Image by brandon.papworth via FlickrSimilar to ad-clicks, the "prerequisite" of any product sales is targeted traffic. Whether you're getting traffic from search engines, PPC or other advertising channels, the traffic must be interested in your product.
If you are getting traffic from the search engines, you'll have to note that in addition to getting targeted traffic, you have to get traffic from keywords that can convert into sales. For example, you may be getting lots of traffic from the keywords "ideas for Christmas presents", yet not making any sale. Instead, a low volume keywords of "unique Christmas present for mum" may get you some sales. Like it or not, certain keywords simply convert better than others and you need to find out what these keywords are!
With that prerequisite in mind, let's look at the strategies to convert traffic into product sales, including affiliate sales and sales of your own product.
1) How To Convert Traffic Into Affiliate Sales
Whether you are selling your own product or affiliated product, the most important factor is trust or confidence.
For those of you who have read my Insider Advertising Report, you will know that Sales Is A Transfer Of Confidence.
If you are selling an affiliated product, you can build trust in 2 ways:
i) Give a personal encounter of your experience with the product that you recommend.
- This is usually a one-page review on how the product has benefited you. The storyline will always be something like "I was having so and so problem…. then I found this product…. then my problem is solved."
- In this model, the visitors are likely to read your experience in detail and eventually click to the product site.
ii) Build a 'seemingly' trustworthy niche site, one that seems to have great info and great reviews, with prominent links or banners linking to your affiliated product.
- Such a niche site usually have 5-10 pages of relevant contents, with the objective of making the site look as if it understands the niche well. Every article should link to your affiliated product. In addition, every page should have a prominent banner that links to the affiliated product. This is important because the number of traffic to your affiliated site has a direct impact on the number of sales you make.
- In this model, you don't really expect your visitors to read the articles. The articles and entire website are just to make them trust your site before they go to the affiliated site.
As an affiliate marketer, your main job is to build "instant" trust and then focus on how you can redirect as many of that traffic to the affiliated site as possible. In other words, simply repeat this process… Build Trust, Redirect… Build Trust, Redirect… The more you repeat this process, the more commissions you will make. It's a numbers game.
You can't really measure how well you've built trust, but you can measure how many visitors who leave your website visit your affiliated site. Your job is to increase that click-through rate. Focus on the click-through and commission will follow!
If you are an affiliate marketer who simply advertise the actual sales page, the above strategy will not be applicable. For you, your success depends a lot on how well the sales page is written and how targeted is your traffic.
2) How To Convert Traffic Into Sales Of Your Own Product
Selling your own product is slightly harder because you can't recommend your own product and expect people to trust you.
This is so true that one of my clients always advertise his product in the capacity of a product user, with a presale letter describing how he has benefited from the product. If you are a product owner, this can be a strategy worth considering.
read more
