Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

In a previous article, I wrote about how the testimonial, thanks to the FTC ruling, was now dead. Make no mistake about it…it’s defunct. However, that doesn’t mean that you still can’t make sales from sales page that doesn’t have any testimonials. It’s going to take a little bit of effort, but in the long run, it will prove to be most profitable. Let’s begin.

In short, the days of sending somebody straight to a sales page without testimonials is over. Sure, if there are any sales pages out there breaking the law, they’ll still work. But they won’t be around long. So you’re going to eventually have to prepare for the inevitable. How do we do that?

To start with, you’re going to have to presell people. I’ve been doing this for YEARS so this new rule doesn’t affect me a bit. In fact, if you look at my sales pages, very few even have testimonials. Okay, so how do we presell people?

I have found that the best way is to first present them with a comprehensive HONEST review of the product. By honest, I mean you point out what you like and don’t like about it. Yes, you are now going to have to disclose that if somebody buys the product through YOUR recommendation that YOU will get compensated for it. This is another part of the FTC bag of tricks. However, this doesn’t have to kill things for you.

What you do next is offer a bonus or additional information to the prospect IF they purchase the item from you. Make no secret about this. Be right up front about it. Say, “Hey, here’s what I am going to do. Get this product using my affiliate link and I will give you…” and then tell them what you’re going to give them. The key is to make sure that the product you’re going to give them complements the product they are buying.

For example, let’s say that you’re promoting a service that submits articles to various directories. What I would do is offer my book on how to write articles as a freebie. People who have trouble writing in the first place will probably jump at the offer, especially since it is so closely related to what they’re buying.

Don’t have anything of your own? Buy a report that complements the product. There are many options to do this. In my signature, I will give you a great one.

But we’re not done.

Offer them a newsletter filled with info related to the topic that the product covers. Have them opt in and send a number of followups. I recommend at least seven, but you can make as many as you like. Make them a regular subscriber to your newsletter and not just somebody you’re trying to pitch an affiliate product to.

Naturally, the above system will work for your OWN sales letter as well. Can’t create a product with those killer testimonials anymore? No problem. Before you even THINK of sending a prospect to your sales page, give them the review, the offer of the bonus and the newsletter.

Gain their trust.

Ultimately, what will happen is that any time you have ANYTHING to promote in that niche, they are going to be more likely to buy it if you’ve done nothing but provided them with value during the course of your relationship with them.

Yes, the sales letter testimonial may be dead. But marketing will NEVER die.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
A great way to get products to give away is through the use of PLR. Don’t know how to go about this? John Rhodes and myself have put together the definitive guide on PLR, how to find good PLR and how to put it together in record time. You can check out the sales page here. But, here is the deal I’m going to make you. Purchase this product through my affiliate link, send me your receipt, and you can have your choice of any one of my products…FREE (except for my NRR series because those are limited issues). You can’t beat a deal like that. But remember, you have to purchase through my affiliate link and it has to be verified. So make sure that when you get to the Clickbank payment page it says “affiliate=swagen”.

Here is the link:

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/plr.php

One way of getting your affiliate link out there is by putting it into an ebook. Now I know what you’re thinking. “I’m an affiliate marketer. I don’t want to go creating ebooks.” Well, before you dismiss this idea, let me show you how you can do this with so little effort that you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself.

You do not have to create an ebook from scratch. There is something called PLR that you can use to do this. Simply get a hold of some “good” PLR material. Later on I’ll show you how to do this if you don’t already know. Then, what you do is compile it into an ebook. All you need to do this is Open Office, which is free to download. So it won’t cost you any money.

What you’re going to do is this. In various sections of the book, where it fits, you’re going to insert some of your affiliate links. What you want to do is put them in places where the affiliate product compliments the material you’re covering. For example, let’s say a section of your ebook goes over writing and submitting articles to get traffic to your site but doesn’t really go into detail on how to write these articles. Here is where you could include an affiliate link to a book on article writing and marketing.

After you’ve gotten your book put together, the next step is to get it out there. Well, there is an easy way to do this. Actually, there are quite a few easy ways to do this. One way is to take your ebook and submit it to free download sites. Another way is to simply create a brief squeeze page and give the ebook away in return for the person’s email address. This is a great way to sell an affiliate product and build a list at the same time.

Personally, I get many sales from embedded links in ebooks. The key is to make sure that the quality of the ebook you’re giving away is top notch and the product that you’re selling compliments the material in the ebook itself. This kind of marriage will make for many affiliate sales if done properly.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Think all PLR is crap? Can’t find good PLR to save your life? Pick up a copy of PLR Exploitation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/plr.php and discover how to tell good PLR from bad and some easy ways to put it together in literally minutes complete with affiliate links.

Also, tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.

You would think that with all the original content that I create daily that the last thing I’d even bother with is PLR material. Well, to be honest, I don’t do a lot with it BUT I do use it when I am in a pinch or if I decide to crack into a niche that I don’t know a lot about.

However, there are several problems that you will run into when purchasing PLR material.

One problem with PLR material is that there is a lot of crap out there and you have to be very careful with what you buy. For example, before I knew as much about PLR as I do now, I bought a PLR package of articles that was nothing more than a list of bullet points for each article. That is not an article and the package was virtually worthless for me.

Another problem with PLR material is how much of it the creator lets out there. Many claim limited amounts, but the truth is, many of these creators will sell as many PLR sets as they can just to make a profit. So you end up buying PLR material that is saturated all over the Internet.

Another problem with PLR is you really don’t know if it’s any good until you actually buy it. Sure, you can always return it for a refund, but it would be nice if you can get some kind of idea if the PLR was decent BEFORE you spent your hard earned cash on it.

Well, PLR Exploitation has solved all these problems and a lot more that I won’t bother getting into here. I’ll just send you to the page and you can read up on it for yourself.

PLR Exploitation was put together by myself and John Rhodes who is a PLR master. This guy has more knowledge about PLR than anybody I know, including myself. Heck, he practically makes his living from buying cheap PLR and turning it into quick cash. One report I think he bought for like $9.95 and in a matter of days, made like $200 and change. I mean that’s just an insane ROI for what was very little work.

Anyway, instead of me babbling on about this any longer, why not just go check out the page. You’ll find out everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING about PLR material that you’ll ever need to know.

Here’s the URL:

http://www.plrexploitation.com/

This may very well be the best report on PLR that you’ve ever gotten in your life.

Sincerely,

Steven Wagenheim