So what do we consider content of value? Great content can include:

* An honest and trustworthy review of the product.

* A testimonial of the results you have achieved using the product.

*A relevant article with a resource box and a link to your website, which you can post at a free article bank site

* A review of the product plus a 5-7 day email mini courses with content, and of course a little ad for the product at the end of each email.  With some affiliates, you will even be able to offer special deals and discounts.

* A short sales letter that presells the product. No, don’t copy the letter, but do look at the list of features and benefits, and highlight them for the reader.

Examples related to the Tassimo might include:

Contains a water filter, to make sure your drinks are always great-tasting, and you don’t have to de-scale the machine.

Contains a 68-ounce water well, enough for over 8 cups of coffee without even having to fill it at the sink all the time.

Obviously, if you really do use the product, it will show in the review. So wherever possible, make sure you try out the product you are selling.  For one thing, you will get commission on the sale of the product through the affiliate link you have set up, so there is no reason not to buy-you are basically getting a big discount.

For another, that is one of the great things about being an affiliate—if you shop, which all of us have to sooner or later, in many cases you can get a discount on the things you ordinarily buy through your own website and affiliate links.

The same is true of friends and family-send them to your site to shop as well, and everyone wins.

All you have to do is set up your pre-sell pages and links, and then start driving traffic.

Remember, content is king on the internet. Pre-sell your affiliate product with clear, concise text which will convince them that they have found the solution (how to get great tasting coffee every morning without breaking the bank) and make them eager to buy.

There are many powerful ways to pre-sell any product you are affiliated with. 

The first is the PPC campaign.

The second is lead generation, in which you offer a free book in exchange for their email address.

In this way, you are stepping into the realm of permission-based marketing, and can offer not only the eBook, but even, if you are so inclined, a little mini-course which contains more information, and perhaps even some Tassimo recipes they can enjoy—but only once they have bought the machine and discs!

Yes, it will take work to create the mini-course, and set up an email capture system and auto responder series (we recommend Aweber, cheap, fast, and easy to use), but a smart affiliate never just completely passes along his customer to the seller without gaining some sort of value from them.  Get the email address, and you have a captive audience of people all interested in X, whatever it happens to be.

For example, if they are interested in Xbox games, you could then create an Xbox mini-course, and then a series of discount offers, and thus be able to have multiple contact points in which you have the chance to sell them more related products as an affiliate.

So if you want to be a savvy marketer, NEVER ever send anyone directly to the sales letter of the product from your PPC add. Capture their email address, offer content of value, and above all, pre-sell with that content.

Pre-selling actually transforms the visitor’s mind, from one who is not quite sure what results are going to be served up by the search engine, to feeling that they are sure they are in the right place, and they are ready to get out the credit card and buy.

You are creating positive expectations in their mind, and making them more than ready to buy—you are making them EAGER to buy.

By pre-selling in this way, you are getting a much more qualified audience that is much more likely to convert.  You are weeding out the people only looking for free stuff, and the skeptics and people not likely to buy on line because of their severe trust issues.

You are left with the ones who are READY to make a purchasing decision, the difference between the person who types in coffee maker, from the person who types in Tassimo 1400.

The more effectively you pre-sell the product you are acting as an affiliate for, through your PPC ad, and landing page copy, the more like it is that you will convert your visitor into a buyer. 

Then the already highly converting sales letter will help them make the final decision, and thus maximize your efforts and yield real results.

And if this sounds like a lot of hard work, just keep in mind that often a picture is worth a thousand words.

So a picture of the item, a close up, photos taken from different angles, exact specifications of the product (the Tassimo is 16 inches tall, 10 wide, and will fit on any countertop… for example), other reviews, of the machine, or the drink pods, will all contribute to the actual sales process, even if you think it is nothing more than a bunch of factual information.

The reason is that people are looking for features and benefits.

“Tassimo offers a variety of drink discs, from herbal tea to hot chocolate to latte and espresso, so you can be sure everyone in the office will find exactly what they are looking for, and no one will feel left out.

“Each delicious hot drink will cost about 50 cents, far less than you’d have to  pay for you cappuccino in a coffee house. Plus, it will certainly save money, hundreds every month if your office is anything like mine. No more throwing away gallons of too strong, too weak, or just plain bad or even stewed coffee. No more fuss and mess with spilled grounds, soggy filters, or scorched or broken carafes. You can literally make a fabulous cup of coffee by inserting a disc, and pressing one button.”

Again, all this is true, but it takes a marketer like myself who has really used the product for the past 2 years (and has tried other similar coffee machines at other offices and friend’s houses) to really bring out the features that are going to bring the most benefit to the user.

Online shopping is great and becoming more and more common, but there is still a lot of mistrust surrounding it. There is a concern about credit card fraud, but also as to whether or not the thing advertised is actually going to arrive, and arrive as stated.

Not every company has an Amazon standard of service, or customer service.  Sadly, sometimes if it is a case of ‘if it’s too good to be true, it probably is’, it comes to pass that your customer might end up disappointed. So don’t overdo the pre-sell, and build up such expectations that they are doomed to inevitable disappointment. But sometimes one can also be pleasantly surprised.

For example, we just bought a new Electrolux vacuum. My mother had seen it advertised at Costco. It was a great price there, but when we looked online to compare prices, we found a site that had the same make and model, but $200 cheaper!

Naturally, we were skeptical, and some of the negative comments about the site in the review area gave us pause. But knowing we were protected with credit card money back guarantees and so on, we decided we had nothing to lose, and tried it.

It not only came by UPS in less than 48 hours, it was the exact, brand new model we had wanted. We got it out of the box and started to use it at once.   It was so quiet and easy to use I got the whole house done in about half the time it usually took me.

So how could they afford to sell it so cheaply? They accidentally left an invoice taped to the box—it turns out that they are vacuum wholesalers and they were selling unwanted stock direct to consumer. So I got a fabulous vacuum for my mother for over $200 less than the Costco bargain price, $300 off the list price.

Best of all, it is not a run of the mill vacuum, but one filled with special features, like the canister being tall and squat so it does not tip over.

Then there is the light weight power drive with multisurface control, so you can switch from carpet to floor and back again with just the press of a button.  There is also a light for the beater brush so you can see easily as you vacuum under things. It even has two HEPA filters and is bag less!

Again, have I created a desire in you for this great vacuum at a bargain price?  (Totally true, by the way—it even picks up my Russian blue’s cat fur!!)

 Clearly your pre-sell be should be interesting, convincing.  By generating buzz and providing a testimonial, you are engendering trust for the seller, and trust will generate more sales.

Most new and inexperienced affiliate marketers will write an ad that sends visitors directly to the sales page.

While that method may work, in some cases, the results can hardly be compared to sending pre-qualified visitors to the sales letter.

They are already focused, indeed, already looking for what you sell. They’ve typed Tassimo into the search engine, looked at the organic and the paid results, and then chosen your ad compared to everyone else’s. Check your click-through rates, and look at how many are converting to buyers.

If you are not getting a lot of them to convert, then you need to look at your pre-selling techniques again.

Your focus as an affiliate marketer should always be to build value for the product long before they ever get to the sales letter. By the time the visitor enters the sales letter he has already pretty much become pre-disposed to buy.

Using high quality relevant content like a review that talks about your own personal experiences, and what to expect from the product, is invaluable.