Anyone Use Drop Cards to Promote Affiliate Products?

Yes, cards dropped and otherwise still work.

Recently, I've been testing a card that actually
calls attention to itself.

The results have given me some real insights.

Ron

Welcome to the Warrior Forum, Chuck. I see your MLM blog posts and articles all over the internet! You are doing a fantastic job for this industry! Congrats and thank you for your dedication and great work.

Drop cards are incredibly effective in generating leads when used strategically. I've been doing this (and training my downlines at this) for more than three decades as part of my arsenal of lethal marketing weapons. It is particulary effective when the drop cards are as realistic as possible; they often get passed around and can even go viral.

In the last six years or so, I've actually been using "gift card" or "credit card" look alikes instead of the standard $20 or $100 bill. The response rate seems to be about 2-5 times greater, although it is challenging to do effective split test comparisons with such an undifferentiated mass-scattering type of marketing approach.

My strategy has always been to initially promote a relevant third party offer or affiliate program (now mostly Amazon books or Clickbank products) to build a list of buyers from drop card respondents. I think the reason this works so well is that it does seem to attract a subset of the MM demographic virtually untouched by any of the more saturated offline or even online marketing methods.

Note this strategy hardly ever will make you any significant amount of money upfront. It is for long-term lead generation. And it is absolutely essential to use multiple communication channels (offline and online) to extract the most value from these leads. The real money comes at the back end - deep into the funnel system after all the other follow-up and qualifying affiliate sales. That's when I start bringing out the BIG gun - my MLM opportunity.

Thanks for the kind words. Using drop cards to build a list is brilliant, especially if you are selling something inexpensive, and then using an auto-responder to promote back end offers.

I'm going to do an experiment over the next few months with drop cards to promote some products in different niches and build up my lists. I will keep you informed. Thanks.

Not quite ...

The products I promote through drop cards never were "something inexpensive". All respondents are put into a funnel system which includes telephone, webinars, video presentations, email, social media, local seminars, post cards, etc for followup until they either buy the promotional product, unsubscribe (verbally or otherwise), or stop returning calls.

The purpose of my drop cards have always been exclusively for targeting and qualifying prospects for other incrementally higher end affiliate products and ultimately into my MLM business. As I mentioned, you will seldom make a sale directly from the drop card no matter how "inexpensive" the offer without an effective and proven follow-up system.

They almost never will buy at first, but will almost always keep the card - or pass it along. Customers have often told me (much later for example when they joined my MLM company) they've held the "silly" card for several weeks and eventually became intrigued enough to make the call or visit the website out of "curiosity".

Curiosity is the secret sauce here, and generally you have less than 30 seconds to convey a convincing call to action. Always offer free relevant information of high perceived value to the non-buyers along with a scheduled followup appointment for the next exposure. With me, every call ends with a "sale"; a product, appointment for the next call, or an unmistakable "no" sale from the prospect.

This process quite effectively weeds out people with a "broke" mindset. Although not as robust as the other systems I use, this drop card marketing method is duplicatable so even beginners in my MLM opportunity (not a cheap investment) can learn it and be in profit within a very short period of time.

You really shouldn't be happy with that. Apparently you're not using them very effectively, or as I said - they need to be used strategically. But I didn't get to the top of my MLM company using drop cards. As I mentioned, this strategy hardly ever will make you any significant amount of money upfront.

It's only a training and personal development tool I use for new recruits to get them off to a fast start and into a bit of a profit within the first critical 30-60 days. The money then begins to flow later in the funnel, but the real gusher is when they teach it to their own downlines and advance on their journey of personal development.

This method is simple and easily duplicatable, but certainly of course nowhere near as effective as real communication and building deeper personal relationships.

I am doing this everyday myself to set an example for my team (usually, however with a new recruit), but the individual coaching they get from me during the first few days is way more important. Most people have no problem with this "simple system". But, they must eventually learn to actively engage people before handing out these cards, which can often result in an 80%+ response rate to the call to action. The next step in their training is for them is to go prospecting without any cards at all.

put em in the ATM machines in and around them.

This got me a $1000 sale recently.

Make sure you are not obstructing the machines, just put them near the machines...my cards look like crumpped up $20 bills....LOL. gets em every time, people are greedy.

Four sets of cards in the same area.

Each set of cards, has an instruction about what to do next.

(think breadcrumbs.)

Collect all the cards- and win.