Where am I going wrong? - Trying to sell affiliate products to my list

I would always stick with option 1 ('drive more traffic to your site and continue to grow your list'), however find things that they might be genuinely interested in. Instead of trying to sell a CB Product every 3 e-mails for example, send good information, build a relationship, and then offer honest things. Pretend you will not make any money from it, and you will provide them with content they will stay for and read.

Another tip for the open rate - Try and avoid any generic subjects, they tend to get avoided.

You could also promote Amazon Products, as for your niche instruments for example may be more profitable, as you start with 4% commission, and with enough sales get up to 12% in that month.

Best of Luck!

I would say that you should probably try and increase the size of your list, but you may need to switch up your offers. If your offers are not converting with your 300 subscribers, then they probably won't convert for new subscribers.

Or, you may just need to find a niche where there are hungry buyers. Some niches just simply don't have the numbers to sustain your income.

Hi MC,

Considering that the average conversion rate is at 1% you must understand that only 1 out of every 100 people may buy your recommendations.

This is not set in stone though but 300 subscribers is small but again you sound as though you are providing real value to them first and building up that realtionship first also.

I first of all want to congratulate you for taking action and aiming to go through the processes first before asking for the sale.

I am just wondering whether the products you are promoting can be accessed for FREE at YouTube for example.

I have seen countless videos at YouTube providing music tutorial training from guitar lessons to piano lessons etc.

It sounds like you have gotten everything right apart from the fact that these people can access the same info for FREE at YouTube.

Maybe I have got it wrong and you just have to keep building up your numbers of subscribers before you get too frustrated.

Hope this helps and keep us posted on your results!!!

Are the clickbank products you're sending to them actually decent targeted products with good sales pages etc? Or are you just sending anything that's vaguely niche related?

300 people doesn't sound like a lot... try to raise the number to at least a 1000 to see some results. Also are the offers converting? Are they solving their problem? Is the problem even big enough for them to bother and go out of their way to find a solution?

Like others have said keep building/growing the list, but I would also set up a free survey for them to take and ask them what they are having the most trouble with...ask what they need that would help them further their music career. The answers might be varied, but you might find a common problem that the majority of them have in common that needs to be solved. Offer products that might help them solve that problem.

With 300 subscribers you still need to continue to build your list. When we refer to the 80/20 then you at least have 1000 subscribers on your list to begin promoting affiliate products.

This is such a small number. You've done well with it but just think if your getting results so far then what would happen with a large audience.
I'm currently partnering with another marketer who has over 40K subs and he said he gets on a good day 500 opens. Now you've got 300. So don't be distraught your doing well. Just be patient and it will come.

Definitely stick with this one always. Keep building and making those relationships.


Manie

Well, I'm starting to really question the whole "bonus offer" affiliate strategy. When I have done it, conversions suck; but when I just let ride with no bonus offer, conversions rise.

And I have to admit that I'm guilty of wondering about the quality of something when I receive an email from an affiliate offering a big bonus.

I purchased 4 WSOs this week (2 plugins, 1 software, and a wp theme)

Did I use affiliate links? Yes. Were any of those affiliates offering bonuses to use their link? No.

How many affiliates offered me bonuses this week to use their link? I would say 15 roughly. Did I use their link? No. Did I buy the product they were promoting? No.

Maybe it's not typical (I'm a strange one), but bonuses don't work for me as a promo tool either, so...

Is promoting Amazon products via an auto-responder allowed?

Thought that I read somewhere it is not...?

Change you offers.

getting more traffic isn't the cure for everything, and conversion is the key here.

check what's working, then drive more traffic.

Good luck.

Always offer great value to your readers/subscribers. Talking about building a list. I think it's not wise to sell them the way you did, even though it's 3 emails, 1 affiliate link..

Pat from SPI said that the best way to offer great value to your subscribers is to have them come back to your site again.

Pat himself is not a hardcore seller (or affiliate marketer is this case) but yet he's able to generate an average of $50,000 per month in residual income. All he do, is offer top notch content to his readers/subscribers.

You can find out more about building a list in SPI here: Email List Strategies

You're doing great, don't give up and hope this helps
Jeremiah

Wait a minute.

What did they sign up for? Are they learning guitar? Are they looking for guitars? Are they blah blah blah...

If they're learning. Then you should be guiding them every step of the way with valuable content and recommendations for products that you KNOW will help them further. Just promoting products related to guitars is NOT enough to build a relationship. Where's the congruency. Wheres the step by step hand holding?

If i sign up to your list and I'm just learning how to play guitar./ I will be looking for you to guide me. I'm more than capable of going online and buying stuff myself. I'm a big boy. I know how to use a credit card. What i want from you is a whole lot more than product promotions. If you're teaching me. If you're guiding me and I believe in you. Then I will buy products you recommend, but only if you know that they will take me to the next step on my journey - and ONLY if you have proven to me that you have MY best interests at heart.

That's all I care about. Once again, I am capable of going online and buying stuff all by my lonesome self. You have gain my absolute trust before I decide to listen to you and buy what you recommend. You also have to guide me through the process of learning everything needed up to the point where the product is necessary for my continued growth.

People are not buying from strangers anymore. You can't just build a list and make money. That's not how it's done. It used to be a novelty for people to buy stuff online, now it's all about the trust factor... nothing else really matters.

You should drive more traffic to grow your list that's the first thing.

Then you should send them more optin forms to further segment your list and know what each specific group is interested in.

This will help you do more targeting and you will better tailor your offers and autoresponder series.

The first thing that you should do is to consistently build your list.

2. You should find other products on Clickbank that you can earn more money from. Instead of having a $10 per sale or close to it, why not find offers that can make you $60-$100 per sale.

3. You should find products that can also upsell their customers. Let's say that someone just bought what you are selling. You made $60 commission. Then the vendor offers more products on the back end and you are able to earn $50-$200 more per customer.

This is something you should learn more about. Upsells makes you more money from the same customers that you brought in.

Your 2 problems are: 1) List size is too small to make too many conclusions, and 2) You are promoting offers that are probably not that interesting. Try Amazon physical product recommendations. Those convert decently, usually better than ClickBank.

IMSince2003 is right. Your list is too small to make any conclusion at all. More testing is necessary. Try putting your affiliate links inside every email signature. Then that way it will get more exposure and not take away from the value of the information you're providing.

1. Find out what it is they really want to buy.
2. Create that product yourself and sell it to them.

How tight was your targeting funnel? If the list members were extremely targeted 300 people should be converting a lot better.

Are you sticking to the target or at least navigating correctly between targets?

In other words if you are not being extremely relevant to your initial bait offer ..are you making sure the next offer has been warmed properly?

Just how good is your follow up/sales copy?

List numbers and relative offers go out the window if your message is not hitting emotional points and conveying your message in a way that gets the reader in the mood to buy.

Traffic for sure... Increasing your numbers... 300 is nice but you can't expect all of those people to be buying consistently... It's always a numbers game.

I would recommend giving more away to your list. Rather than trying to promote so frequently, give loads of quality content away for free. Once you've built up the level of trust, then you can start to promote to your heart's content.

I've always found that by giving more than I sell, when it actually comes to promos my sales always increase.

Increase your list and test different offers for a certain period of time until you find a offer that people want to buy and then expand on it.