PRE-SELLING & PRE-QUALIFYING SECRETS FOR CLICKBANK AFFILIATE MARKETERS:

If you want higher affiliate commission checks in the mail every month, then there’s an important marketing and sales strategy that you need to learn and use, regardless of whether you’re a beginner or a pro, and regardless of whether you promote directly from your own website or use Google ad words and Pay per click advertising. It’s called pre-selling and it’s one of the most effective strategies available to help make you more money in affiliate marketing.

If you're familiar with Internet and affiliate marketing, you have no doubt already heard the phrase "pre-selling." If you have a background in face to face sales, then you are no doubt familiar with the concept of “pre-qualifying” your prospects.

Pre-selling and “qualifying” are similar and go hand in hand, and both can help you sift through the prospects who are least likely to buy (“the tire kickers” and “freebie seekers”) and find the ones who are most likely to buy (“seriously interested” prospects). Then, you send these “qualified” prospects to the sales page, in an eager, trusting and ready-to-buy frame of mind. The result is greater sales and higher commissions.

They don’t know you, they don’t trust you and they don’t believe you!

Pre-selling is based on the concept that it’s a lot easier for a person to make a purchase if they are already familiar with you and your work and if they trust you and view you as a credible resource. On the internet, trust is an even bigger factor than in face to face sales.

Put yourself in the prospect's shoes for a moment...

Imagine yourself clicking through an advertisement and landing on a site of a total stranger, who is selling a product you have never heard of before. In your mind, you are saying to yourself, "Who the heck is this guy and why should I listen to him?"

Even if the offer is compelling and the "sales pitch" is believable, there is still a gap in trust and credibility, which leads the buyer to a “too good to be true” conclusion. That is why so many people visit a sales site through an affiliate link like yours, and then leave without buying.... because they are "cold" prospects and you didnt do anything to "warm them up!"

It's your job to "warm them up" by pre-selling. That’s what pre-selling is: WARMING UP YOUR COLD PROSPECTS BEFORE SENDING THEM TO THE SALES PAGE

It is a proven fact in direct marketing that most people will not buy on the first visit, but many will buy after the 5th or 6th follow up communication. It often takes that long until trust is built.

What if... instead of sending "cold" prospects to the Burn Fat Website, you pre-sold them first on your website, so that they already knew who the author of the book was, they knew why they should trust him and listen to him... they had read some of his articles and saw the quality of his writing, and they had even read a glowing 3rd party testimonial and endorsement (from you)? Do you think this could increase your conversion rates?

The answer is - Yes, of course - and that's why it's no coincidence that our affiliates who are pre-selling with articles, reviews and critique or comparison pages on their own websites (instead of using advertisements alone), almost always have the highest conversion rates, the highest profit on pay per click (PPC) campaigns and the highest gross earnings.

Pre-selling with content develops familiarity and FAMILIARITY BREEDS TRUST!

Let me give you an example of the power of pre-selling in another industry and a different context. I have been involved in the health club business for over 16 years as a trainer, salesperson, manager and owner.

Imagine that a man is walking down Washington Street in Hoboken New Jersey. He sees the storefront to our gym, Empire Fitness Club, looks down at his stuffed and protruding belly, sees his expanding waistline and feels the tightness of his trousers, and decides, "I need to get rid of this gut." So he walks inside our gym.

He's greeted by a warm, friendly and sincere salesperson and is given a tour of a fantastic health club; so clean you could eat off the floor, brand spankin' new equipment, nationally certified personal trainers and a motivational atmosphere. THERE’S NO LOGICAL REASON NOT TO PURCHASE A MEMBERSHIP!

But he walks out the door without signing up.

Now contrast that with this scenario:

A long time, happy and satisfied member walks in to the club with a good friend. The member has been raving about the club for a long time and invites her friend to come to the gym with her on a daily guest pass. After the workout, the member brings her guest into the office and says, "My friend might be interested in joining, can you go over the membership rates with her?" Our salesperson reviews the rates, and BINGO, just like that, the guest signs up for a year even though it is her first visit to the gym. No high pressure sales or arm twisting was necessary.

Do you see the difference?

If not, then pay close attention because this is profoundly significant to your financial future.

People often don’t purchase on the first visit because they are afraid of getting ripped off or making a mistake and looking foolish

The man who walked in off the street desperately needed to get in shape… the guy could hardly even button up his pants in the morning. THE “NEED” WAS THERE! THE “WANT” WAS THERE. THE SOLUTION WAS THERE. But he still didn't join. Why? Because need isn’t enough. There also has to be trust and confidence.

He doesn't know anything about health clubs, so he was afraid of making a mistake by choosing the wrong club. He also doesn't know any members at our club. Not only that, but he hasn't ever heard of "Empire Fitness Club" before. He’s heard of New York Sports Club, Bally's and 24 Hour Fitness, but he doesn't know our salesperson any better than a stranger off the street and he doesn't know us from Adam... it's just one salesperson's word (and he secretly knows the salesperson works on commission!)

