A Simple Way to Convert Prospects to Clients and Clients to Raving Fans

Would you like a way to add more value to your existing client base and in the meantime make more money from them? -- Or, how about a way to shrink your sales cycle by enticing them to start buying from you in the first place?

Well doing so may not be as difficult as it may seem as there are many ways do it. However, I’d like to share with you here one of my favorites -- and it is “Affiliate Marketing”!

Now for those of you who may be new to this concept, let me just briefly explain what it is. Essentially it is where a third party markets the products and/or services on behalf of a retailer in exchange for a commission on any sales they initiate.

So besides the obvious benefit of earning more money in your business, offering great affiliate products can do a number of things for you. For example:

• Offering great affiliate products can make you more valuable to your target market by giving you more products and services to offer at a variety of different price points. So if you want to convert your prospects to clients, entice them to buy now by offering them some lower-priced entry-level affiliate products. If you want to convert your clients to raving fans, offer them a solid back-end of affiliate products that will enhance their experience with you even further.

• Offering great affiliate products can strengthen your positioning with your target market by becoming “great by association”. In other words, if you represent another company or product that your target market already knows, likes, and/or trusts, then those positive feelings stand a good chance of transferring onto you.

• Offering great affiliate products can help increase your brand awareness with your target market by giving you more real reasons to connect and share what you’re about and how you can add value.

And we can go on and on and on here -- as the benefits are endless.

The whole idea is to find quality products and services that make sense for you to represent -- Try to stick with ones that have something to do with what you offer. For example, if you’re a Business Coach, offering baseball equipment is probably not a wise choice for you. However, offering a few books, written by others, that support your methodologies thus improving what’s possible for your clients is a fantastic idea.

One quick and easy way to get started is to become an affiliate of Amazon.com. Register as an Amazon Associate (their affiliate marketing program), drive traffic to their web site using specially formatted links that they provide, and get paid when the person you refer buys -- it’s that simple!

When you’re comfortable working as an affiliate marketer with Amazon, then I recommend stepping up your game and registering with a large retailer of digital products such as ClickBank.com. There is something for every affiliate marketer there. Much like Amazon.com, most of the tools you will need to market the products effectively are available to you from their web site.

As you continue to develop your skills in affiliate marketing, another more advanced approach you may want to consider is to reach out to the companies that have products or services that you would like to represent and ask if they have an affiliate program in place that you can participate in. And if they do, get involved. If they don’t, and they’re open to it, try to hammer out a deal to help them set one up in exchange for a more lucrative arrangement.

So in closing, affiliate marketing is a very powerful business builder that can be, and is, leveraged effectively by businesses of all types and sizes. Always remember though to choose which retailers, products, and services you want to represent very carefully as they will reflect in so many ways upon you. Used intelligently, they can certainly help convert your prospects to clients and your clients to raving fans.

© 2007 Online Marketing Muscle -- All Rights Reserved.

Want to use this article in your newsletter, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include the following complete blurb with it (including links).

Liked this article? -- Then you won’t want to miss Long Island-based marketing consultant, coach, and entrepreneur Dean Mercado’s highly acclaimed marketing blog 'The Motivational Marketer’s Journal'. Additionally, for even more small business marketing and success tips, sample the latest edition of his FREE marketing tips newsletter the 'Marketing Minute', -- a weekly multimedia e-zine designed to give you a jolt of marketing wisdom in less than 5 minutes.

Technorati Tags: Dean Mercado, Online Marketing Muscle, affiliate marketing, affiliate products, affiliate programs, affiliate services, target market, amazon.com, clickbank.com

9 Characteristics of a "Sticky" Web Site That Keeps Your Visitors Coming Back For More

It’s one thing to drive traffic to your web site once, it’s quite another to get those visitors to come back… let alone come back often.

Think about it, you get invited to a friend’s house for a little get together. How would you feel if all they did was talk about themselves all night? Probably pretty bored and maybe even a tad bit annoyed… right? Let alone be motivated enough to attend their next gathering. So why is it then that so many web sites out there do precisely that? They focus on me, me, me and not enough on the people who really matter… their target market.

And here’s a little secret for you. Your target market doesn’t care that much about you to sit their and listen to you go on and on about yourself. Their main concern is themselves and what you can do for them.

So let me ask you, is your web site all about you or is it all about adding value to your target market? Does your web site pass the “stickiness” test? In other words, do your visitors keep coming back? If so why? These are all serious questions that any small business with a web site needs to answer.

In order to answer questions like these, it’s important for us to discover what exactly makes a web site sticky in the first place. Well a great way to explore this concept is with an ad-hoc case study. So for me, I sat down with a pen and paper and just brainstormed a few different web sites that I frequented often. Who were they? And why did I keep going back? Let’s take a look at one of those web sites, Amazon.com. First off, I realized that I visit that site quite often, usually several times a week. Now the big question was why. So here’s what I came up with… 9 characteristics that made their web site sticky for me and kept me, the visitor, coming back for more:

1. They feed my insatiable appetite for what they offer… books… and they’ve got a phenomenal selection
2. They fuel my desire to consume more books by emailing me occasionally new recommendations based on my purchasing history
3. They make it easy for me to find out what’s new in the subjects as well as authors I’m interested in
4. I can express my opinions by both rating and reviewing books on their web site
5. They peak my curiosity by making me wonder what books they’re going to recommend for me each time I visit their web site
6. They personalize my experience by using my name on their web site and customizing the home page I see based on my preferences
7. They create a sense of community by allowing me to connect with other like-minded people as “friends”
8. They feed my ego by allowing me to position myself as an expert in any subject matter I choose by creating “Listmania!” lists and “So you’d like to…” guides
9. And lastly, they allow me to help others make great decisions by rating and reviewing books, creating “Listmania!” lists and writing those “So you’d like to…” guides

Now just to place some perspective on this exercise, I do understand that Amazon.com has a bit more money to spend on their web site than your typical small business; however there is still a lot we can learn from great web sites such as theirs. And not all of the greatness that their web site brings to the table cost big bucks. So take a closer look and see if there are any concepts you can learn from and model on your web site.

Also it’s important to consider what your target market would want from your web site. Maybe it’s all 9 of the characteristics I’ve shared… maybe it’s additional characteristics that didn’t show up in my ad-hoc Amazon.com case study. The best way to find out is to just ask your target market. Additionally, find out what web sites they frequent and why. You may be surprised at what you find out.

So in closing, I sincerely believe you will find that the more you continually look for ways to make your visitor’s experience a dynamic one, the more likely they will come back… over and over again. And the more they come back, the more likely they are to buy.

© 2007 Online Marketing Muscle -- All Rights Reserved.

Want to use this article in your newsletter, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include the following complete blurb with it (including links).

Liked this article? -- Then you won’t want to miss Long Island-based marketing consultant, coach, and entrepreneur Dean Mercado’s highly acclaimed marketing blog 'The Motivational Marketer’s Journal'. Additionally, for even more small business marketing and success tips, sample the latest edition of his FREE marketing tips newsletter the 'Marketing Minute', -- a weekly multimedia e-zine designed to give you a jolt of marketing wisdom in less than 5 minutes.

Technorati Tags: Dean Mercado, Online Marketing Muscle, web sites, target market, amazon.com, amazon, books