How Affiliate Programs Are A Great Way To Bring In More Sales With Less Effort

Want a way to make sales without paying for any ads and with zero risk of losing money in doing so? The obvious answer is a big YES, but very few business owners take advantage of running their own affiliate programs, which can do exactly that!

Affiliate programs are where you offer others a cut of any sale that they send your way. When this is done online, there’s traditionally special “affiliate links” that they get from you. When they send people through those links that later buy from your site, they’d get credited for and paid a percentage of the sale. You can do a similar concept offline just by letting others refer your prospects directly (and manually crediting them), or even by handing out special “unique” coupon codes to others to hand out to their prospects so you know where they came from. This could be a special coupon that you hand out, with a code or ID on it, so you know where it came from. Regardless, in either case you only pay them after a sale is made, which makes it virtually risk free for you.

If you go the online route, there’s various places you can sign-up to, in order to have your offers on their networks, like Clickbank.com, Amazon.com (which is great to sell on just by itself), CJ.com, etc., as they can instantly let affiliates sign-up for and start promoting your offers. Alternatively, there’s also private affiliate programs/scripts out there that you can get free or for fairly cheap to run your own affiliate program without the need for another network.

Regardless of which route you go, don’t expect to magically get lots of affiliates signing up and promoting your offer without you raising a finger. It can take some work to reach out and recruit these affiliates to get them promoting you. It’s best to reach out to those who you can also help in return first, as well as to make sure that you truly have a great converting offer with good payouts to make your offer attractive to these affiliates.

So consider creating an affiliate program and recruiting affiliates to help promote your offers at little to no risk to you. Make sure that you have attractive offers and payouts, and that you proactively reach out to the best affiliate prospects out there.

Liked this strategy? For more tips to increase your sales, check out this book 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

How to Drive Sales and Traffic to Your Business Using Social Media Influencers

Did you know that some big influencers out there online can literally drive millions of dollars in sales, with a single post on social media, or mention on a big blog? In fact, there’s even billion-dollar businesses that have gotten their start from single big influencers mentioning their products.

And, surprisingly enough, it’s easier to do than you might think. Sure, it might be far harder to do a multi-million dollar launch overnight from a big star mentioning you just to be nice, but there’s plenty of well-known influencers that can still drive a ton of sales your way (and you never know when you might get lucky by landing a bigger one).

To increase your chances of this, you should take the time to reach out to these big influencers, blogs, news sites, etc., and offer them your products for free in the hopes that they’d be willing to review them.

Sometimes you can even pay these influencers to mention your products. And although some of the biggest influencers out there cost some serious money to do that, others will do it for virtually pennies on the dollar (think about it - $100 or so for a minute or two of their time is a very good deal for some even semi well known influencers).

Not sure how to find these influencers? Don’t overthink it! Search social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, etc., on top of forums, blogs, big news sites, magazines, etc., and then reach out to them directly on those sites (either via messaging or finding an e-mail address).

You can also do a twist on this method by reaching out to relevant blogs, news editors (magazines or big news sites), as well as others in the media, and then offer to write up an article for them on a topic related to your product. As long as it’s not just a promotion, several of these editors often times are tasked with writing new articles but don’t necessarily want to do all the research and writing themselves. If you do the work for them, allow them to edit it any way that they want, and aren’t too sales pitchy, you can land some big publicity with some big influencer sites.

So take the time to identify and reach out to influencers and big sites to see if they’d be willing to mention your product (even if for a price) or review it for a free copy. Just a couple of deals can create a big boost in sales for you!

For more ways you can use social media to drive sales to your business, check out this tool here News Poster.

How to Sell People Without Selling to Them? Using Case Studies in Your Marketing.

Social proof is a great way to help sell your product. A testimonial from a satisfied customer can sometimes be more effective than you, yourself, talking about your offer. A great way to make your marketing less “salesy” while still being powerful is to include case studies from people who have used your product/services.

For example, instead of talking about how people need to buy your SEO service, write up an article, blog post, or Facebook post on how one business went from no rankings to #1 rankings and more sales in under 2 weeks with a handful of easy tweaks... and then talk about the process and what your service did. A handful of readers will naturally want to reach out to you to have you do the same thing for them.

This same method can even be used to write blog posts, articles (even ones you can submit to the media), videos, etc. on top of ads you can make. For instance, you could have an article on “how one household decreased their energy costs by 38% with a couple simple tweaks,” and then you can describe what was done, how your product(s)/services helped, etc.. Naturally some people will want to do the same.

So think about how you can use case studies to explain your service/product, and the results customers can achieve, and then do this through articles, blog posts or Facebook posts.

For more great marketing tips to increase your sales, check out this book: 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!

How to Increase Your Conversions With This Simple Trick

There’s many strategies to increase conversions, but have you tried this one? Try ending your prices with a 7, .95, 5 or .95. Instead of charging $10, for instance, consider charging $9.97. Even though it’s only a few cents less, people seem to think that it sounds cheaper. Even on high priced items the same tricks can work. For instance, you’ve probably never seen a car advertised for $30,000. Instead, you’ll see it advertised for something like $29,995.

