It's a known fact that establishing a USP (unique selling proposition) is an essential part of any business plan ...But what about your affiliate marketing campaigns?
What makes your promotions unique from hundreds ... or even thousands of other affiliates pushing same merchant's products and services?
Well ... nothing, if all you do is cut and paste same merchant provided ad copy as everyone else, or just toss a bunch of links, banners, and buttons on your site.
What you must do is make yourself stand out ... grab interest of your prospect, and qualify your offering to meet their needs.
Here's 5 quick tips to get most out of your affiliate promotions.
1) Learn all about product/service you're promoting.
The more you know about your promotions, more credible your promotional content. If you don't own product, do your best to scour merchant's site for info that you feel best explains benefits of it, which leads to number ...
2) Write your own ad copy.
It's credibility factor again ... you're selling yourself, establishing bond between you and prospect, in an effort to win their trust and interest. If you do own product, or have access to it by permission of merchant, write a detailed review. You can even use yourself as a case study to provide an eye witness account of satisfaction potentially derived from using it. If not ... and in addition to your own accounts, list testimonials of others.
3) Establish a line of communication with merchant.
You might have to settle for affiliate program manager, or a related department, but idea is to try to acquire anything you can, above and beyond what is offered to regular affiliates, that will help you gain a promotional edge. Branded articles, ebooks, special offers, free trials, etc. You might even be able to gain access to product or service you're promoting if you explain that you'd like to review it for promotional purposes (it can't hurt to ask ..;)