The woman came in as a guest with a member...and that member was already a satisfied customer. This member had already told her friend all about the club and said "It's a great club, you really should join." Our salesperson did not really have to do any "arm twisting" because the prospect was already "pre sold" (and from the best source – a friend she trusted)

A pre-sold prospect is already pre-disposed to do business with us. This is just as true online as it is offline, if not more so. In fact, this explains why we have affiliates consistently converting 2-5%, and we’ve had one documented conversion rate of 15% on an endorsed e-mail joint venture, while our conversion rate on regular daily traffic is about 1.2%. That's the power of endorsement... personal testimony... trust...referrals... and familiarity... and that's what pre-selling is all about.

So how do you "pre-sell" an e-book on the Internet?"

Simple...

Instead of sending your new traffic ("cold prospects") straight to Burn The Fat.Com by posting just a link or an advertisement alone (which CAN work), you instead "pre-sell" them on your web site first (which usually works even better), by recommending the product in your own words in a book review, in a testimonial-style review or by breeding familiarity with the product and the author (me) by publishing some of my articles.

PLEASE NOTE: The “google cash method” where you send a visitor from an ad words advertisement straight to the webpage is alive and well, but in my opinion it is much easier to pre sell on your own website.

Here are some suggestions for pre-selling BEFORE sending a visitor through your clickbank affiliate link to the Burn The Fat.Com webpage:

1) Read the ebook and write a product review (written by you)
2) Write a "testimonial style review" (ideal method if you used the program yourself with great results) 3) Publish "syndicated" articles or question-answer columns written by me (Tom venuto)
4) Blog about the program or the information in the program on a regular basis, including your commentary about particular aspects of the program that interest you and would interest your reader.
5) Use a combination of articles, testimonials and reviews

Pre-Sell strategy #1: write an e-book review

Reviews, done properly, are one of the best ways to pre-sell. When you write your review about Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle, be sure to make it honest, believable, and include personal experience and testimony if possible.

As surprised as you may be to hear this from me, it will sound more believable if you reveal a flaw! GASP! You mean there are flaws in my book???

Well, let me put it this way. Even if you don't think there are any real "flaws" in the book, you have to realize that no fat loss program is right for everyone. Your best bet is to pre-qualify people to make sure this is the right type of program for them and that this program matches their expectations. This is not only the approach with the most integrity, it also nearly always increases conversion rates and decreases refund rates.

For example, you might mention that at 340 pages, it's an easy read (as in non-technical), but it's also a long read filled with great detail, so someone looking for a "Reader's Digest" version of how to lose fat might be best taking a pass on this. You might mention that the reader will find no fads, no gimmicks, no pills, and no short cuts and that the truth is that fat loss takes hard work. People who are afraid of hard work should take a pass.

You could mention that Burn The Fat has NO affiliation with supplement companies and that the author does NOT believe in "so called" fat burners, so anyone looking for a "magic pill" should look elsewhere.

You might mention that the Burn The Fat program recommends healthy fat loss of only 2 pounds per week - and that's why the results are permanent; but if they believe the nonsense (and unsafe) claims about 30 pounds in 30 days or "lose 9 pounds every 11 days", then they should go elsewhere (they'll be back later after several failures and much wasted time and money).

By revealing such a "flaw," your review will appear more believable, but beyond that, you will also be qualifying your visitor even further which may increase your conversion rate and practically eliminate refunds (because the visitor will already knows what to expect, rather then be surprised that the book wasn't what they thought it was).

If you overpromise or fail to tell people what to expect, that often results in higher refunds. For example, Burn The fat is NOT a cookbook or recipe book. Someone who was looking specifically for hundreds of recipes might be disappointed. Burn The Fat is also not a workout program per se. There is one chapter on strength training with numerous workout routines and a chapter on cardio training. However, burn the fat does not contain exercise photos. If someone was expecting illustrated training programs, they might also find the book isn't what they were looking for.

Burn The fat is primarily a nutrition program – and one of the most complete programs on nutrition for fat loss ever published. Someone looking for honest and detailed diet and nutrition information is going to be thrilled with this product.

So, can you see how important it is to qualify prospects in your presell pages? Do you see the potential problem in sending someone looking for "fat burner pills" straight to the Burn The Fat website without FIRST doing a pre-sell page about why fat burner pills dont work and why Burn The Fat Feed the muscle is the better alternative?

Write a positive, yet honest, believable review - which qualifies your prospect at the same time - THEN send them to Burn The Fat.Com. At that point, our proven, high-conversion sales copy on the website (and follow up messages) will do the rest.

It's great to get excited and reveal personal testimonials, but if you sound like a Ginsu Knife commercial... "It slices, it dices, it’s the best, it’s the latest, it's the greatest", you activate your reader's defense mechanism.... The bulls**t detector goes off: "Oh no... what are they trying to SELL ME NOW?" Let MY sales page do the more aggressive selling… use YOUR web page to do the softer pre-selling.

