Preparing for launch as an affiliate

[Ben Chin]

Hi guys,

I got to know of a product launching abit earlier than the rest.

Since I have the advantage Id like to know how to capitalize on this.

What should I do/get ready as an affiliate before the launch.

What kind of affiliate sites should I be setting up?

[Rob Toth]

Here's a big tip..

Buy 1 (or a couple) of the right domain names.

If the product is "Fancy Widget", you should buy "TheFancyWidget.com" "FancyWidgetBonus.com" etc.

No need to go crazy. But the right domain can bring you a lot of free traffic and high search engine rankings.

Then get mini blogs in place (need an example of a mini blog? see RobTheGenieToth.com ) ... have one optimized for "Bonus"... and create a hot bonus package!! ... have another for "review" and review the product and another for "buy" and take the typical but effective angle of "don't buy Fancy Widget until..."

Point is...

Start with the right domains.

Set up keyword specific mini sites or mini blogs (recommended) to target a handful of the typical consumer research keywords "scam", "review", "buy", "bonus", "discount" etc

Apply regular traffic gen and quick indexing strategies.

But primarily focus on your Bonus.

[Ben Chin]

Hi,

I have already snapped up "review" and "scam" so thats why I am pretty excited.

I will probably go for a mini blog right now and write some articles.

Thanks for your input!

[Chris Douthit]

Buying some quality domains is a good start. Make sure you set them up as a squeeze page so you can capture these customers contact info. If you can sell to them once and they are happy with your recommendation, you can certainly do it again.

[citrus]

Hi,

I have already snapped up "review" and "scam" so thats why I am pretty excited.

I will probably go for a mini blog right now and write some articles.

Thanks for your input!


Hey Ben,

I'd be real careful about taking the "scam" approach. Lots of product owners get really pissed when their affiliates do that because it tarnishes their rep. Some of them will actually say on their affiliate or JV pages that going the "scam" approach is not allowed, so you might want to check up on that.

Curtis

[glasshalffull]

hi Ben,

If you have, or can get, a copy of the product it would be great to create some reviews of it to put out into the forums once the product is launched. Good honest reviews

Another thing to consider is creating a bonus that will add value to the product did your promoting as an affiliate.

[Tim Wright]

Hi Ben,

It sounds like you're off to a great start. I would also recommend writing a few short articles with the resource box linking back to your domains (with squeeze pages to capture your visitor's information).

Afterwards, "bookmark" the articles at several social bookmarking sites and then "ping" both your sites and the social bookmarking urls to send the spiders to them.

The more ways you can create links back to your sites the better.

Once again, it looks like you're setting things up well. Best of luck to you.

All the Best,

Tim

[Andy Havens]

Hi,

I have already snapped up "review" and "scam" so thats why I am pretty excited.

I will probably go for a mini blog right now and write some articles.

Thanks for your input!


Hey Ben,

I'd be real careful about taking the "scam" approach. Lots of product owners get really pissed when their affiliates do that because it tarnishes their rep. Some of them will actually say on their affiliate or JV pages that going the "scam" approach is not allowed, so you might want to check up on that.

Curtis


Hi Curtis,

You bring up a good point - something I will watch out for.

While I can understand their point, the reason why this seems to work is because so many of us have been scammed before and are gun shy. I tend to search "product name" and then search for "scam" within results quite often. And quite often I find complaints. Sometimes they are legitimate and sometimes not. Like it or not, this question is always in the back of the buyers' mind.

The reason I would avoid this approach in most cases is I think it is getting overused. Frankly, I WANT to find the downside of these products and it is tiresome for me to find so many using this tactic to draw traffic.

That said, if I were Ben, I'd have done the very same thing - as long as I could get the domain name, I would do it.

For those of you launching products, I for one, will urge you NOT to forbid using the scam tactic. Discourage it? Yes. Forbid it? No. Why? Overused as it is, people are going to wonder so my take on it is more damage could be done by forbidding it than not.

Ask yourself this: what if you have a problem with a customer and they get vengeful? You've forbidden the use of the "scam" gambit with your affiliates. So what's to stop this customer from buying a domain name and smearing you? Maybe they have a point, maybe not, but wouldn't you rather have him compete against a bunch of your affilates all saying good things about you? Just a thought.

Andy

[Rob Toth]

Curtis (and Andy)... just my thoughts on the "scam" keyword.

While I doubt ANY publisher would ever want to see you running an ad that says "Fancy Widget Is a Scam" or "Fancy Widget Is A Rip-Off" ... then when the user clicks through, the page explains how it's a rip-off because it gives away too much good info that wasn't there where you got started out, blah blah.

However, the reality is (as Andy stated), "scam", "review", 'bonus", "buy", "discount", "free" are all typical consumer modifiers. When they are looking to get the product, those are some of the most common modifiers your best prospects will use.

