I recently shared an email with my valued “insiders” that came from one of my clients, where he was concerned about affiliates smearing his reputation by using “scam” in Google Adwords and such to get traffic to their review sites.
What you’re about to discover is my actual reply to him, but also what I *wish* I would have said to him (I still will), and finally, a KILLER, proven strategy that will help you CRUSH IT, even if you hate affiliates.
First of all, here’s the email he sent to me…
Affiliates? Ehh….I’m still not happy with them Andy to be honest. I view myself a bit differently…and I’m struggling with guys making money off of saying “(NAME) SCAM!” and “(PRODUCT) Scam!”. I don’t view that as somebody HELPING me and it only damages the reputation in many eyes.
Now granted, all of those sites are glowingly positive (why wouldn’t they be?!? They’re trying to convert a sale!) but I don’t know if that’s what I’m looking for when I stand on my reputation as a very important part of my marketing. My gravity has risen to 36 on CB from 20 when we last spoke…. and I have no doubt it will get over 100, but my question is….is there a time when it’s not worth it or appropriate?
Perhaps others need people to spread the word about them to get them recognition, but in my case… I hope I’ve earned it in other ways.
MY RESPONSE…
Man, you just have to go with your gut. Even though an affiliate program could help you knock it out of the park, you don’t HAVE to have that to be wildly successful with your new product – or any product.
Here’s what you do, now that I fully understand what you said about the “scam” stuff…
You simply have an “invite only” affiliate program, where you personally invite certain JV partners to promote for you, and at the same time, you make it very clear to them that none of the “scam” type stuff will be tolerated… although you won’t have to worry about these types of people, anyway, since your research will prove that your JV partners have a list to promote to, and won’t rely on that other crapola.
But here’s a twist… you STILL promote your affiliate program with an “Affiliates” or “Affiliate Program” link at the bottom of your page, and have a “JV attraction page” that sells people on joining your affiliate program, but you let them know up front that only a small % of affiliates will be accepted… and then just tell them why.
You’ll have people contacting you saying “hey, will you consider me, because I have a list of 80K people who love what I promote, and I don’t do any of that other crap”.
Anyway, going this route will allow you to have the best of both worlds… a powerful affiliate program (or “JV attraction system”) AND keep the majority from making you look bad, allowing you to be able to take a deep breath of fresh air, knowing your business is being promoted by winners, and putting your business – and name – in the best light possible.
Ok, so I think you’ll agree that this was probably some pretty sound advice, but let’s take things a step further by sharing what I wish I had also told him…
WHAT I *WISH* I HAD SAID (Good Stuff)…
First of all, regardless of what you do, people are still going to find ways to talk bad about you or put your business in some sort of negative light, but the great thing is that you can use this to your advantage.
While no one really wants to look bad, or worse yet, have their reputation ruined by others, you can set things up so that when people DO put up negative stuff (again, as you mentioned, the “scam” type ads actually lead to POSITIVE info about your stuff, anyway), you simply RESPOND to it – not react – by sharing any negativity you find with your faithful customers, blog readers, and subscribers!
You simply point out what “this idiot had to say”, and ask your fans for their feedback, and what you’ll get is a 99% glowing remarks about you and your business that will, in effect, diffuse any negativity that you might find about you or your company online… IF you find any at all.
In fact, if it means that much to you, I’d even have someone research negative stuff on a daily basis for you, and anytime they find something, you come up with a way to make it BENEFIT YOU!
So, in other words, even if you have a product on Clickbank that allows anyone to create a link to promote your stuff, thus opening yourself up to “scam” type AdWords ads, and such, I would recommend looking at this as an OPPORTUNITY for you to actually create some positive buzz about you and your business.
Besides… the more you polarize your marketing, where you have some people who love you and some who may even hate you, the more effective your marketing can be in the long run.
How To Crush It (Even If You Hate Affiliates)
I first learned about this at Ryan Deiss & Perry Belcher’s event a year ago in Austin, TX, but it’s just as powerful today as it was then.
You simply create a pre-recorded webinar of you providing killer content about your product or service’s subject matter, that leads into a pitch of your goods.
You then establish a specific schedule for your webinar to be played throughout a 3-7 day period, as well as set up specific emails that you would have JV partners send out to their lists during that 1 week period of time, getting people onto those live webinars.
You then pinpoint specific JV partners whose lists you’d like to share your webinar content with, promising your partners 50% (or whatever) of the profit from any sales that are made, and start contacting them to see if they would be open to being your exclusive JV partner during a specific week of their choice.
You then set it all up with these partners on a case-by-case basis, record an intro with the JV partner for each webinar that would be sent out, and then put it all into action, while repeating this process on a weekly basis with JV partners of YOUR choosing.
Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but that’s the basic idea.
Do You Want To Promote This Type of Webinar To Your IM List?
I have a contact who is CRUSHING it by doing this type of promotion in the IM industry, and they’re looking for more list owners who are interested in making easy commissions by sharing their high-content webinar with their listeners.
If you have a responsive IM list, and you would like some more information about this, join my “JV Deals Announcement List”, because I’ll be sharing more info about how you can get started very soon with those on that list ONLY.
Now go get some more JV partners and affiliates, and ramp up those monthly revenues!
To Massive JV Profits,
Andy Hussong
The Affiliate Management Insider
http://www.AffiliateManagementInsider.com
