by Brad | Nov 18, 2015 | Blog
It’s hard being a father, husband, missionary, affiliate manager, consultant,
and friend all at the same time…you know?
I’ve got John’s launch coming up (oh check out the NEW affiliate page), the
potential riots in the local township that affects our students directly, and
my wife due with our FIFTH KID!!! AHHHH
Talk about burning the candle at both ends…in TWO TIME ZONES!!
More like a Lion in Africa 😉
But recently I’ve caught wind of how all the things that I’m ‘being’ has led me
to treat people not as well as I should have.
First, my wife!! Thankfully when I’m out of line, she straightens me RIGHT up 🙂
But with all that’s been going on, she (even while pregnant) has been awesome
and has been patient with me. But I’ve let her down not being equally as awesome
so Aubree…I’m sorry.
Second, my kids…daddy should be playing more legos, reading more books, and
playing tea party… sorry guys! Once it’s warm here I’ll make sure we have daily
swimming contests, walks on the beach, and plenty of business lessons…I’ll tighten
up my daddy game ASAP!
Third, clients/affiliate partners/business friends. Guys…I’m sorry. When I’ve
been short, delivered messages poorly at times, or missed calls …
That’s 100% on me and I’m sorry.
I’ve tried to be very straightforward in communicating business arrangements.
Especially, should any of my communications seem to have been misleading,
I NEED to know immediately. Clarification is golden.
My intention is to have awesome, meaningful, profitable and collegial relationships
with as many people as I can and if I’ve committed one of the above mistakes
(or something else) please let me know so I can make amends.
Just like with my family, I need to know when I’m screwing up 🙂
COME ON BRAD!!!
Ok…one final thing
Do me a favor…if I’ve annoyed you, please let me know so we can make amends
move forward, and do some big business together!
If you’ve got a deal you want to work…BRING IT ON!
Thanks so much for your help!
Brad
P.S. I’m serious about calling me out on how I can improve…let’s talk about it
and how we can be MUTUALLY successful!
by Brad | Jul 1, 2014 | Blog
There are a lot of people who take the summer off from promotions
either from a production or from a marketing standpoint.
Why should you get involved with some select summer promotions:
1. They are a great way to keep your list fresh! Gotta keep your list trained to check out (and hopefully buy) other videos/materials.
2. You can make some money! Again…keep it fresh and keep your list trained even if some are taking breaks and not trading, blah blah…you’ve got to eat too 😉
3. Keep relationships with publishers and affiliates FRESH! Everyone’s working on new stuff, and you want to make sure you stay on the publishers radar as much as THEY want to be on yours!
…so who do you promote and WHEN??
Here are some offers you can/SHOULD mark your calendar for
and/or sign-up for the matching affiliate program. If you don’t
see YOUR OFFER HERE…comment and get some free promo 🙂
SimplerOptions.com Single Class: July 26-July 31st Promo Direct to BUY for
August 2nd: Simpler Options 297 Class (email ONLY)
– This is a direct to sales page offer. No videos, no webinars
just straight to premium converting and tested copy.
SimplerSTOCKS.com Single Class: (new affiliate program MUST SIGN UP)
(First PUBLIC LAUNCH!! Company will NOT be cookieing
ANY of their LEADS…it’s open season and it’s a must promote)
August 15th Promotion for Webinar Begins
August 19th Webinar: Simpler Stocks
August 23rd: SIMPLER STOCKS 297 Class
-This will be the first time affiliates can promote SimplerStocks.com
and the company will NOT be cookieing ANY leads to ensure affiliates
get max exposure and cookie growth/planting. The webinar will be the
KEY…
**FALL PROMOTIONS**
SimplerOptions.com BIG LAUNCH
BIG LAUNCH: September 4th to 15th
Sept 4-7: Video Promo
Sept 7-11: Webinar Promo
– The BIG DOG…last big one did 1.2mm in sales with affiliates raking
in big numbers…some big enough to ‘pay the mortgage for the year!’
