The Formula For Affiliate Success:
FC + EM = SS

1998 was the year I flipped the switch, fired up my Dell and experienced the amazing phenomenon called the Internet for the very first time.

I was enthralled, captivated, fascinated... totally awed at what technology had brought us. The whole world at our fingertips... at the click of a mouse. Wow!

Naturally, I started surfing, searching for hours and hours for something - anything - of value and usefulness in the bodybuilding, fat loss, health and fitness field.

There were a few scattered gems, but I was disappointed and disgusted at the way the Internet was littered with junk.

"Content" websites were giving bad advice, and commercial sites using fraudulent claims and sleazy tactics were the norm. And what was the deal with these anonymous authors and site owners afraid to show their face or reveal their names and addresses?

I was ashamed of how our industry was being represented online. The Internet presented an incredible new opportunity, and opportunities, unfortunately, attract opportunists.

I immediately said to myself, "This is ridiculous; I can't believe what some of these people are getting away with... somebody's got to do something about this... I can do this ten times better... without LYING!"

The lure of "get rich on the internet" was not my motivation. Somebody HAD to get online and tell the truth about health and fat loss... and I knew I was the man to do it.

Within a year, in 1999, my first website, Fitness Renaissance (www.fitren.com, now www.tomvenuto.com), was live. I started providing quality, honest information with integrity and I offered my personal coaching and nutrition consulting services (my book wasn't published until 2002, and it wasn't an e-book until 2003).

I succeeded in spite of myself. I made every Internet marketing and web design mistake in the book. You name it, I did it wrong.

I learned the hard way. It was a brutal, down and dirty "street education," but I wouldn't have traded it for the world. I'm certain that the only reason I succeeded at that stage was because I provided information with value and integrity... As one of my subscribers said, "Tom, you're like like one lone voice of truth in a crowd that's screaming B.S."

Out of all the mistakes I made, there were TWO THINGS I always did right (which set the stage for my present day success): Almost from the day I started my first site, I was adding content and aggressively collecting email addresses.

I didn't start building a mailing list because I was an email marketing genius, although I knew how a list could be used for getting clients and customers. The real reason is because I wanted to publish a newsletter to speak my mind about this slimy industry of ours, and I needed an audience!

I'm a writer. I express myself on paper even better than I do in words. I HAVE TO write. It's a bizarre compulsion; almost an addiction. After college term papers and final exams, most people swear to never write another essay as long as they live... many make good on that promise. Not me... I have to share ideas with others and do regular brain dumps on paper or the words build up in my brain and implode!

Writers may be strange, reclusive creatures at times, but being a wordsmith has it's advantages to the Internet marketer. An amazing thing happened as a result of my publishing online and e-mail newsletters on a regular schedule...

My traffic and my sales started to grow... slowly at first... but then at an increasing and exponential rate... Every time the newsletter went out, traffic surged...

So did sales.

Eventually, I saw a pattern emerging and I took it to the next level. Instead of only sending promotional solo emails or advertisements and instead of only sending newsletters by email, I also uploaded them in HTML to my web page. For someone to view my newsletter, they couldn't read it in a text e-mail, they had to visit my site (and they had to be a registered subscriber to see it).

Cool way to give your traffic a bump, eh?

Then I took it even one step further. In addition to my newsletter(s), I updated the content on my site more frequently - at least one article and one Q & A column per month, and usually 2-4 times per month. I made sure that I put a link at the end of every article to whatever I had to sell; whether that was my coaching programs back in the late 90's and early 00's, or my ebook today.

When I updated the site with fresh content, I always emailed my subscribers to let them know about the "website update," or "new article."

Again, a traffic spike and a sales spike every time.

I call this strategy:

FC + EM = SS

Fresh Content + E-Mail = Sales Surge

FC + EM = SS works for me and it will work on your own site too to increase your sales of the Burn The Fat e-book (and whatever else you have to offer).