Amazingly enough, on that last example, some people will walk away thinking that the car is $29,000 in their head (even though they’re smart enough to know that it’s obviously $30,000).

In the past many marketers have used 9 or .99 to end the numbers in, but it seems that there’s been a growing trend lately that 7, .97, 5, or .95 seem to stand out even more and appear even less expensive. Crazy stuff, but it can definitely work. And it’s doubtful that you’ll miss those few cents after increasing your conversions.

So, consider adjusting your price points to end in 7, .97, 5, or .95 to make your prices seem cheaper and see how it helps increase conversions.

Looking for more tips and tricks to help increase your conversations? This tool shows you easy strategies to grow your conversation rate and help boost your business: BizFire's Free Funnel Maker & Analyzer.

Want to Charge More for Your Services? And Still Have People Lining Up to Buy From You? Here’s How!

So how can you charge more for your services? How can you increase your price tag and still have customers lining up to buy from you? One easy way is to change your offer from a simple product/service to a done-for-you offer. What does this mean? Check out this example below.

Say, instead of charging $5 to write an article, you instead charge $497 to $997+ to write five articles, create a blog, post the articles up, optimize it for their keywords, and have a custom graphic or two. If you were to outsource a $5 article for $3, the first example only gives you a $2 profit, or if you were to write it yourself, you'd be trading $5 for 30 minutes, at best, of your time ($10 an hour on the higher end if you’re super fast).  However, if you were to offer the second, more premium example, you could outsource the articles for $15, allocate $10 for some custom graphics on Fiverr.com, and put in $25 to $50 to outsource the custom blog with SEO (blogger.com blogs, for instance, can be made in a matter of minutes).  That's a raw cost of $50 to $100 for a $400 to $950 profit. Or, if you were to do the work mostly yourself, you'd be talking about maybe 3 to 5 hours of work, easily putting you in the range of earning $100 to $200+ per hour compared to $10 per hour just selling a $5 article.

So, see what you can add to your offer, or bundle it with, to make it a more premium offer. Or, look at how you can make your offer more “done-for-you.” and price your offer respectively. The kicker is that more people like to buy a premium offer than a basic offer, as it's more appealing and more "done-for-you" than just an item that they'd have to do all the rest of the work on themselves.  And less people offer premium services/offers, so you're competing against less.

This doesn’t just apply to services either, as the same can be done for almost any kind of product out there. For instance, instead of just selling a book on how to lose weight, you could also sell a product or program that gives them daily exercises either through e-mail, a mobile app, software, etc.. So instead of someone just reading how to lose weight, you can make it more easy and “done for you” by literally giving them a way where they simply have to follow the daily tip. Or instead of selling a 50¢ apple at a gas station, one could sell a pre-sliced apple with caramel dipping sauce ready to go for $4+ (even though the raw cost is only a tinge more than the standard apple).

One great example we’ve done is instead of selling a course on how to rank on search engines and get traffic, which would be a challenge to sell even in the $25 to $50 range, we created software that helps do a lot of those tasks for people. And instead of having a challenge of selling a course for $25 to $50, we can charge $997 / year to $2,997 / year much more easily. We’re able to do that because it’s more “done for you” and involves far less time for the end user.

A similar example outside of software was with a real estate investing instructor that we know of who at one point sold several courses on how to invest in real estate. Most of these courses originally were on the lower end of the price point, but she was able to turn those “books” into “webinar trainings” and online courses and charge closer to $997 on up, but she didn’t stop there. She was able to partner with one of us to create software that helped do what she was teaching and sold it for around $4,000 a pop. But she still didn’t stop there. She then took all her teachings and tools and basically made an offer that would be as hands free as possible for the user. That was accomplished by setting up an offer where you’d be able to purchase a $25,000 package where you’d get on a bus with others, tour dozens and dozens of homes in a day that they already did the math on and knew were awesome deals, and then be able to make offers on the spot with bankers, agents, mortgage brokers, etc. all right there with you in one place. Granted, this wasn’t for the average mom and pop investor, but for some big investors, including overseas ones looking to take advantage of the U.S. market at the time, this was an opportunity to jump into it as hands free as possible. And they were willing to pay for it.

An interesting twist on making any offer more premium or done for you is that it doesn’t have to always start with your own product or service! You can find existing service providers or products out there, see how you can make them better / more “done for you,” and then try to either form a partnership with them or just use the outsourced provider to fulfill the work for a service. A few simple tweaks to their package / offer and sales pitch can turn a $5 offer into a $500 or even a $5,000 one without even having the need to make your own offer from scratch!

Now start looking at how you can apply this to your business. How can you make your offer a premium or “done-for-you” offer by adding more things to your service or bundling your products together to give more value? This then allows you to increase your prices substantially, your premium pricing reflecting your premium product.

Now you have ideas for a premium product, need help getting leads to sell this to? For help with how to get leads to promote your product or service to, check out this cool tool: Domain Lead Pro.

