers and mail addresses in which people can very easily make contact with the site owner. However many times I have found it extremely difficult to find the link, and sometimes not at all.

Contact information is a show of credibility and in some way eases the emotion, knowing that their grievance can be at the least delivered or heard.

Many Internet marketing sites and “get rich quick’ web sites fail to address the needs of the customer by excluding completely any means of contact. This in itself would set of alarm bells – wouldn’t you think?

In a brick and mortar business, many, many business fail to advise a means of customer grievance. A simple sign outlining the grievance policy, located where customers could clearly read it, would encourage those who have a complaint to feel comfortable enough to come forward. And that’s precisely what you want.

Rather than recount their grievance to every second person they speak with, you have an opportunity to resolve the issue before it impacts your business.

A good idea is to have a well documented grievance “form”, taking all of the particulars – it shows you are interested in the matter.

Likewise a form on a website asking for similar details is a must. Even better you can add a component to your website to handle all your customer support.

Known as a “Help Desk”, this is an efficient add-on to a website which logs everything under a numbered “ticket”. The addition of system reports enable you to follow up disputes without loosing track, or worse forgetting all about it.

Ensuring your business addresses customer grievances or disputes before they happen will enable you to look at all of the possible reasons why someone would complain, and address those issues before they happen. Or in the event they do happen, you will have a well documented procedure to follow to ensure a satisfactory resolution.

Another way to avoid customer dissatisfaction is to ensure you don’t over-state the benefits of your product. Nothings worse than being led to believe that a product or a service made certain claims, and on those strengths you purchased, only to find out the product/service is far short of the claims. That’s just asking for trouble.

If you’re going to make a claim it better stack up.

By all means use persuasive sales copy, after all – the mere fact you are in an online business requires emotive, benefit driven sales copy. We’re not face-to- face.

Adding a 100% money back guarantee will also go a long way in increasing your sales online. A guarantee to give all their money back if they are not satisfied is as good as a “no risk” transaction, and your site visitors/customers feel a lot more at ease undertaking the transaction = more sales.

Anything less than a money back guarantee I would consider to be unacceptable if you want to do business online. The fact that you have the money before they have the product is the very reason why some people refuse to shop online.

If you have confidence in your product then it shouldn’t be an issue. The chances of someone having to claim on it are very slim.

The benefits far outweigh the negatives.

[Read more →]

Tags: General by the silent avatar
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