Last week, we talked about how to convert traffic into “ad-click” sales. Today, we will discuss how to convert traffic into “product” sales.
Similar to ad-clicks, the “prerequisite” of any product sales is targeted traffic. Whether you’re getting traffic from search engines, PPC or other advertising channels, the traffic must be interested in your product.
If you are getting traffic from the search engines, you’ll have to note that in addition to getting targeted traffic, you have to get traffic from keywords that can convert into sales. For example, you may be getting lots of traffic from the keywords “ideas for Christmas presents”, yet not making any sale. Instead, a low volume keywords of “unique Christmas present for mum” may get you some sales. Like it or not, certain keywords simply convert better than others and you need to find out what these keywords are!
With that prerequisite in mind, let’s look at the strategies to convert traffic into product sales, including affiliate sales and sales of your own product.
1) How To Convert Traffic Into Affiliate Sales
Whether you are selling your own product or affiliated product, the most important factor is trust or confidence.
For those of you who have read my Insider Advertising Report, you will know that Sales Is A Transfer Of Confidence.
If you are selling an affiliated product, you can build trust in 2 ways:
i) Give a personal encounter of your experience with the product that you recommend.
– This is usually a one-page review on how the product has benefited you. The storyline will always be something like “I was having so and so problem…. then I found this product…. then my problem is solved.”
– In this model, the visitors are likely to read your experience in detail and eventually click to the product site.
ii) Build a ‘seemingly’ trustworthy niche site, one that seems to have great info and great reviews, with prominent links or banners linking to your affiliated product.
– Such a niche site usually have 5-10 pages of relevant contents, with the objective of making the site look as if it understands the niche well. Every article should link to your affiliated product. In addition, every page should have a prominent banner that links to the affiliated product. This is important because the number of traffic to your affiliated site has a direct impact on the number of sales you make.
– In this model, you don’t really expect your visitors to read the articles. The articles and entire website are just to make them trust your site before they go to the affiliated site.
As an affiliate marketer, your main job is to build “instant” trust and then focus on how you can redirect as many of that traffic to the affiliated site as possible. In other words, simply repeat this process… Build Trust, Redirect… Build Trust, Redirect… The more you repeat this process, the more commissions you will make. It’s a numbers game.
You can’t really measure how well you’ve built trust, but you can measure how many visitors who leave your website visit your affiliated site. Your job is to increase that click-through rate. Focus on the click-through and commission will follow!
If you are an affiliate marketer who simply advertise the actual sales page, the above strategy will not be applicable. For you, your success depends a lot on how well the sales page is written and how targeted is your traffic.
2) How To Convert Traffic Into Sales Of Your Own Product
Selling your own product is slightly harder because you can’t recommend your own product and expect people to trust you.
This is so true that one of my clients always advertise his product in the capacity of a product user, with a presale letter describing how he has benefited from the product. If you are a product owner, this can be a strategy worth considering.
There are quite a bit of strategies I would like to share with you on how to convert traffic into sales of your own product, but today’s article is already a little stretched. I’ll leave this part to next week’s blog. Stay tuned.
Its true that converting traffic into sales of other people’s products is easier than sales of my own products. I have a UK based authority site in the careers / jobs niche and make regular affiliate sales of several related products yet very few sales of my own products. However my own career change products sell very well through affiliates in USA, Australia and New Zealand.
How do you drive traffic to your site. I have an job search site for careers/jobs and I’m looking to build more traffic.
classifieds, employment guide
• What % of your visitors would buy your affiliate product the first time they land on your page?
Probably 99% would not buy the first time.
Are you going to give away these 99% of your visitors?
What is the best way to deal with this 99%?
Build a continuous relationship and benefit from the life time value of your customer.
By what…
Create a compelling opt in form to get name and email address in your sale page by offering real value giveaway like free ebook or a 7 day course or more info on the affiliate product offer.
Build more relationship with autoresponder.
