Affiliate Contest – Win $100, $50, or $25

Skip McGrath asked me if I would be interested in running an affiliate contest for those affiliates who signed up under me. You are eligible to participate if you have already signed up through this blog or an email received from me. If you have not signed up yet, you can click here to get started.

Contest Details

Contest will run from October 10 until October 31
Contest is based on the number of sales (not the dollar amount of sales)
The participant with the highest number of sales will receive $100
The 2nd place participant will receive $50
The 3rd place participant will receive $25

Tips for promoting affiliate links

Concentrate your efforts on promoting the free newsletter.You can give something away for free so much easier than selling something! The free newsletter sign-up will get the person into the loop and Skip can do the selling of his products thru the newsletter. If someone signs up for the free newsletter under your link, and they buy anything within the 12 months, you will get the commission. I have been very successful with this technique. Here is a screen shot of my stats on Skip's program:


Also try these techniques:

Tap into your eBay customers

Leverage the power of Facebook

Twitter tips

Affiliate Marketing Strategies that Don't Work

Nobody likes a spammer. Do you buy anything from them? Don't expect them to buy from you. Do not use these strategies, they will not work and will only make you look bad.

Do not post on other people's Facebook walls. That is just tacky. It is ok to post it on your own wall, and friends who see it in their feed can click it if they want.

Do not send unsolicited emails. This includes Facebook messages or IMs, Twitter direct messages, or instant messaging.

Do not post on groups or forums. Add the link to your signature and if someone wants to click it they can.

Do not post comments on blogs solely for the purpose of promoting your link. This is a very transparent strategy and your comment will probably be removed anyway.

Good luck! Winners will be announced in early November.

Affiliate Marketing Tip - Using Facebook Correctly

For those of you participating in Skip McGrath's affiliate program, here is another tip for promotion. Leverage the power of Facebook (which now has has over 400 million members). You have to do this carefully and professionally. The most important point to remember:

DON'T SPAM AND DON'T INVADE ANYONE'S PRIVACY BY POSING UNSOLICITED COMMENTS ON THEIR WALL.

Here is how to promote anything on Facebook the right way.

1. Post updates on your status. Only post these a couple of times a week. Don't post these links non-stop all day long. Your friends will get sick of it and they will un-friend you. Focus on the free stuff like the newsletter and the 77 Tips. People love freebies and this gets the person into the system so if they buy anything within the next year, you get the commission. Post updates like:

Free newsletter for eBay sellers!

Free eBook! 77 Tips for Successful eBay Selling


2. Answer questions in your groups. If you see any questions or comments in your groups about someone wanting to work from home, losing a job an needing income, or related topics, post the same links as above. You won't be pushing someone to buy anything, only pointing them to a free resource. Don't post this on other people's walls.

3. Include a link under your own post on groups. Facebook isn't set up to give you a signature line like in other groups or forums. Make your own! After you post something on a group, put your name at the end of your post like this:

Suzanne Wells
Free eBay Newsletter for Sellers
(your affiliate link)

4. Post your link (only when appropriate) as a comment on someone else's update. For example, if someone on your news feed has a comment like, "Looking for a way work from home so baby doesn't have to go to daycare!" This is a perfect opportunity to direct the person to the free newsletter. Explain that you are an eBay seller and it works for you and the newsletter will help them learn more. (Be prepared for rejection, not everyone likes eBay.) Look for opportunities to lead people to the free newsletter if they are seeking work at home jobs, are out of work, want to stay home with kids and make money, etc. Spend a 5-10 minutes a few times a day reading your news feed and looking for opportunities.

Remember, it is much easier to give away something free than to sell something. Let Skip do the selling. Focus on leading people to the free newsletter.

More affiliate marketing tips:

Tap into Your eBay Customers

Less is More

Happy Selling!

Affiliate Marketing Tip - Tap into Your eBay Customers

For those of you participating in Skip McGrath's affiliate program, you may have seen that I am the top affiliate right now. Here is a strategy I am using to get those sales. You don't have to have a blog, Facebook account, Twitter, etc. You just have to be an eBay seller!


Here is the process:

1. Promote the free newsletter. It is much easier to give something away than try to sell something. Let Skip and his newsletter do the selling. The free newsletter sign-up will get the person “into the system” so to speak. If they buy anything within the next year, you will get the commission.

2. Create a form letter that you can copy and paste into your own email to the customer. Mine says, “Your order has been shipped from Atlanta, GA via USPS mail. You should receive your order within 3 business days. If for any reason, you are not satisfied with your purchase, please contact us PRIOR to posting feedback and we will make arrangements with you for a refund, no questions asked. Would you like to learn to sell on eBay and make money from home? Subscribe to the oldest and largest FREE newsletter for at home eBay sellers. Click here to subscribe.” Include your affiliate link to the free newsletter product. Keep this form letter in WORD.

3. You won’t be able to send the form letter from your eBay messaging system because it won’t allow HTML. You must send this from your own email account.

4. When you are shipping your eBay orders, keep a window open with your email account and the WORD document. Copy the customer’s email address from your eBay selling manager and paste it into your email. Paste in the form letter. Add the shipping information for each particular customer. This will take a few extra steps and a few extra minutes, but think of each customer as an opportunity to help you make money for the next year. Your only investment is a few minutes of your time sending out an email.

5.This is not considered spamming because you are sending the customer information about his order and since money has changed hands, you have a relationship with the customer. To play by the rules of email etiquette, tack on your affiliate link to the shipping information so that the email won’t be construed as spam.