How Creating A Sense of Urgency Can Help Improve Sales: Reducing/Offering Free Shipping Within A Certain Time Frame

Don’t you hate it when you’re searching for an item, find it at an amazing price, then see that shipping is going to cost you an arm and a leg? One way to increase your sales, especially over a short period of time, is to reduce the cost of your shipping, or offer a sale period time where shipping is free. By putting a time limit on when you make free shipping available, you add a sense of urgency, encouraging customers to buy now, as opposed to at a later date. It’s also a good way to encourage customers who may have been on the fence to make a purchase now.

For example, say you have a business that sells gardening supplies online. Reach out to your customers and let them know that for any supplies ordered by midnight on Sunday, you’ll offer free delivery. If you have regular customers that place large orders with you, you may even want to reach out and call them. On your website, make sure it’s clear that you have this offer available for a limited time - it may be a pop up on your website or the first thing your customer sees.

So consider, for a limited time, offering reduced or free shipping on your products. The limited time frame creates a sense of urgency, encouraging customers to purchase now, as opposed to at a later date, and encourages customers who may have been on the fence to make the purchase.

For more tips on boosting sales within your business, check out this book 50 Marketing Tips & Tricks Learned After $100 Million in Sales Over 20 Years!.

How to Market Your Business

Businesses of any kind can be quite challenging. There is a lot of saturation and variation in different industrial sectors. It all requires careful research and cautiously formulated strategies. To ensure the success of your business, it is necessary to make your brand stand out from competitors through effective promotion strategies.

Here are the crucial steps in marketing your new business:

Conduct market research

Market research is a crucial component in establishing a marketing strategy for a new business. It includes collecting data about the market in which you are going to establish your business. The data is thoroughly analyzed to determine the needs and requirements of potential customers, prime locations for the business, and the estimation of the budget and pricing of the products and services.

Moreover, market research can also include sales predictions, monitoring latest market trends, and studying the business models of your competition to make sure you adopt the good strategies and discard the bad practices.

Market research can also include conducting surveys, focus groups, competitive analysis, and other valuable research tools.

Profile your target markets

It is inefficient to target a general audience to promote your products or services. Trying to shoot in the dark this way will consume tons of energy, time, and money. Instead, you should focus on a particular segment of society that you know would be interested in your business.

For example, expensive and luxurious items target the upper class, and so the promotion should be executed in a grandiose way.

Segmentation of the audience can be narrowed by numerous factors:
• Location
• Age, gender, income, profession, and qualification
• General lifestyle of the customers like social class and values.

Promote your unique selling proposition (USP)

The markets have become heavily saturated in different parts of the world with businesses of various kinds. However, every company usually has a vision and an aim behind it, which distinguishes it from its competition. A business must identify its unique selling proposition (USP) and promote it heavily among its expected customers to make sure they buy the products from you and not from your competitors. USP is the reflection of your business uniqueness, knowledge, and special skills.

USP of a business can be developed by keeping in mind the following things:
• What is the aim of your business?
• What is the unique thing about your products or services?
• Why should the customers come to you and not to similar businesses like yours?
• How are your products or services going to benefit the customers?

Develop your business brand

Every business, whether large-scale or small-scale, must have a brand that consists of an attractive logo, stylish design and colors, and a unique tagline that reflects your business and aim. A smartly designed brand will connect your customers immediately.

Select Marketing Platforms

There are many avenues in which you can promote your business. There is a myriad of options available for business marketing like business websites, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, blogging, flyers, posters, online giveaways, paid media advertisements, and, of course, word of mouth. Most of these options should be utilized by all new businesses for successful marketing in different sectors of society to expand the customer base.

Set Objectives

Every marketing plan must have a goal in mind. These goals should be specific, measurable, appropriate, and achievable within a time frame. A well-thought budget should be allocated to the marketing team of your business so they can utilize the resources available to them appropriately.

While setting the marketing budget, you should keep in mind that marketing is the backbone of your business and so the budget must encompass the following things:

• Development of the business website and its maintenance.
• Implementation of SEO strategies
• Branding which includes logo and flyer designs
• Advertisement printing
• Salary for the marketing team.

Establish a loyal customer base

Returning customers are one of the essential parts of any business. If your customers are satisfied with your products and services, they will keep returning to your business and generate good word of mouth. It is important to get feedback from your customers and keep improving and maintaining the quality of your business to encourage loyalty among the customers.

Monitor and review

Once you have started a good marketing campaign for your business, it is important to monitor the review of the marketing activities after a certain period of time to find out if your strategies are working or not.

Usually, businesses should review the marketing plan every three months. Once your company has established its roots in the industry, you can create a new plan or review the old one whenever a new product or service is launched. The review process includes assessing the sales, general perception about your business, and determining which marketing tool is working the best for your business.

Online Marketing Made Easy

If you follow these steps, you can market your business successfully. However, people with no experience in marketing and business might find some of these strategies to be overwhelming. Even if that's not the case you can get new leads using Domain Lead Pro.