Be sure and mark down at least 4 FOUR days to mail for this
…YES FOUR
TradeWins Publishing
Chuck Hughes: Wealth Creation Alliance!
Sept 30-Oct 12th: Details to COME
– Chuck’s a guy with a ton of klout and SKILL…that resonates really well
with our demographic…and you WILL want to promote till the end to
maximize your efforts!
Show off your A.B.C. skills in the comment section and convince my readers to PROMOTE YOU!
All my best,
Brad
by Brad | Jul 28, 2010 | Blog
In the financial/trading niche there are an abundance of products/services/tools to promote. But quality is the key. This series is designed to help me relay to YOU what info you need to think about before you promote. Read last week’s part one of “who/what should you promote” to catch up.
OK moving right along, class, today I’m going to dive into an important part of trading/investing affiliate marketing…WHERE DOES MY TRAFFIC GO??
Whenever a company comes to you and asks you to promote their offer, you need to do a bit of digging BEFORE you put up banners, send out emails, or write blog posts.
WHY???
Because that traffic is YOURS! You earned it, they trusted you with their info, and they trust your opinion…so you should know what they’re getting. This trust factor is what companies are after when they approach you to market their products. So you need to be extra careful with what you promote because if a company does something that you’re not comfortable with in their marketing…how do you think your audience is going to feel?
You should always know what’s happening to your traffic. Are they going right to an order/sales page? Are they going to opt-in to a form and then be pitched ONE product? If they opt-in are they tagged to me, how long? If they opt-in will they only see your products/tools? How many sales cycles does that person go through in order to sell your product?
Let’s address one thing at a time…
1. They (your traffic) goes to a sales page.
OK this is pretty straight forward where the only research you should do is on the product itself. If it’s a click to sale then it’s on you to know that you’re promoting a quality product that will truly add value to them. Now, you do have to understand that ‘products might work for some and not for others’ so do not limit yourself to what you can promote. This doesn’t mean if you’re a forex blog to start selling ETF stuff. No, it means if you’re a forex blog present your audience with a wide range of materials in the forex niche.
2. They go to an opt-in page.
This is where it gets tricky and you really have to do some HW.
First, you’ll need to sign-up yourself to see what the process is. If you’re expecting your audience to opt-in, shouldn’t you?? This will allow you to see what happens initially with your info. Do you get sold to right away? Do you get the expected free content? If right from the ‘get go’ you’re not happy with what you see…bail. Stop right there and move on.
If you’re happy with the initial content hook, then you can move on to finding out the next steps. Now if you’re being asked to promote for a launch you’re going to have to TRUST that person telling you about the opt-in process. Do you trust the person telling you the process? Do you really think that process will work?
If you’re promoting for a free service/report that doesn’t put people into a timed sales launch, then you’re in luck because you’ve got time to see what that company does with your info. Whatever your opting into, you should eventually be sold something from that company as that’s where YOU’RE going to make money. You can get paid money for the lead, but the goal is to have the traffic you drive BUY something. Depending on the cycle it can take longer. Your affiliate manager contact SHOULD have that cycle length. If that cycle length is focused on that product then you’re good….
But if you start to see a lot of promotions coming to you from that company you should ask questions. Why am I getting this email about xyz when I opted in to abc? Are you an affiliate of xyz, is that why you’re promoting them?
If your traffic is being sold to on OTHER STUFF before the product you wanted them to buy, you should bail. The focus should be on getting your lead sold into a product of that company, nothing else…period!
Now, you have to understand that at some point your lead might get promoted to something that you’re also promoting. This sucks, but it’s part of affiliate marketing. If the company that took your lead SOLD them on one of their products, then you shouldn’t have any issue as you’ve made your money. But if you’re seeing promotions for xyz course or brokerage house A then you really need to take a step back and see what’s up.
The company asking you to promote and drive leads should be focused on SELLING THEIR PRODUCTS FIRST! If they’re not…BAIL! If you sign-up to get a free report and within a month you’re getting all these different emails from the same company you should NOT promote for them. That lead should only be funneled into a sales process.
