Tangible Affiliate Marketing Tips
More consumers are shopping online than ever before. Whether it’s for a special day like Black Friday or Cyber Monday – or just everyday shopping for items they need, men and women alike are spending money at online retailers.
You, as an affiliate, have a chance to cash in on that spending trend. You can become a tangible affiliate for sites like Amazon, Share-a-Sale, or Commission Junction – the last two of which have hundreds of retailers you can promote and earn a piece of the sale.
Many tangible affiliates go into this business model thinking all they need to do is rewrite the product listing and then focus most of their time and attention on driving traffic to their page.
That’s not going to work if you really want to dominate in your promotions. You might make a few sales here and there, but not the significant ones you’re striving for.
#1 – Promote a Store That Has Household Recognition
Sometimes online shoppers are a bit wary of who they’re handing over their credit card details to. If it’s not a store they know as a household name, then it becomes just another hurdle you have to help them get past in order to convert them into a sale.
Some stores, like Amazon.com, have that global recognition. Just about everyone has heard of Amazon and knows one really great thing – that they can buy just about anything on that site!
Instead of promoting a store that is just a specialty shop where only one form of product is sold, you can make increased commission by promoting sites like Amazon where consumers add more items to their shopping cart – giving you more money!
So for instance, you could promote ToysRUs.com through one of the affiliate programs, which would give you a commission on toys. Sounds good, right? But there’s a better way.
If you promoted the same toys through Amazon.com, then you have more potential. The person buying toys for a child’s birthday party might also pick up their own favorite book or a new DVD, some new headphones, or even a big ticket item like a treadmill or big screen TV!
#2 – Stay on Top of Tangible Trends
If you want to go with a stable, evergreen niche, that’s perfectly okay – and even lucrative. But you can also capitalize on trends that crop up in the marketplace and make a killing on your efforts.
First, look for trends within your own niche. For example, if your niche is toys for kids, then keep an eye on what is hot for kids. Like the Rainbow or Crazy Loom where kids are making rubber band bracelets.
While these might be low ticket and low commission items, what happens with sites like Amazon is the volume of sales helps bump you up to the next level of commission, so you earn more!
Plus, as we mentioned before, it also gives the consumer an opportunity to add more items to their shopping cart, increasing your commission even more. You can still promote traditional evergreen items, like Legos, for example, but promoting trends helps your bottom line – plus, it tells your audience you have your finger on the pulse of the marketplace.
How do you find trends in your niche? There are several ways. First (and most obvious) is to be observant. If you’re in a store where they sell your particular niche products, see what they have prominently displayed.
Look for commercials for the niche. If you’re in the toy niche, for example, commercials will have the hottest toy releases at certain times of the year – like Christmas, for example.
Keyword tools can also help to some degree, although they may not give you the hottest trends in time for you to do something about them. It might depend on which tool you use, how you use it, and how long the trend lasts.
You can also use Google or another search engine to help you navigate the trends. Doing a normal search for something like “toy trends” yields dozens of results for pages where site tell you what the trend is.
You can also set up a Google Alert to get notified whenever new pages appear on the Internet in your niche. Simply go to http://www.google.com/alerts and sign up for the phrases you want to be notified about, and then choose how frequently you want those notifications.
See what’s on the Hot New Releases list. If you’re an Amazon affiliate, then you can go to the niche that you’re in and look on the Hot New Releases list. This should give you some ideas of current trends and since they’re new, you have ample chance for increased commissions.
#3 – Pick Only Products That Have a Proven Track Record
When you’re promoting tangible items, you don’t want to promote products that have a high rate of return or dissatisfaction. Ideally, your goal will be to have your visitor return to you for advice time and time again.
Look for a solid star rating. You can’t always go by star ratings, but they do help in certain situations. On Amazon, the star rating and review will tell you if it’s from a verified buyer or just from someone leaving a review with no proof of purchase.
Sometimes, sellers can sabotage each other’s listings, so if they’re all unverified, you might want to ignore or be cautious about those reviews.
Another problem with star ratings is that some people rate lower for things that you wouldn’t feel bothered by, like the packaging it came in or some other personal preference.
But for the most part, the volume and amount of the rating can clue you in to the typical consumer reaction in regards to that particular product. A product that has 500+ stars and a 4.8 rating is a good indication of high quality – more so than a product with only one review and a 5-star rating because the volume isn’t there.
