Boost Affiliate Income 3: Interviews with Experts

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Hi. I’m Nicole Dean. I’m a Guest Expert here on John’s blog this week as part of a Blog World Tour that I’m doing. I’ve been all over the World the last few weeks, and all over the ‘net, too, hopping around to the best marketing blogs – posting valuable information, recommendations for resources, and a little humor along the way.

This week, I’m discussing ways to Boost your Affiliate Income. So far I’ve talked about Starting a List and Writing Honest Detailed Reviews.

Today, I’ll talk about interviews. One of my favorite ways to boost affiliate commission is by doing interviews, whether written, audio or video. You simply ask the owners of the products that you’re recommending if they’d be willing to be interviewed.

However, there is a right way and a wrong way to get these interview to earn commissions for you.

The best way is to do what Jimmy D. Brown of Affiliatenaire.com teaches and that is “Useful but Incomplete.” You’ll want to ask questions in your interview that provide useful information to your readers – always. However, keep the interview slightly incomplete so that the reader wants to learn more.

Now, I’m not talking about playing games with your readers. However, for instance, in a blog post about boosting your affiliate commission, you’ll only be able to get so far in one blog post. So, it makes sense to refer people to a valuable resource where they can learn more.

For instance…

To learn more ways to increase your affiliate commission, check out Affiliate Payraise™:27 Ways To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions by Jimmy D. Brown.

The same should be done with interviews. If the course that you’re promoting as an affiliate is a one-hour teleseminar about how to get started with affiliate marketing, then it wouldn’t make sense to schedule an interview with that expert to talk for one hour about “how to do affiliate marketing”, now would it? It gives the listener to reason to buy the product.

Yet, that’s what people ask me to do on an ongoing basis.

Dear Nicole,

Can you please do an exclusive interview about “How to Outsource” promoting your Outsource Weekly course?

My response is usually – let’s narrow that down a bit. Otherwise, people who are listening get overwhelmed in the call, think they know everything that I have to teach, and don’t buy the course – which isn’t fair to them, because they miss out on the bulk of the info that I teach.

However, if we’d do an interview about “Common Mistakes that Cost People Money when Outsourcing” or “Why Outsourcing is Important” – those topics are useful, but incomplete in that the readers or listeners would want more information.

You follow?

ok. Back to the topic at hand. Interviews – whether written or audio or video – are always great ways to earn affiliate commissions.

Simply email 5 people who you’d like to interview and ask them if they’d be willing to be interviewed and, if it’s a written interview, include the questions when you ask. .

I normally prefer written interviews because I can answer the questions on my schedule. As you now know, between travel and being a busy mom – sometimes I write the interview responses in the car or at karate practice or sitting at the veterinarian’s office.

How do you get experts to agree?

1. Give the questions up front if you’re asking for a written interview. I don’t know how many emails I get that say simply “Can I send you some questions?” – Why waste the time and add an extra step? Just shoot the questions over and then send a reminder – again with the questions in case they were misplaced.
2. Be flexible if you’re asking for an audio interview. Be on their schedule, available when they’re available. Let’s face it. Unless you’re Oprah, you can’t go around asking your experts to jump through hoops.
3. Follow-up. Any of the “real” experts are in high demand and may need a few reminders. Don’t take it personally. Just follow-up and remind them.

Once you get the interview – promote the heck out of it. Send a note to your list (since you now have one), Twitter about it, post about it on Facebook, StumbleUpon the interview, buy solo ads – do whatever you need to to get as many eyeball on that interview page.

That’ll get people talking about it – and then you can use the stats from that interview to get more!

For instance, your next email can say – “I did an interview with Greta Guru and we sold 104 copies of her ebook so far. I’d love to interview you, too. Here are my questions.”

It’s an easy way to get content – especially if you’re not a writer. Plus, it’s an extremely easy task to outsource. If you want written interviews, hire a Virtual Assistant to send inquiries for you. That way you can focus on doing what you do best – whatever that is.

On that note – I’ll be back tomorrow with the next lesson in this series. Stick around.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean (Yes, I’m available for interviews. Contact my Virtual Assistant with your questions at helper@justaddsweat.com)
Nicole’s Onine Success Blog & Podcast

Follow us on Twitter: Nicole Dean on Twitter &  John Yeo on Twitter

PS. Remember…  To learn more ways to increase your affiliate commission, check out Affiliate Payraise™:27 Ways To Increase Your Affiliate Commissions by Jimmy D. Brown.

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