Then you are converting the 1% sale and the 99% future sale.
Build • Know • Like • Trust
Giap
Kenneth, that you once again for an excellent post. I love the information you share freely and have created the following affiliate site.
Country Crafts
I have not yet integrated all of your suggestions, but am working on it as you continue to share information.
Thanks.
Kim
Please accept my apology for the mistake in my link. It was not country crafts that I have developed yet, it is actually:
Acne Scar Remedies
I will say that following earlier Kenneth advice has got this site to number one in the search engines in a very competitive keyword.
Wishing you success.
Kim
How many targeted visitors does it take to get one affiliate sale?
Some say 1 out of every 100. Does this formula ring true for anyone?
Nah. Not if it’s really targeted traffic. Studies do show that sometimes a consumer may need to visit your site or page 6 or 7 times before making a purchase. Dealing with affiliate sales systems, as mentioned above, most try to capture contact info to foster a relationship until the time has been established to “convert.”
Targeted traffic is so important for sales of any kind.
Market research, keyword research plus finding and getting into products the deliver targeted traffic are some extremely important components of your marketing strategy.
Once again a great topic and beneficial post from Kenneth.
Will be waiting for next post for tips on selling your own products.
Excellent article. I liked very much. Online income is all about traffic and conversion. Traffic needs value-addition using articles, blogs, press-releases, free product giveaways, back-links etc. Having our own product/service provides leveraged traffic :) While Conversion depends on soft-selling and preselling skills. Most buying decisions are taken by heart and NOT brain. This is THE reason why most people loose money online. It is the same reason why smart marketers make loads of cash. “Ability to make real money online” CANNOT be purchased. It is a skill that can be learnt from Gurus like Kenneth.
Just like loosing weight. Anyone who wants to loose weight cannot pay $997 and do nothing to loose weight. Wight loss can be achieved only when lifestyle changes are made like proper low-calorie diet and atleast 45 min daily exercise.
People buy when they Know, Like and Trust the seller. Fear and Greed do improve conversions but confidence building is still very important for higher Conversions :)
Money is in the (relationship with) List
Ok I peronlly think that i’ts not that hard at all anymore too get targeted traffic to your website. But alot of us get flustered because there is no sale and this is where we need to go back to the older way of thinking.
I find that I make a ton of more sales by building trustworthy relationship with potential clients. I know a lady who looked at my site once and wants too by some of my products directley from me because she know me and trust me.
So don’t neccisarily fall for the laser targeted traffic it’s great for your business but the #1 thing you need to concentrate on is building relationships with your clients and potential clients and explain too them how the product help improve your life believe me it does work.
Want to start building a stream of relationship for potential buyers online I highley recommend getting a facebook page and put a decent photo of yourself on your profile Fill in the profiled in full yes there is a place to put your website in your profile. This will build an online network full of people who trust you without even using one keyword
Wish everyone the very best!
Leveraging on Facebook. That’s another great way to build trust. Thanks for the tips.
Recent study shows that total visitors to facebook has exceeded google. Looks like FB has enormous potential for IMers. Will FB replace Google in the forseeable future?
I doubt so. Facebook advertising still have a long way to go. The killer thing about Google is targeted content, targeted ad and hence targeted traffic. Facebook still can’t match that. It’s more for relationship building and communication.
thanks for the help. I been trying for years to turn my photography web site into an income with no luck.
I went through this article and its pretty useful. Thanks for this article.
thank you for your good suggestions. they are very useful to me.
I love your it is really helps for me in converting my traffic into sales..
convert traffic into sales, wow, i would have to admit that you are really great! thank you very much for providing me such useful information, it’s pretty helpful to me.
I read the article again and didn’t even realize it. It is true that I just now need to focus more on targeted traffic. I advertise on these less popular sites and while they may get you more traffic it doesn’t mean more sales believe me so targeted traffic if the way to go but make sure you have your own website before doing this weather your selling your own product or not.