Here's the 8 step formula for how to make FC + EM = SS work for you:

1. Once you have a website, start building YOUR OWN mailing list immediately. Put a subscribe box ("opt in" form) on your web site to capture the first name, last name and email address of as many of your visitors as possible. (I use www.aweber.com for collecting and broadcasting emails

2. Give away something FREE to "bribe" your visitors to opt in to your list. Offering a free report or mini course can exponentially increase your subscribe rate. If you need a bonus report or mini course material, use one of our viral PDF reports from this page http://burnthefat.com/affiliate_area/brandable_pdfs.html or you can bundle several of my articles together to create your own report, provided you do not alter the text in any of the articles except to add your own affiliate link

3. Measure your opt in rate and test your opt in copy and offers. I've seen opt in rates everywhere from 2% to 25% on standard web page subscribe boxes. I'd shoot for at least 10%. If you use a "squeeze page" with the sole purpose of collecting email addresses, Ive seen opt in rates of 40-70%. You may be able to increase the number of your subscribers over night with simple changes to your bonus offer or opt in copy. These days, people don't need more email clogging up their in-boxes. You have to give them a good reason to join your mailing list; (Yes, you even have to "sell your free stuff.")

4. Make sure your bonus report or email mini course has great value - enough value to actually be sold on it's own. The higher the perceived value before opt in, the higher your opt in rate will be. The higher the actual value, the more credibility you (and I) will gain with the reader and the more likely a PDF report will be to go viral. I've taken care of this for you by creating a valuable fat loss report that you can redistribute and then having a professional grahpic designer lay it out.

5. Consider a PDF bonus report and embed ("brand") the report with your affiliate links. PDF reports, if the quality of content is high enough, can go viral and get passed around from person to person... with YOUR affiliate links embedded in them. They are also great pre-sell material. If you need a PDF report so you can start your own unstoppable traffic virus, e-mail me for details or visit http://burnthefat.com/affiliate_area/brandable_pdfs.html (We have a new viral pdf report coming out soon and we have just recently obtained the newest version of viral PDF software to allow you to more easily brand the reports on your own)

6. Put fresh, new content on your site at least 1 to 4 times per month ("Publish or perish"). As I have mentioned in previous affiliate articles and newsleters, I have over 100 articles and Q & A columns that are available for you to reprint on your site. According to Search engine authorities, Google and other top engines have a "fresh bot" which spiders your site looking to see if anything has changed. If you don't have any fresh content on your site, the "bot" tells google that your site is less important because there's nothing new. You NEED fresh content - not just to sell more products, but also to get yourself ranked well in the search engines. Let me help you with your content- use the resources in this affiliate area (keep in mind though that a mix of syndicated content and your own original content is ideal).

7. When you publish my articles or Q & A columns, put your affiliate link under the by-line and at the end of article I suggest using at least two links in every article - one at the top under the by line(i.e., by Tom Venuto, www.burnthefat.com or By Tom Venuto, author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, with your hoplink in the URL or book title.) Then at the end of each article include a brief author's bio and description of the product with a another link to the www.burnthefat.com sales webpage. Whenever possible, you may also want to sprinkle links through out the body of the article if there is an opportunity to do so. Give your reader more than one place to click through. (You may even want to consider placing little ads, similar to google ad sense, inside the body of the articles, linking back to the burn the fat sales page through your clickbank affiliate link)

8. Mail your subscribers on a regular schedule to tell them that there's a new article or that your site has been updated. Weekly or bi-weekly is probably ideal. Personally, I get annoyed when I get emails every day (too often), and I usually unsubscribe. On the other hand, If I opt into someone's list and I dont hear from them for months, then I wonder "Where have they been," or "What's wrong?" As a result of the infrequent personal contact, no relationship or trust is developed either. (When someone collects my email address but doesn't even contact me once, I also can't help but wonder whether my email was just harvested for spam fodder).

That's all there is to it. Use the formula, FC + EM = SS Watch your hits and your sales surge, while your personal relationship with your readers gets stronger and stronger! What could be better than that!

One last note: I am shocked at how many affiliate marketers go to all the trouble of collecting email addresses and then they never send any email! Building familiarity, trust and relationships with your readers will be the subject of another article. But for now, let it suffice to say that the more your readers know you, trust you and like you - personally - the more they will buy from you!

If you have any questions about any of this, you can contact me any time at:

http://burnthefat.com/contact.html

- Tom Venuto, Author & Affiliate Manager,
Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle

Disclaimer: Burn the fat.com makes no promises, assurances or guarantees about earnings, commissions, conversions or income potential. Results of other affiliates are provided for informational purposes only and are no guarantee that you will do as well. Read the affiliate agreement and earnings disclaimer for more information:
http://burnthefat.com/affiliate_area/affiliate_agreement.html

Copyright 2007, fitness renaissance, LLC and Tom Venuto. Do Not Copy! Absolutely no reproduction of this article is permitted.