Thursday, March 22, 2007

20 Reasons Why Nobody Wants To Promote Your Products

Having a tough time getting people to promote your products or do a JV with you?
You sent out 32 emails to seek JV partners, and all you got was a single bounced email?
It’s normal, I assure you, especially if you’re just getting started. Getting good JV partners is not as easy as it seems.

From my experience, both when seeking out JV partners, and when being invited as a JV partner, here are the Top 20 Reasons why people “politely decline” your offer of don’t reply to your emails at all.

They Don’t Know or Trust You - You’re new to the scene, and no one knows who you are. No one can vouch for you, therefore it’s difficult for others to trust you. This is unavoidable, but if you focus on building relationships it’s just a matter of time before people open up to you.
You Have a Bad Reputation - In contrast to the earlier point, you may be a regular in the market, but you may have left a bad on impression on others from previous deals. Most of the time it’s because you didn’t deliver what you promised or you don’t pay commissions on time. One mistake can be hazardous. But I don’t believe one mistake makes a person bad - it’s a series of mistake that you never learn from that will ultimately destroy your reputation.

Someone They Trust Said You’re an Jerk - The circles of trust. Don’t underestimate them. People you’ve never met or spoken to may already be predispositioned against your offers, simply because someone they trust or respect said that you’re not trustworthy. Know the affiliate, and know who his / her friends are. These are most likely the people that appear in the testimonials, commenters on their blogs, and also the owners of products they have been promoting. You piss one of them off, and soon the entire group will be unreceptive to your offers. Apologize for all mistakes, even if you’re not sure it’s a mistake, and never go back on your word.

They Don’t Believe in Your Product - You’ll realize that newbies will promote anything you ask them to. But the seasoned affiliate will only promote products he has reviewed or believes in. If they don’t believe in your product it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. Some affiliates fail to see that your product may be targeted to the beginner’s market, and tend to judge the information you have based on their level of knowledge. So just move on.

They Are Already Promoting Similar Products - If your product is an almost exact copy of something they are already promoting with good returns, they wont promote yours. The exception is if your version is better than the one they are already promoting.

They Have Competing Products - You have a product on email marketing, and so do they. Unless your product actually complements theirs (for example a video version of their product) don’t expect them to promote for you.

Your Product Makes Theirs Redundant - Imagine if they are selling a product on “The Benefits of Using Botox” and your product says “Forget Botox - Use My New Invention”. Nope, they don’t even want their customers to know your product exists.

Your Payout Percentage is Too Low - Some misers want to pay you 20% and expect you to be excited about it. 50% is standard for one-time digital products, 40% is acceptable for recurring payments like membership sites. 2% - 10% is standard for physical products that have costs and shipping elements to it. Don’t go cheap on commissions if you want people to promote for you.
Your Payout Per Sale is Too Low - Sometimes, a low payout can simply mean a low-ticket item. For example if your 50% commission only means that they get $5 per sale, they may not be interested unless your other criterias are good, for example the $7 dollar Secrets offer which had a low payout but a very, very good conversion.

You Have a Name Squeeze / Fly Catcher Page - Used to work until affiliates started to see that they are actually losing out if the sales page itself does not convert. Then you get all the names and email addresses, and they get nothing. Most affiliates I know of don’t like name squeeze pages, and most serious JV offers on the Internet today don’t implement one either.

You Have Adsense on Your Salesletter - Noooo!!! Never ever put Adsense on your salescopy. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why affiliates run away in the blink of an eye when they see Adsense on a page that is supposed to sell a product.

Your Salescopy Is Horrible - Some people stay away from copy that contains numerous spelling or grammatical mistake. Don’t assume that your JV partners will not scrutinize your sales page. If they read your salescopy and find that it’s not compelling enough, chances are that their list would have the same experience. Seasoned affiliate marketers can tell is your salescopy is good and will convert, just by scanning through the contents. They know what to look at, but do you?
Your Salescopy “Leaks” Commissions - Again it’s probably the seasoned affiliate who would notice this. If you take payments by Clickbank for example, and you also have a number where people can make phone orders and maybe send you a bank transfer, then these are “leaks” that the affiliate will not get paid for. I wont promote anything with payment options that will not be credited back to the affiliate.

They Are in An Unrelated Niche - Maybe they are in a completely unrelated market, or in a “sub-niche” and they feel that their subscribers would not be interested to buy your products. Trust their judgement - if they are serious marketers, they know what their list will and will not buy, how much a person spend on average.

They Don’t Like Your Affiliate System - Some people are pro-Clickbank, some are not. Some people don’t like using JV Manger or any other such affiliate management software. This reason however should be easy to overcome by assuring them that you’ll pay them for sales regardless of refunds.

Your Product Has an MLM Structure To It - some people don’t like 2 tier or multi-level payment structures. Maybe they had bad experiences with MLM or MLM-type of products that they get dizzy when you start drawing circles.

Your Email to Them Got Lost / Forgotten - maybe they just didn’t get your email or it got buried in spam. Or maybe they had wanted to check out your offer but put it off till tomorrow, and tomorrow never came. A follow-up email can do wonders to eliminate this reason.
Their Email to You Got Lost - This is the most screwed up reason I can think of. Imagine someone said yes to you and asked for more information, but their email got lost because of your spam filters. But hey on a day where anything can go wrong, everything usually does!

They Are Just Too Busy - They have their own business to attend to, and have no time for you - perfectly normal. make sure you notify potential partners early (if it’s a new launch) so they can allocate some time for you. If they are too busy, forget them for now and look for other partners.
They Are Just Confused - Maybe they were initially interested, but then you did the mistake of sending them to a hyped up salesletter where they have to spend a lot of time figuring out just how to sign-up for your affiliate program, or exactly what it is that you’re trying to launch. Keep JV information pages as simple as possible but do tell them WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)
Well, those are the top 20 things I can think of from the top of my head. Anything else to add to this list? Be my guest, leave a comment below.

Don’t get demotivated by the list though, that’s not what I wrote it for.
I wrote it so you can understand the motivation factors that drive JV partnerships on the Internet.

It’s a checklist you can use when you find yourself in need of getting new JV partners for your products or services. Try to make sure that you eliminate as many of the top 20 reasons as soon as possible, and you should be doing fine.

Once you’ve helped someone make money from your products, it gets easier and easier to get their help in the future. They will talk about you to their Internet marketing friends, and it gets easier still.

If they don’t make any money promoting your products - APOLOGIZE!
I’ve sent apology emails to a few people because they promoted well and didn’t make any sale for my products. Just say you’re sorry - maybe their list was not as interested as you thought they would be - and leave the doors open for future partnerships. Promote their product in a swap-mailing arrangement to keep things fair.

NEVER send them packing empty-handed without acknowledgement of their effort.
In any case, getting JV partners are NOT the only way to make money from the Internet, so don’t get hung up if you cant find partners. It’s not game over until you admit defeat.
If JV partnership is the only method of promotion you’ve planned, I’d say you need to plan better next time.

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