So yes, I certainly do suggest that having an article such as "Is Fancy Widget A Scam? Here's My Review..." , or "Fancy Widget Is Scam-Free! Here's my review" etc... it entirely makes sense to have those keywords indexed.

Sure, check the affiliate terms and feel free to even confirm with the affiliate manager, but I know I'd have no problem with the above. It's intelligent marketing.

The low ethics and damaging marketing is when someone starts running ads as I mentioned such as "Curtis is a Scam" or 'Rob Toth is a Rip-Off" because the marketer might thhink they are being cute and clever but it actually damages the brand.

But if someone isn't comfortable using "scam" and optimizing for it... not a problem... there are plenty of other great "motivated buyer" modifiers and "bonus" is a very popuarly searched one in the IM info product space.

Do abide by the affiliate program's terms, check with the manager if unsure.. but if the ads/copy are setup as mentioned, then it's something I'd permit.

And if you think about it... it's somewhat logical...

Even a non affiliate could post in a forum with a question "Is Fancy Widget a Scam??" ... that's a legitimate and very likely discussion. It WILL come up if you get enough prospects interested in your product. And that's fine.

However, if someone posted an article saying "Fancy Widget is a scam!!" .... that's defamatory/slander and could even result in a legal notice from the company. Because it's a STATEMENT not a query.

Regardless, good points raised!

[Andy Havens]

Hi Rob,

Good points and not just because I totally agree. :-)

Again, the key here is integrity and credibility. If you call someone a scammer - it might be a good idea to be able to back it up with facts. My own non-laywer gut instincts suggest some may consider this defamation of character.

Even though this may be effective, I think overuse of the technique may well lessen the effectiveness

Andy

[citrus]

I get what you're saying Rob, and you're right, but I think that when an affiliate uses the term "scam", whether in the "this is a scam...NOT" sense or the "product xyz scam? read my review" sense, they're just using a tactic which falls into a grey area to get attention to their ad or website.

If a non-affiliate asks if something's a scam, then it could generate a good discussion, yeah. But if an affiliate does it, then I personally don't think it's fair to the product owner. Even if the review is glowing, which they usually are, seeing the word "scam" associated to a product will lead some people to get funky ideas.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather not see people using that modifier in their affiliate campaigns.

Curtis

[Greg Jacobs]

We are actually considering right now whether to allow "negative" promotions in our affiliate campaigns. All the above are valid points, meaning that the user is going to be searching for it anyways, so might as well have a "friendly" site show up for the rankings.

What we are actually thinking of doing (though this may get too complicated for some)
is allow "negative" review/domains, however no negative promotion via PPC.

Meaning if a user actually searches for "Product Name Scam"
then they can find the natural search results.. however what I DONT want to see is the user searching for
"Product Name"

and seeing a blaring PPC ad that says "Product Name Scam"
These sort of things leave impressions you know..

Do you think that will too complicated for affiliates to comprehend and adhere to?

ie.. no Negative promotion in PPC?

[Brandon M Ellis]

I haven't read the other post but this may help.

1st- Get a product targeted domain.
( Ex: GooglebuysFTC 2.0; You buy GoogleBuysFTCbonus.com or Googleftcsite.com or you get the gist).

2nd- Set up a wordpress blog and optimize for relevant keywords, lsi, etc... Or have someone set it up for you from elance or a similar site on the cheap. Drip some post to the site targeting different keywords. Also make sure to setup a newletter sign up with a free bonus of some sort so you can create some anticipation for these subscribers.

3rd- Create your copy for the site or script for your video to prepare for the launch. Create some killer bonuses that will stand out from the others relevant to the product.

You could post a few keyword rich articles on some sites lick ezinearticles.com and use forums to talk about the product and stuff you probably already know about.

It will take work so just do it!! Create you a ritual to start ( all the pros have one) Dance a jig, kick up the music, put on your beer hat, whatever works for you. Just get er done!

Good Luck
Brandon M Ellis

[Andy Havens]

Curtis,

I agree with what you're saying. It seems counterproductive to me also to use the "scam" gambit. One is likely to end up with one of two prospects:

Prospect 1 is looking for a reason not to buy - s/he wants the negative. These may be hard to persuade.

Prospect 2 is looking for a reason to buy - and yet they are coming to your site with a negative frame of mind. This tactic sometimes or maybe a lot of times works - but I do not think it is an honest approach.

At the beginning of this (slightly hijacked, sorry Ben) portion of the discussion, I was inclined to try this at some point. Now I think I'll leave it for others, no matter how profitable they find it.


Greg,

I think many of my comments apply to your situation too.

My own thought is to ban the negative ads, with a similar explanation - you don't perceive this tactic as honest marketing and you would rather lose sales resulting from a ban than profit from anything that might call your integrity into question.

In the long run, I see no downside from consistently taking the high road.

Andy