Check out recall notifications. If you’re promoting something like a baby crib or car seat – anything that can get recalled by the manufacturer – make sure you look for recall notices about that product. You don’t want to promote something obsolete or ineffective.
Look on the bestseller’s list. On Amazon and other sites, you can find a listing that tells you what’s selling best. This is great if you’re in a niche where people don’t tend to leave tons of reviews. You’ll know that it’s selling anyway.
Check out the Movers and Shakers list. On Amazon, there’s a specific list for the items in each category that are growing in sales by leaps and bounds. You can see if they’re up or losing steam- and by what percentage!
See what people have listed on the Most Wished For list. Amazon lets customers create a Wish List. They take that information and make it available to you as a marketer so that you’ll know what to promote.
You can go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/most-wished-for and look at each category of the site to see what most people are hoping someone will buy them. You can parlay this information into a review of one particular product or a top 10 list.
#4 – Don’t Just Rehash the Product Listing
One big mistake you can make is to go to product’s listing page and scrape the content there and rewrite it. You’ll damage your chances of making numerous conversions if this is the route you take.
Start with the specifications listed on site. That’s a good starting point, because the product listing does have some valuable information. See what Amazon and the manufacturer decided were important details and make sure you get those elements into your review.
Take it one step further and add additional specifications from the manufacturer’s website to your review. So let’s take the example of a kitchen appliance like a juicer or coffee maker.
While the product listing on a website might give you a blanket statement such as, “Easy to clean,” you can give your audience more by looking for an instruction manual for that item and then reading up on the details that you can share about how the cleaning works. Is it dishwasher safe? Does it break down easily? Those details add depth to your review.
Consumer insight also helps you create a better review for your tangible promotions. You want to read through the customer reviews because that can tell you many things such as:
- Top issues that are important to the consumer (like noise, size, easy to care for, easy to put together, etc.)
- Solutions for common, small problems. If multiple people voice their disdain for a piece of furniture like a futon because the mattress won’t stay folded in an upright position, look for someone who reviews it with a quick tip on making it work right. You can share the problem and solutions that you find so that you’re being upfront about common problems, but also vigilant enough to know how to make it a non-issue.
- Information the manufacturer won’t list, like how it’s packaged. Sometimes consumers want to know how well something comes in the delivery process. Is the product protected during shipping? Are there 1 million packing peanuts to deal with? Read the reviews and you’ll find out!
Look for repeated statements. If twenty people say something is noisy, it’s probably noisy. If one person says it’s noisy but 58 others are satisfied with no remarks about noise, then it could be a fluke problem with this one consumer’s product.
#5 – Personalize Your Review
As a tangible product seller, you might think it’s impossible to personalize your review unless you specifically own each product and have used it yourself. This isn’t true.
Personalization just means you inject “you” into the review. A sterile review sounds like this:
“The Widget 180 Blender has 3 blades, is dishwasher safe, and has 5 speed settings for you to use.”
A personalized review sounds like this:
“The Widget 180 can make your life a whole lot easier. I don’t know about you, but if a blender can’t go straight into the dishwasher after use, I’m not using it. It’ll sit in the cabinet gathering dust. I love that this product comes with 3 blades and five speeds because that gives you more control over the blending process, and I know I like my smoothies extra smooth – with less pulp from the fruit.”
This humanizes you to the reader. They see that you “get” them – maybe they, too hate smoothies with lots of pulp. And nowhere in there did it say that you purchased the product, just what you liked about it.
#6 – Find Different Slants for Your Promotions
Don’t just have one formula for your blog posts reviewing tangible products. Switch things up a bit! There are countless ways to do this, but let’s look at a few to get you started.
The first one is where you pit one tangible product against another. Consumers LOVE this idea! You can have products battle it out, talking about the pros and cons of each one and deciding which one is a better value.
Which is better: the Bose QuietComfort 15 Acoustic Noise Canceling headphones? Or the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Professional Studio Monitor Headphones?
Those are the top two headphones on the bestseller list on the day this report was written – so you’ll go through everything like a consumer would – price, quality, etc. and do a comparison.
Do a top 10 list! Top 10 toys for two year old boys would be a good example. Or, you can do a top 10 list for a niche situation. For example, “top 10 products to help you sleep better tonight.” That could include a white noise machine, essential oils, and luxury bedding!
Affiliate marketing with tangible products has great income opportunities because consumers are more confident than ever about shopping online and having items shipped directly to their homes. You just need to implement the tips above to get started earning your share of the profit pie!
