Play Internet Moneyball to Get Affiliates
In the last two weeks I’ve been consulting with a writer at a major magazine…
...he’s sick of ‘working for the man’, doing twice the work as everyone else at his office, all for low pay and NO chance of promotion – because he doesn’t have insider connections.
But he’s got a site, and more importantly, a BIG idea. There’s hope for him yet.
A big idea – that leads to a converting offer – is the most important thing you can have on your journey to success.
Never forget that.
However, at the same time as being on the right path, he’s also completely lost about where to get started and which path to take when he comes to all the forks in the road.
Sound familiar?
That’s why I’m giving you a full-blown Internet Moneyball plan today…I can’t hold this back.
You MUST have it. I don’t care that I’m giving it away for free…because you need it to become a success story…and I NEED you to become a success so I can reach my 1 Million Mission. 1 Million Mission.
So let’s play Internet Moneyball. This will show you how to go from Idea to Getting Customers to Putting Money in the Bank.
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“That’s thirty minutes away. I’ll be there in ten.” – The Wolf, Pulp Fiction
Do you remember the famous scene in Pulp Fiction, early in the movie, where the young man in the back of John Travolta’s car meets an early demise?
So who did Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson call to fix the mess?
The Wolf.
My favorite character in any Tarantino movie.
The Wolf fixes problems. No excuses. No questions asked. He’s just a value-adder.
And when it comes to building a business, online or offline, it pays to be a problem solver.
You need to be “The Wolf” of your niche, adding value in a way that no one else can.
Robert Ringer, the author of the seminal book, “Winning Through Intimidation”, says, “Giving others what they want really is what motivates them to give you what you want.”
If you bring a unique solution to your clients, you’ll be rewarded.
But doing deals and selling to others is no time to be timid or even humble. You must be bold, confident, and charismatic.
Oh, and add persistent to that list. Unfortunately, these are all attributes that most beginners lack.
However, if you take a look at the top performers in any industry, you’ll realize that they ALL have these attributes in spades.
They are not intimidated or slowed down by others. As Ringer says, “The results a person achieves are inversely proportionate to the degree to which he is intimidated.”
Finally, always remember this quote from Ringer, for it holds true for anyone with the brass balls to implement it:
“No one has an obligation – moral, legal, or otherwise – to work his way up through the ranks. You have a right to make a unilateral decision to begin operating on a higher level at any time you believe that you’re prepared to do so.”
In the world of Internet Moneyball, you need to be a deal-maker to get affiliates to promote your products.
The most important question when it comes to recruiting affiliates to promote you is this:
“Will your offer make the affiliate more money than if they promoted something else?”
A second key question is:
“Can the affiliate make money without doing much – if any – work on their own?” (Is it all done-for-them?)
If the answer to both is yes, then you’ll have little problem getting affiliates.
Unfortunately, most marketers procrastinate on dealing with these issues.
Instead, they spend their time trying to get Facebook friends or Linked-In connections, but that rarely makes anyone money.
Stop dancing around the big issue – of creating an offer that converts and makes your affiliate money.
When it comes to deal making, Ringer recommends focusing on “the crux of the issue.” Meaning you must focus on the point or points upon which success or failure rests.
In this “Internet Moneyball” article, we’ll focus on helping you get affiliates.
In affiliate deals, the crux of the issue is EPC – Earnings Per Click. It is the key metric to know in your business.
Your EPC will vary by traffic source, but if you have a pre-written, proven, converting email that has been used by several affiliates, you can go to potential affiliates and gat essentially state:
“For every click you send, you’ll make $X.”
(That’s the definition of Earnings Per Click.)
Going to an affiliate with your EPC will get their attention and prove that you’re a player who ‘gets it’.
And If your EPC is attractive to affiliates, they will promote your offer all day long.
Plus, with a higher EPC, you’ll get more affiliates and more front-end sales into your business. And that’s the fastest way to grow your business – get more people in your front end so that you can sell them additional products on the back-end sales (where the REAL profit is made).
When working with affiliates, you build your business bygetting OPC – Other People’s Customers.
To get OPC, you need to be a mercenary, contacting affiliates, setting up promotion email swaps (where you’ll promote their product if they promote yours).
Be creative when setting up swaps and making deals. Maybe your email list isn’t as big as theirs, but perhaps you could do something else for them to even out the deal…such as connecting them to a bigger player that you know, or even creating a bonus product for them, or simply mailing 2x’s to their 1x (if their list is twice as big).
Or you could go BIG and give the affiliate 100% commission on all front end sales. That’s usually enough to get any affiliate pay attention to your offer.
Bottom line:
To play Internet Moneyball, you need to be a deal-maker.
In addition, to play in the big leagues, you also need to have what I call, an “affiliate media kit” (AMK). This is where knowing your EPC comes in handy.
Here’s what you need to have in your AMK:
1) A PROVEN pre-written email that gets OPENS and CLICKS. (Such as the one I created for a fitness product in the example below.)
