How to attract affiliates...

Actually, I'm pretty impressed.

Looks like you have enough/a lot of material for potential affiliates.

I'd just suggest communicating with them to see if they need anything else.

PS, did you do the copy/design yourself? Or who(m) did you hire to do that?

John

Have you thought of going to abest web?

Woody, that's actually a pretty impressive array of tools. I have a couple of projects on the board where this might make a good back end offer.

About the only thing missing from the stack might be a report or video or something that affiliates could customize and use for a 'buy through my link' bonus. Even a list of ideas for creating such a bonus could be helpful.

Beyond that, it's more a matter of getting your offer in front of potential affiliates.

Thanks guys.

I will check out aBestWeb. Is it a forum or directory?

Tommy-
Thanks for the insight. I always try to put myself in the affiliates' shoes.

JohnMcCabe - Contact me via email and lets see if we can work something out

I think you've done a lot to attract large numbers of affiliates.

If you'll excuse the observation, though, I think that the affiliates you're going to attract are among the "90% of affiliates who collectively produce 10% of the possible affiliate sales", and you're probably attracting them at the expense of alienating the "10% of affiliates who collectively produce the other 90% of the possible affiliate sales".

There are a few glaring features on your sales page which will very quickly put off any serious, professional affiliates, in my opinions. And I think you'll increase both the sales page's overall conversion rate, and the number of professional affiliates attracted by removing them.

Some of the more glaring things that "leap out off the page at me", and would immediately put me off becoming an affiliate for this product (albeit that it's in a niche which might well otherwise interest me and appeal to me, as a potential affiliate) are:-

(i) "As seen on Yahoo, AOL, Entrpreneur" etc. etc. However true this is, it appears to be claiming an imprimatur of questionable authenticity (to put it politely). This is right at the top of the sales page, and, to me (and by extension, I respectfully suggest, to many other professional affiliates too, judging by many recent WF discussions of this subject), screams "This vendor is trying to mislead people by claiming something he's probably not entitled to", which is really the very last thing you want people thinking when you're trying to sell them something. If it's any consolation to you, every client of mine who has split-tested this has found that the page converts better without it, simply because it puts some people off. I'm sure that you're not really trying to deceive anyone, and would do better to remove this, however "technically valid" part or all of it might be.

(ii) The alleged price reduction from $497 to $297 to $197 to $97 to $67 followed by the words "This is a special launch offer only; we're only opening this for the next 3 days only before the offer closes". To many people, this will just scream "dishonest vendor". I don't know about you, but when I'm trying to sell something to someone, the very last thing I want them to think is that I might be being dishonest with them. It smacks of "fake prices" and "fake urgency".

(iii) The bit at the end that says "only 230/119/67/21 copies left" is about the most unpleasant example of "fake scarcity" I've ever seen. Clearly you're an honest guy yourself, and have simply been grotesquely misled here by someone calling themselves a "copywriter" who hasn't quite grasped the concept of "scarcity" and genuinely doesn't appreciate that this line will lose far more sales than it gains!

People are not stupid. They know that products like this don't really have "only 21 copies left".

You know it and I know it, and your copywriter knew it, and the Warriors reading this thread and looking at your sales page know it, too. You surely can't imagine that your potential customers are the only people in the world who are collectively gullible enough not to know it?

They can come back a few days later (which most people do, you know? It's pretty unusual for people to buy at their first visit to a sales page!) and see, mysteriously, miraculously, exactly the same "only 21 copies left". When they do that, do you think they'll envisage you as an honest or as a dishonest person? This question kind of answers itself, doesn't it?

Sorry to express it a little forcefully, but this is plain dishonest, and it's not even remotely convincing. It fools nobody. Everyone can see that it's dishonest. This is going to alienate serious affiliates just like it's going to alienate customers, and for partly overlapping reasons.

This exact point is discussed here in the Warrior Forum in dozens of threads, and if you take a look round at those threads, you'll see what almost 100% of those making their living as affiliates think of this kind of "tactic" and what they have to say about it. I think it'll make you change your mind very quickly indeed!! I hope so, anyway - as you'll have far more chance of attracting successful affiliates by taking away these apparently scammy and totally implausible claims, which will otherwise (rightly and understandably) cost you so many sales! :rolleyes:

(For myself, I would also have some fairly strong words with the "copywriter" about the three matters mentioned above, and certainly not be buying any more sales pages from that source - but that's just my own opinion/reaction to the travesty of copywriting that's clearly happened here).

In short, if you'll excuse the observation, I think that when it comes to attracting serious affiliates, you should be directing your attention not to the affiliates' page, but to the sales page.

If they help you at all, my own "criteria to become an affiliate" are listed in this post.

Obviously enough, they're simply "my own criteria". But I'd venture to suggest that, overall, they're far more representative of the views/policies of the "10% of affiliates who make 90% of the sales" than they are of the other "90% of affiliates who makes 10% of the sales".

I hope, anyway, that they're useful food for thought for you, and that none of what I've said above has given any offense (other than perhaps to your copywriter, who arguably deserves it anyway!); and I wish you well with your product.

Alexa, thank you for the very enlightening post. No offense taken and I'm actually honored you've taken the time to share your opinions in such a long post.

I've been taught by my copywriting mentor (shall not name names) to promote scarcity in copy and using a "countdown". I've been told that conversions are better. Is it not true?

abestweb is a forum and I think it has a directory within the website. It's quite comprehensive. I have made some GREAT connections there and I have been able to broker some good deals where everyone was happy.

Your best bet is to focus on wooing the affiliates because with out them you will really not have anything worth the salt.