You can see a sample review at:

http://burnthefat.com/affiliate_area/reviews.html

You have permission to copy and paste this review, but I highly recommend that ultimately, you write your own and simply use our sample review for ideas

Pre-Sell Strategy #2: Reprint articles and syndicated Q & A columns on your site

The second method to pre sell, is to allow your website visitor to become more familiar with my work, my style, and my quality of information by reprinting my articles and Q & A columns on your website.

One of the advantages of the Burn The Fat Affiliate program, is that I offer so many articles and so much re-printable content, and I am continually adding to it. You can find most of my articles here in the Burn The Fat Affiliate area, just click on the links under “reprintable content.” You will find articles as well as Q & A columns. You have full permission to reprint ANY of the Q & A columns, and any article from the re-printable content area.

When you reprint my articles, I recommend putting a URL (www.burnthefat.com) at the top of the article under my by line, as well as repeating the URL at the bottom of the article, which will naturally lead the reader to Burn The Fat.Com after finishing the article. Both weblinks of course, should have your clickbank affiliate link embedded in the URL. Double check all your hop links to make sure they are correct.

At the bottom of each article, I request that you print this biography in consideration for use of my article on your site:

Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to burn fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism and get the FREE 12 part mini course, “BIG FAT LIES” by visiting: www.burnthefat.com.

You can also place your short advertisement for the ebook at the bottom of the article to add even more sales impact. Some affiliates also have great success by placing an ad inside the body of the article, the same way that google ad words advertisements look when the code is placed in an article.

Pre-Sell Strategy #3: What About The Affiliate X Project?

For the past couple of years, I’ve received a lot of questions about Google Cash, which I highly recommend, but since the fall of 2006, I’ve been getting asked even more questions about Chris McNeeney’s Affiliate X Project: www.AffiliateSecretX.com.

This is a short e-book (71 pgs) that details a strategy for combining google ad words with pre-sell landing pages. I don’t think the author would appreciate it too much if I gave away the entire strategy, but basically it’s a method (several methods, actually), of preselling on your own web page and I can tell you for certain that this strategy in particular is working very well for a number of Burn The Fat affiliates. This is similar to a review page, but it’s much more unique, attention-getting and "controversial" than a regular review.

My only concern is that I wonder if this method will keep up its effectiveness if more and more people keep using it in the same marketplace. It’s still working very well as far as I can see with Burn The Fat affiliates, but only time will tell. I imagine that the most creative internet marketers will be able to spin their pre-sell and review pages so that they will always find a way to make it work, no matter how competitive the marketplace, but that requires some creative thinking and uniqueness (lazy people who want “plug and play” don’t bother!)

I would say that for any serious affiliate marketer who already understands google ad words/PPC basics and who is a fairly decent writer, the project x affiliate secrets ebook is worth the investment, but ONLY if you are willing and able to put up your own website to presell, and ONLY if you are willing to spend some time doing some real creative thinking to put your own spin on this strategy.

Although Chris M. says in his book that you should copy and paste his strategy to avoid making mistakes, I've seen some really unique and creative adaptations of this concept used to sell Burn The Fat. I think what makes this strategy work so well in the first place is the fact that project X google ads and review pages are so different and unique from the usual stuff you see everyday. For a competitive clickbank product with lots of affiliates promoting it, I dont think it's the just the strategy itself that's the real secret, as much as it is the uniqueness of the strategy.

You don't necessarily have to buy a bunch of internet marketing courses to succeed, but you DO have to be unique and stand out from the crowd in your reviews and promotions. If you have personal testimony or your own before/after photograhps to add, then you are just that much further ahead of the pack as well.

Google Cash adds pre-selling into the mix with "Landing Page Brain Dump"

Also, Chris carpenter just released the 3rd edition of his Google cash program (www.GoogleCashMethod.com) which teaches the basics of google ad words. Google cash, in its original form, was NOT based on pre selling. Quite the opposite – it taught how to send traffic from google ad words straight to a vendor’s sales page.

In his new 3rd edition package, Chris includes an e-book (transcript) and audio calls (MP3’s) called the "Landing page brain dump." I found this landing page information very helpful because (1) it explains how to continue to make google cash method work, despite changes in google policy and higher competition and bidding wars, (2) it explains the recent changes at google - notoriously known as the “google slap” - and what to do about it, and (3) it shows you how to use landing pages effectively to pre-sell, in conjunction with pay per click advertising (very important if you do not have your own mailing list yet).

One final note. Preselling with landing pages, review pages and or articles is not dependent on using pay per click. As an affiliate marketer of other people’s products myself, I use reviews and landing pages extensively. The difference between me and someone just starting out is that I have built up very large mailing lists, so rather than using PPC to send people to my landing pages, with my email list, I can send traffic from e-zines and solo emails to landing pages. Yes, I admit I'm spoiled and I don't have to depend on google ad words as much anymore. But whether you are a newbie with no list or you are a veteran with a big mailing list like me, either way you can make pre-selling work for you. Using this strategy, I have 4%-10% conversions on some of the products I sell for other people!

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.