Using Testimonials with Affiliate Marketing

Even if your online business is affiliate marketing, i.e. you don't offer your own products, testimonials can give your bottom line a significant boost. Here's how.

A common way to promote affiliate programs is through the use of a review website, where several products are compared to each other. This can be an effective way to help consumers go the last step and decide between various options. The greatest obstacle you face in converting visitors to sales is how trustworthy and authoritative your site appears to be.

Is your contact information readily available? Are you offering your visitors some kind of bonus or extra for purchasing through your site? Are you capturing their name and email address before they leave? If so, you will have ample opportunity to interact with them. Even ONE testimonial about how your recommendation made the buying process easier will go a long way to improving trust in your site. That ONE testimonial will set you apart- because no one else is doing it!

If you're promoting products more based on your own experience, then you have the perfect opportunity to use the power of testimonials to improve your conversions.

When you review another product based on a personal narrative, you're in fact writing a testimonial. How you write it should depend on what market you're targeting and the characteristics of the consumers in that market.

Within the internet marketing niche, for example, consumers tend to have quite a bit of skepticism about the products they are investigating. At the same time, they probably have grand visions of achieving the incomes of the market's top "gurus." To connect with them, you should show that you shared their skepticism when initially investigating the product or service yourself. You can only improve your effectiveness by pointing out actual flaws. If you are then able to share a success story, including how you overcame the flaws or initial skepticism, your review will have a strong impact on your visitor.

In other niches, buyers may be looking strictly for impartial reviews in an effort to find the best product. In this case, it's essential to present information in a factual way so as to appear unbiased. General testimonials about the quality of your site and recommendations will probably be more effective than a personal testimonial about the latest MP3 player.

Make your testimonials targeted and relevant, and your visitors will reward you!