Pre-selling is something you can’t ignore when it comes to affiliate marketing. Especially if your main promotional tool is the content on your website. Most people don’t buy something without being convinced one way or another. This is where the ‘marketing’ part of affiliate marketing really comes in. To pre-sell well you need to gain the attention and then the trust of the customer, whilst providing factual information.
Highlight the Benefits
Without going for the hard sell and coming across as pushy, you need to highlight the benefits of the product or service. A good guideline is to pick the three best selling points, think about what makes the offer unique, or have a look on the merchant website to see what they are highlighting.
Be Honest
Don’t make any false claims about the offer, be honest with your readers/viewers; especially if you are reviewing a collection of offers. Generally, people don’t like to feel as though they are being sold to, it alienates them. The decision needs to be theirs to buy or sign-up for a service and no one wants to feel forced into something, or tricked into giving away their details. Being dishonest results in low quality leads and a poor reputation for your own brand and affiliate status.
Use a Call-to-Action
Make it easy for the visitor to take action after they have finished reading, watching or engaging with your content. For written content simply include a banner or link at the end of the article/paragraph which sends them directly to the affiliate offer page. Video content is no different, give the reader some direction and tell them what to do next.
Here’s an example taken from a blog all about cats, at the end of the article the reader is presented with these three options:
Here’s another example taken from WOW Freebies:
You might want to consider capturing data to re-market to later. You can include a capture form to collect email addresses of interested visitors. This is beneficial because you are able to send more promotional content to them via email marketing methods and convert them into leads at a later date.
High value products will require more of a pre-sell due to nature of them being a ‘considered purchase’, where the buyer requires lots of information to make an informed decision. Read our ‘5 Tips to Succeeding With High Paying Affiliate Offers’, if you’d like to find out more.