2) The email headline must result in an above average email rate and have a 50% or higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR).
3) The next step is to make sure your sales page converts the clicks to sales.
4) You must know your average transaction value – or at least explain how much commission is made per sale, per upsell, etc.
5) List total commissions that an affiliate made from a recent promo. For example, Affiliate X sending to his 10,000 person exercise email list received 2000 clicks, resulting in 111 sales and $4,153 in commission.
6) BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY…you take total commissions and divide by UNIQUE clicks and you get Earnings Per Click – EPC.
EPC is THE number that professional mercenary affiliates care about. Period.
In our above example, the total commission divided by the number of clicks resulted in an EPC above $2 ($4153 in commission divided by 2000 clicks = > $2 EPC).
That’s a winning offer and you should take that to everyone that has a similar niche market email list. You’ll have no problem getting affiliates that way.
7) What’s a good EPC? It will vary between industries.
For example, if you have an EPC above $0.50 in the fitness industry, you are in business, but you’ll need it to be above $2 in the Internet Marketing world to get attention.
More importantly, break it down among niche and find the best performing affiliate niche and focus on doing your deals there.
Next up is a specific example of an affiliate media kit I created for one of the fitness partner products I publish.
This is the informal email I send to potential affiliates who are the right fit for promoting this product.
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Dear Alfred Affiliate,
My friend Shawna Kaminski has a HOT new fitness product.
I’ve sold over 100 copies of it with just a single email AND it would be a personal favor to me if you’d consider promoting this or letting her write an article for your blog.
Top fitness experts like (Name Withheld) and (Name Withheld) have made dozens of sales from one email to their list.
Shawna’s product will show you readers how to do more pushups and pullups.
Her website is www.ChallengeWorkouts.com and she’ll be dominating the “challenge workout” niche market with tons of cool, innovative programs for fat loss and performance.
Your affiliate link:
=> http://XXXXX.1ruckus.hop.clickbank.net
(Please replace XXXXX with your affiliate ID.)
READER NOTE: That really is her affiliate link if you’d like to promote it to your list.
Here are the stats when I ran it to my list:
3% conversion rate $0.67 EPC
And I have a proven email for you to use (below). It’s straight to the point and has an above average open rate and 51% click-through rate.
Here it is…
Subject: How to do more pushups and pullups (embarrassing story)
There’s a woman – in her 40’s – who can KICK my butt in a push-up and pull-up challenge.
Her name’s Shawna Kaminski and she can help anyone – even you and me – improve the number of pushups and pullups that they can do. She has training tips and SIMPLE little technique changes that will give you almost immediate improvements.
Check them out here:
=> INSERT AFFILIATE LINK
You’ll also discover an embarrassing story from a world- famous fitness expert who THOUGHT he was fit until he trained with Shawna.
Shawna’s a master at pushups and pullups – and a fitness champion, to boot.
So no matter if you still struggle to do your 1st pullup or pushup, or if you want to do 25 pullups straight, she can help.
After all, she can do more than 25 pullups and 100 pushups – straight, with no rest – herself.
She’s a machine and she’ll help you become a pushup and pullup machine too.
Get her bodyweight workout secrets here:
=> INSERT AFFILIATE LINK
I know you can do more pushups and pullups,
Your Name INSERT AFFILIATE LINK
****************************
That’s it.
The email is straight to the point with the purpose of getting the click – and building a little credibility along the way.
If you send 2000 clicks you should make over $1000 in commission.
And again, if you can help, I’d consider it a personal favor. Thank you in advance for your help.
Sincerely,
Craig Ballantyne, CTT
Certified Turbulence Trainer
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PS – When sending out your AMK, you must also learn to properly manage expectations.
Recently an affiliate promised me HUGE results if I would mail their offer. The results were terrible.
That partner and I now have a strained relationship because they OVER-promised and UNDER-delivered.
Here’s where most people over-promise…
We’ll use my fitness business as an example.
Most of my products are hardcore workouts and my best affiliates are fitness experts that also sell workouts and that are most often close friends that have already mentioned
me to their lists many times.
So let’s say that one of my best affiliate friends promotes my latest hardcore workout and earns a $2.50 EPC.
Well that’s great, but the fact is I can’t promise a beginner nutrition affiliate the same results when they promote the same workout to their readers who are overweight, 60-year old women with no exercise background.
Clearly, the results won’t be the same. The nutrition affiliate would be SEVERELY disappointed if I promised them a $2.50 EPC. And my relationship with this affiliate would be ruined.
So it helps if you have EPC’s from:
a) “All affiliates pooled”
b) For specific list types
That is what you need to track. That’s Internet Moneyball. Everything else is irrelevant.
But wait, there’s more.
To come tomorrow…
In the 2nd half of our Internet Moneyball Doubleheader.
Go solve some problems,
Craig Ballantyne
“If I’m curt with you it’s because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this.” – The Wolf