Ok, so your online sales are down, or haven’t begun? Maybe you’re missing the number one golden rule of marketing in my opinion: ADD and GIVE VALUE. Also, it’s best to give the value both up-front, as part of the sale and if possible post-sale.

Not sure? Let me use this example. You have an youtube channel about Hair and Makeup. The wrong way to go about it is to simply do a short, salesy-type video with a few plus or minus features of the product and a prominent and obvious affiliate link after the sales pitch. People can smell things like the desperation to make a sale and don’t like being pitched bullshit. In my opinion the right way to go about it is to give value in the lead up- in hair and makeup you may demonstrate a series of ways to do a particular hairstyle, with a required product you are affiliating for being one of those used in the demonstration and linked to in the description. Potential customers want to be able to learn something that they did not know from your free content and be able to relate to you on some level. Typically 6 or 7 contact points with the customer are required as a minimum to make a sale – you want the customer or viewer to want more of your content, and then with continued interaction and sales building you may begin driving conversions.

There are extrapolations to how you can sell as part of your value-add. One of the great “sales” scenes from any movie that I have seen is from the Wolf of Wall Street. One of the main characters is asked to sell a pen as a sales pitch to one of the other characters- to which he promptly answers “write down this number.” Of course, to write anything, a pen would be required. It’s a classic example of a kind of needs based sales, not overly pushy but really prescient in the ability to stimulate demand. My earlier example may include say a hair straightener product which is crucial to providing the resultant hairstyle.

It’s important to remember that conversions are more a result of giving value than anything else. Hence, you need to find a topic and medium you are passionate about in order to sell as an affiliate. Maybe video is not your style, but to reach a large number of people for minimum outlay, youtube is an excellent medium and one that will be incorporated heavily in this channel in the new year. Blogs, podcasts and social media all offer a way to add value to the public sphere.

Post-sales follow up is a heavily underrated tactic. If you were clever enough to collect an email as part of your initial sale, a follow up email, be it automated or even better written by yourself, is one of the best ways to turn in exiting one-off customers into genuine lifelong ones. Just a note asking where they happy with a product or service goes a long way to your next sale.