How did you get your first sale? inspired by TonyHamilton. Here's how I got mine
So here it is: how I got my first sale.
I discovered yesterday that I got a sale with Amazon Affiliate Program. It's tiny, just a bit over 20 cents, but it was enough to get me ecstatic.
It was't a product I recommended on my site, but another related to my niche. That means the customer clicked on something on my site, decided not to buy the product, but kept browsing Amazon and ended up buying something else anyway.
In case you are not aware of it, if someone clicks on your link and decides to buy something else instead of that product you recommend (within a timeframe), you still get a commission. That is why traffic is so sacred!
In light of HOW I got the sale, well this is the best I made of it:
- I shared my content actively on Twitter and Facebook, especially Twitter. I scheduled my posts such that everyday I will share 5 posts on my site content.
- I did a small experiment on one of my posts, where I put two links for each product that I reviewed. The first link is where I first introduced the product, while the second is after I have given a detailed description on it. You can probably guess, the second link receives much more clicks.
So I think having both links there did something to the readers, telling them "hey, if you are ready to buy this product, go here. But if you want more information, there's another link you can use after reading about it". This goes back to the customer buying cycle Kyle spoke about. I personally think having both links is better than only either one. (if anyone has a better explanation for this please do put it forward).
- A large portion of my review articles are on multiple items , i.e. best guitars for beginners, best audio interfaces, best midi keyboard, etc. that's how I got so many clicks. But I gotta work on conversion, for sure. So I will try having more reviews on single items next time and see if it works out better.
- Almost all of my review articles contain lists. Product features, pros and cons, etc. Lists look neater than paragraphs and they are very easy to read.
- I didn't use any Amazon affiliate widgets in my reviews. In my opinion they make my reviews look very disorganised. I instead use just the image and state the price separately. Anyone who has a different opinion please do speak out!
- I also reached out to like-minded people on Twitter, retweet & favourite their tweets, and they did the same for mine. That contributed a lot to the traffic and clicks too.
So that's what I think made my first sale happen. Do share your strategy and what you have been implementing, and maybe we can have a conversation on what works and what doesn't work so well :)
Recent Comments
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Great job, well done. I haven't made a sale yet as it is too early for me to use much social media strategies. But when the time is ripe I shall use what I learned here, thank u :)
Yup you only have to worry about these strategies later in your progress, do drop me a note if you help implementing them :)
Hi Van, thanks for sharing your steps. Really enlightening.
So, you mentioned you schedule tweeting your post 5 times a day on your content. But in total, how many tweets do you do daily? I mean, I want to get a nice balance between promoting my content and interacting/promoting other ppl's stuff. What program do you use to schedule twitter? Does that mean you schedule every day to tweet different post?
Second, how did you track the link that gets clicked on your blog post? Are there any training inside WA or article that you can recommend me regarding this?
In my case, I haven't promoted much. I mainly shared once per post using G+. I just getting started with twitter so just shared the article once after posting (lol, I'm so twitter newbie, so need to learn a lot from you). I also made sure to use low-hanging fruit keyword on my post so not much competition. I do share my content with Pinterest too, though not much click yet.
Oh yeah, I also use only within-text link for my affiliate links, and also add the link to product image.
Hi Rina, wow that means your conversion rate is quite excellent. I imagine that might have been a click from organic traffic.
If you log into your Amazon affiliate account, go to orders report-> view full report (the one for clicks, not the one for earnings). You should be able to see the list of items that have been clicked. Choose view full again and you should see which items have been clicked and how many times :)
About the sharing strategy, I have more I'd like to discuss with you, let me get home and to my computer :)
thank you Van. You re awesome! I'd love to learn more about scheduling the tweets. I signed up with buffer, schedule two tweets for the first day, then go blank, what's next, lol.
Btw, what's your twitter user id? I'd love to follow you.
Hey Rina, I use Publish app and it allows me to schedule posts for a few days. I just told the app how many posts I want in a day, put in a bunch of links and it will decide the best time for me to post . So it's quite effortlessly done.
I kept my content posts to 5/day so if I log in and feel like retweeting / promoting someone, I can do it without appearing spammy.
How is your experience with buffer? Would love to hear a review for another option. :)
My Twitter id is loveitplayit, I'd love to follow you too!
I just started a few days ago, so not much comment about it yet. But buffer also has same functionality that it decides the best time to post. But I don't know whether I can schedule a few days in advance
I see. Hmm I think you can schedule the posts for a day, then come back and see your scheduled posts, to check if they spill over to a few days after?
Hey Van,
Thanks for sharing this. When you say you schedule your posts, are you saying here that you publish 5 articles daily? If so, that is a tremendous amount of content-creation. At the moment, I try to publish one post every 2nd day. Would you think this is way too little and should I amp it up a bit?
I'll begin utilising Twitter more. :)
I also agree that the Amazon widgets either aren't theme compatible or just plain messy.
I will let you know when I make my first sale. :) Thankyou for the tips! :)
And please do get a second sale. :D
Elsie
Hey Elsie, it doesn't mean that I post 5 articles daily, that would be insane! I do have tweets on the same articles, which is fine so long as you don't tweet the same thing every hour (that would be spammy). And yes do let me know when your sales come! I have no doubt that they will :)
Genius... re-advertising older posts.... why on earth didn't I think of that...
Thanks Van. :) This knowledge helps.
More like I shared the same post every few days, so let's say I have 20 posts, i can rotate them and share 5 every day. So each post only gets repeated every 4 days. And I will have more posts along the way so that means even less repetition :)
And if you consistently get new followers it helps too, as the new people will see the re advertised posts :)
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I know this an old post of yours, but I am going to implement your advice and see where it goes!