6. Give this strategy time to work. You don't buy something the first time you see it, so don't expect anyone else to. Why do you think corporate America runs commercials over and over again? People have to see something several times before reacting. If you are the person to get someone to sign up for the newsletter, you will be the one that earns a commission when the sale happens later. Give this strategy 90 days to start working for you. It is a numbers game. The more sign-ups you get, the more opportunities for a commission.

After creating your clickable link, ALWAYS CHECK IT to make sure it works!

If you are not part of this affiliate program, sign up now. I will be showing you many different ways to promote this program and make some extra money.

Happy Selling!

How to Make $10 More on Every eBay Sale

Yes, you read that right. How to make $10 more on every eBay sale, without raising your price. Have you ever been to a fast food restaurant and been asked, "Do you want fries with that?" or "Would you like to biggie-size that?" This is called upselling and you can do it on eBay with information products. Here is how.

This technique is most effective if you are selling items in a well defined niche. And you will need to be creative. Let's say you sell gardening supplies like hand tools, knee pads, tomato cages, gloves, and composting bins. Obviously, your target market is people who are working in their home garden. Put together a 10-20 page eBook that relates to your topic and add it to your eBay store for around $10. In this case, some suggestions would be:

10 Tips for Growing Great Tomatoes

25 Vegetable Recipes that Kids Will Actually Eat

End of the Garden Vegetable Soup Recipes

Vegetable Garden Companion Planting

You get the idea. Now, you don't have to write the eBook if you don't want to. (If you want to write your own eBook, here is an article on how to do it.) You can go online and buy eBooks with resell rights or hire a college student to write it for you. The trick is to make your eBook an upsell to a specific product - make sure the eBook contains additional information that will help your buyer.

When a buyer makes a purchase, send the buyer an a email that says,

"Thanks for purchasing our folding tomato cage. You may also be interested in my eBook, 10 Tips for Growing Great Tomatoes. Click here to learn more." You will need to manually send these emails as HTML (with links) will not work on the eBay automated emails. Just setup a template in WORD and do it manually.

The "click here" link will go to your listing on eBay for the eBook. Remember that eBooks must be delivered on a CD, so you can just slip the CD into the customer's order.

This is a very effective strategy for increasing your sales. It is much easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to find a new one. This idea came from Skip McGrath's eBay Marketing System. This 300-page course is full of ideas like this to help you increase your eBay sales and profits in very creative ways. (I use Skip's manual when coaching my eBay clients.)

Start thinking about how you can tack $10 on to each eBay sale with an information product. Train yourself to ask, "Do you want fries with that?"

Happy Selling!

Affiliate Marketing Tip - Less is More

For those of you participating in Skip McGrath's affiliate program, I am going to be offering some regular tips on how to maximize your commissions and introduce you to some affiliate marketing techniques so you can make more money! Over the past year, I have been an avid student of affiliate marketing and have tripled my monthly earnings from affiliate programs. I am now making almost as much doing affiliate marketing as I made as a full-time seller on eBay. I will always love eBay and sell on eBay, but setting up passive income streams with affiliate marketing is a business model that can't be beat.

The first and most important tip about affiliate marketing is:

Choose your affiliate programs with discretion!

Website visitors prefer an uncluttered clean page to one that is covered with confusing ads. (The example above makes you dizzy, doesn't it?) A confused mind chooses nothing. Don't try to promote everything you come across online. Furthermore, the more you have on your page the longer the page takes to load and you will lose visitors in those critical few seconds. Too many choices are overwhelming and confusing to the visitor and they will click away and leave - which is exactly what you do not want.

For example, you will see some of the same affiliate programs over and over again on eBay sellers' About Me pages. Some of these programs only pay only pennies for a sale or referral. Why waste your time on those? Why put those ads in front of your visitors when other ads can make more money for you? Choose affiliate programs with higher payouts! When you promote Skip McGrath's eBay Business System, you make $38.80 per sale. Reduce the number of options on your page and the visitor won't have any choice but to click on the higher paying programs - resulting in more commissions for you.

Whether you are promoting affiliate programs on your eBay About Me page, your own blog, or your own website, choose them with discretion. You can always rotate your ads to see which ones perform the best. No one can sell everything all the time. Choose your ads carefully! Get rid of ads that are not performing (generating income) and replace them with new ads from Skip's program. Leave the ads in place for 2-3 weeks and see if you get any hits.

If you have not signed up already, click here to join Skip McGrath's affiliate program. The payouts are 40% of each sale. This can be some serious money if you are willing to learn how to be a good promoter. I will be posting more information on how to promote these products so if you are new to affiliate marketing, don't worry! I will walk you through the process and explain how it all works.

Happy Selling!

New eBay Seller's Affiliate Program Pays 40% Commission

My boss and eBay mentor, seller, and consultant Skip McGrath has a new affiliate program! The payouts are 40% of the sale - one of the highest paying affiliate programs on the internet. This is big news is you are looking for additional streams of income without having to buy and ship any items!

Example - If you sell his Complete eBay Marketing System your earnings are $38.80. You have probably seen his products on my blog and articles. Skip's products are the real deal and pretty much sell themselves. I have read all of them and use them in my trainings with my eBay coaching clients. All of his products come with a 100% money back so if someone you sell one to isn't happy, they can get a refund and you won't be left holding the bag!

You can add this affiliate program to your eBay About me page and promote it in many other ways:

On your Facebook page

On Twitter

On your blog

In groups and forums

On article sites that allow affiliate links

Via email (email your eBay friends)

(You may NOT promote this or any other affiliate product on your auctions!)

This is what affiliate marketing is all about. Finding an information product to promote that relates to what you are already doing on the internet. You are already out there every day, maybe talking with other eBay sellers, why not promote a few great products and make some money? Works for me.

Click here to learn more and sign up. It is free to join.

Happy Selling!