Inbound Marketing

December 29th, 2010

The concept of inbound marketing was developed by Brian Halligan of HubSpot. The basic idea is to get found by customers by providing valuable content. That means writing remarkable blog posts, articles, etc. If your site is remarkable people will remark on it. Check out inbound marketing university at http://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing-university/ . I’ve learned a ton from them that had helped GuitarGames.net, hopefully it will have the same effect on your site!

First Person Narratives

June 11th, 2009

Word of mouth is the most persuasive form of advertising. What would be more influential a giant ad promoting the national auto repair center or a friend who just got a great deal on his repairs at the local shop down the street? People go with recommendations because they are more trustworthy.

How does this relate to you? If you can tell customers about your own use of GuitarGames.net (truthfully, of course) then they are more likely to join, and you are more likely to make a commission. So try out the games, share them with your visitors, and watch your commissions grow!

Sign Up Sub Affiliates

May 28th, 2009

What’s a sub affiliate?

It’s someone an affiliate recommends to the GuitarGames.net Affiliate Program.

Why should I sign up other people?

Because you will receive a 10% commission on any members they sign up. So if you have 15 sub-affiliates, each of whom sign up 4 members a month that would mean an extra $120 in commissions a month.

How do I sign them up?

  1. Log into your control panel
  2. Click on “Signup Subaffiliates” on the left hand side of the page.
  3. You can sign them up directly by sending them the the sign-up link listed. Or, you can place a sign-up form on your website by downloading the code with the “Download signup form” link

There’s also a “Download Login form” if you want your subaffiliates to be able to login to their control panel from your website. On this page you will also see a link to your Subaffiliates sales stats, where you can keep track of how your subaffiliates are doing.

Proximity

May 14th, 2009

Retailers use many strategies to get you to buy their goods. One such strategy is to place a range of items to sell rather than just one. The other day I had a salesperson trying to sell me on an air vent cleaning. He showed me two packages. The first cost around $200 and had a 2-year warranty, the second was $350 and had a 5-year warranty. I recognized right away what he was up to. He didn’t excpect me to pay an extra $150 for the second, what he wanted was to make $200 look smaller. Picture this you walk in to a store and see two suits for sale, the first costs $99 and the second $299. Next to $299, $99 looks very small. You thing what a bargain and buy it. Now lets say you go to the thrift store to get a tux. You see several for around $45 and one nice one for $99. You think $99 I don’t have that kind of money! Interesting how $99 can look big in one situation and small in another. This is example of price proximity. Place items next to higher-cost items and the amount looks small, place them next to lower-cost items and it looks big.

What does this have to do with our affiliate program? Only this, if you compare what you get for GuitarGames.net membership to more expensive alternatives customers will see it for the great value it is.

Who Can Pass Up A Bargain?

May 8th, 2009

One of the best ways to promote GuitarGames.net is to demonstrate what a bargain it is. For $19.95 a year members have access to a complete guitar fretboard trainer, ear training software, music theory software, a scale trainer, note reading quizes, and more. If someone (hint, hint) where to review GuitarGames.net and compare them to each of these sold separately its real value would shine forth. If you add up the prices of all these other materials they are far more than membership of GuitarGames.net. As cliche as it is to say it, in these economic times people still can’t pass up a good bargain.

Now the truth is that GuitarGames.net doesn’t always have all that these other programs offer, so that should be pointed out. This is a good sales technique, make sure to point out flaws if they exist and you gain your customers trust. That being said, our software has all the essentials and more, and takes a more fun approach which should not be undervalued given the difficulty of the subject matter. So dare to compare and your visitors will thank you for it.

How Many Clicks Equals a Sale?

April 30th, 2009

The question every affiliate wants to know is: How many clicks does it take to make a sale?

Recently I came across a very popular website who was promoting its affiliate program. They were listing all the various reasons that their program was the best. One of which was that from a good website they averaged one sale for every 83 clicks. This struck me as relevant for our own program. Next time you are checking your stats you might use this as a yard stick.

Also improtant to keep in mind is the delay between trial sign-ups and members. Most people who use GuitarGames.net start with a trial membership. They use it for a while, realize it the answer to their problems and then signup. So if you see 200 clicks and no signups, be patient, and usually before the 30 day trial is over there will be signups.

Start Your Own Blog

April 23rd, 2009

Blogging is a great way to promote your Affiliate program.  There are many ways to use a blog for promotion. Simply write about your own experience with GuitarGames.net and provide your affiliate link (Listed in your Affiliate control panel). Or create a mini-lesson and link to GuitarGames.net as a follow-up drill. For example you could write an introduction to reading music and link to GuitarGames.net suggesting that the reader follow up by playing Note Squish.

There is no need to hype. By hype I mean exaggerated claims about our site. Be truthful and informative and interest will follow.

Need to start a blog? Here are some great blogging services.

WordPress.org – Free blog with no strings attached, this is what we use. They provide lots of blog themes to customize. Easy to use but very powerful solution.

Blogger.com – One of the biggest providers of blogs, also has a big community of users which is always helpful. Blogger is also free.

TypePad.com – A very powerful and popular free blogging solution. It has some great community building tools that also work with WordPress and Blogger.

Grand Opening!!!

April 16th, 2009

After much designing and testing our affiliate program is open for business. As is this new blog which will feature tips on how to make the most of your Affiliate Membership.

First off I wanted to introduce our banner ads. So far we have 10 ad types in 8 sizes. The sizes are as follows:

  • Banner – 468 by 49 (points)
  • Leaderboard – 728 by 79
  • Square – 250 by 239
  • Small Square – 200 by 189
  • Large Rectangle – 336 by 269
  • Medium Rectangle – 300 by 239
  • Skyscraper – 120 by 578
  • Wide Skyscraper – 160 by 578

Here are a few samples of the banners:

Image-

Space-Square

Space-Square

Video -

Get Adobe Flash player

More Serious Examples -

Fretboard - Medium Rectangle

Fretboard - Medium Rectangle

Scales - Wide Skyscraper

Scales - Wide Skyscraper

Our affiliate program is powered by Post Affiliate Pro which is a powerful but easy to use Affiliate system. The banners are easy to add to your own website or blog through the Affiliate Control Panel. Don’t have a website or blog? You can still use the program through email and word-of-mouth, but there is no spamming allowed. It’s free to join, so signup, start promoting GuitarGames.net, and earn 40% of all reffered sales!