3. They will be sold other stuff, but product 1 should be first.
You have to understand that people in this business want to make money…heck YOU know that. But you also have to be ok with being able to share leads in order to get money. It’s a risk yes, and yes the person you’re promoting for is probably going to sell the heck out of that lead in 3 months, but know that their focus is on product sales.
Again this is just hammering the point home, but if you’re giving your traffic to someone to sell a product to, you’d better darn well know that the product you want them to buy IS WHAT THEY ARE BEING SOLD FIRST AND HARDEST!
Any questions???
Any comments???
OK part three I will give you my advice on the WHO!!
Stay tuned and please share if you enjoyed!
All my best,
Brad
by Brad | Jul 23, 2010 | Blog
This is a question that affiliates often ask me. It’s a hard one because as a sub-contractor you can market and promote for whomever you choose…and there are a lot of choices! You have to figure out what’s best for YOUR site and you personally. There are a lot of great choices and companies to promote, but in that same breath there are a lot that won’t do what’s best for YOU and your traffic. They have a different agenda that’s not focused on you.
So let’s discuss shall we????
First things first…what do YOU do?
Are you a stock focused site? Do you discuss only forex? Have you spent most of your time focusing on the S&P?
I ask those questions because you want to promote products that fit your focus. You have to know your audience and know what they like, what they expect, and what YOU want on the site. Let’s pretend your site is focused on ‘learning on your own’…
As a promoter of ‘learning on your own’ you have to test and see what other products have been purchased by your audience. Find what YOU think fits into that category, promote it to your people, and if they buy then you continue down that path. If you’ve sold only ‘learning on your own’ services, then you tell them about a futures broker who wants them to open an account and let their broker trade for them…do you REALLY think you’ll sell any of that? NOOOOO! Your people will show you want they want, so read them by studying what they buy from you, what they read on your site, and read their comments.
If your site focuses on ‘learning on your own’ then you market a forex robot to them…how will that look? Your audience will say ‘SELL-OUT’ and stop visiting your site because they know you’ve been ‘turned’, ha! The key with marketing and promoting is to provide VALUE to your audience while staying true to yourself. No one wants to be labeled a ‘sell-out’ for one products and/or company. If you go to a blog and you can’t differentiate between what the site is saying and who they’re promoting…that’s an issue. You DO NOT want to fall into that category. Visitors see through that and will not stay with you very long if you become a sell-out. Give your audience what they want. If it’s ‘learning on your own’ there are hundreds of products out there that fit that niche, and plenty that can make you a lot of money and allow you to keep your credibility.
Personal integrity…that’s the third part of this first section. The reality is that it’s YOUR SITE and whatever goes on the site, or in the newsletter, is a direct reflection on you. If you’re not comfortable with all aspects of who you’re promoting then you shouldn’t promote it…period. No paycheck is big enough to overlook you putting crap on your site. Everything on your site is reflection of you and your message. Allowing google ads to show anything and everything is NOT a good model. Ask yourself this question (and answer honestly)… Have I really made that much money from these google ads? 99% of people I ask hate google ads, but they say ‘well it’s easy and it’s something.’ I tell them to take control of your site and its message. Allowing google to run whatever they want is 100% your call, but just look at the ads they’re putting up and see if you’d click.
If you’d like me to evaluate your site and point you in the direction of some great fitting products let me know by emailing me: brad@fmpgllc.com
Second, what’s really happening to the traffic you drive?
I realize this is going to be quite a post, that’s probably not going to be liked by people in the industry, but it’s something important that YOU need to know. Companies marketing tricks/tactics are easily ‘figured out’ by signing up on your own to whatever they’re offering…but I’ll pull back the curtain in my next article.
Please feel free to share this with anyone in the industry!
Cheers,
Brad Stafford
P.S. What a tease with the 2nd point eh??? haha
