Sen Ze’s Business In Your Pajamas! Blog

Phew! The baby’s arrival was lots of fun, and it’s true:

It’s SOO much easier this time around, now that we know just what to expect and do with him.

I remember being exhausted every single day when we were taking care of our first baby but that hardship’s a distant memory now…

Ok - I was discussing Affiliate Programs for Merchants and Affiliate Program software in my previous posts…

Here’s a recap, to bring you up to speed for the next discussion:

1. Affiliate Program For Merchants <--- Click for full story
In this post I talked about the Merchant’s limited ability to reach out to his target market on his own or even with a team of marketers on his payroll, since they all have only 24 hours in a day. He would be far better off if he has a team of “Affiliates” all over the world working hard marketing his products with him, and pay only for performance. This way, he can have thousands of Affiliates helping him out and he needn’t worry about paying them until his products are sold from their marketing efforts.

Thus an Affiliate Program should be considered by every Merchant with products that have good margins for commissions to be paid out from. This is particularly so in the case of digital products where his profit is over 90% of the selling price, but it can also apply to physical products as long as the profit margin is enough to make commission payouts attractive to the Affiliate.

2. Affiliate Program Software Essentials <--- Click for full story
In this post I talked a bit about the imporance of an Affiliate Program software in tracking the sales of the Merchant’s Affiliate. Some of the most essential features of an Affiliate Program software were discussed.

An Affiliate Program that is available on the Internet for anybody to join needs to have a robust and good Affiliate Program software running it. This post also highlights certain important features of such a piece of software, which can also act as an automatic Affiliate recruiting tool.

3. Software For Your Internet Business <--- Click for full story
This post discusses the 2 different types of software available for the Merchant to use. He can install the software on his own server and run it from there (and pay a one-off fee), or he can be a client of a 3rd party Affiliate Program software provider and run his Affiliate Program off the 3rd party’s Affiliate Program software on the latter’s own server instead (and pay a monthly fee).

The better option for the Merchant is for him to run his Affiliate Program off a 3rd party’s Affiliate Program software since he needn’t worry about upgrading, maintaining or fixing the software (when bugs occur) and just focus on his business. The minimal monthly fee shouldn’t be considered as an expense but more of an investment for the marketing of his product.

4. Clickbank <--- Click for full story
This post then introduces Clickbank, a retailer who will buy your digital product from you and resell it to their Customers using their own credit card merchant account. This arrangement is great if you have difficulty getting your own credit card merchant account from your bank and have it linked to an online payment gateway so that your Customers can key in their credit card details at their computers anywhere in the world.

The other reason is that Clickbank has an Affiliate Program software installed on its own server. Thus if Clickbank accepts you as its Supplier (with some exceptions), you’re in fact riding on Clickbank’s Affiliate Program software - which is what I recommend that you do.

5. Clickbank Issues <--- Click for full story
However, Clickbank comes with its own issues, chief among them is the fact that its Affiliates really aren’t your Affiliates, but Clickbank’s. Thus if you were to promote your product linked up with Clickbank to your list, they’ll become Clickbank’s Affiliates instead of yours.

On top of that, its Affiliates are also not linking to your web site to promote your product, but to Clickbank’s using Clickbank’s Affiliate Link format. This does not help your web site gain better positioning in the Search Engines from the Affiliates’ linking activities, which is a major benefit of having an Affiliate Program.

6. The MOACA <--- Click for full story
This post discusses the “Mother Of All Clickbank Alternatives” (MOACA) where you can get the benefit of your Affiliates linking directly to your domain for Search Engine ranking advantage and have the same Affiliate Program software running off a 3rd party’s server for the benefits of such an arrangement.

You become your own Merchant, and you will pay your own Affiliates. However, you can dispense with payment by paper checks completely using an inexpensive electronic transfer facility that is available online in most countries in the world. You will only spend a few minutes on a particular day each month doing commissions payout - thus just about matching the advantages offered by Clickbank in paying its Affiliates for promoting your product (where you are not a part of this payment process at all since they’re not your Affiliates).

You’re Up To Speed!
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The above brings us up to date with the discussion on Affiliate Programs, their issues and their solutions. Make sure you click on those links to have a deeper understanding of the discussion - because they’re important to your profits.

In my next post, you’ll discover the best Affiliate Program software ever created that will enable you to have the “MOACA Experience“.

Its benefits are so mind-blogging, it’s unreal. But it is real - as you’ll soon see.

Stay tuned!

Sen Ze

I’ve been quite busy these past 2 weeks with a wisdom tooth extraction (ouch!), the Chinese New Year of the Rat celebrations (I recovered quickly enough to be able to feast on all the glorious food!), and the biggest reason of all:

My 2nd son arrived safe and sound on February 18th 2008!

He’s 10 days early. He’s supposed to arrive on the 28th, the same day as my birthday - but I guess he prefers not to share his birthday with his proud Dad!

He popped out via natural delivery which meant a quick healing process for Jasmin. Both baby and mother got discharged the very next morning.

Here’s a photo of him at just a few hours old:

We are still thinking of a nice name for him…

Now his arrival is also good news for you because…

I’m holding my first-ever sale of 3 of the products that I have on this site to celebrate the occasion!

I’ve never held a sale before, and I don’t know if I’ll ever do this again - but do take advantage of it before I change my mind!

You get a whopping 40% (forty percent) off the following products:

Bob Serling’s “Power Copywriting For The Internet”
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Discover how to write killer sales letters for your products so that they can sell on auto-pilot, as new Prospects can be sold to again and again via the exact same sales letter set up on your web site!

When you can use words to sell anything, you need never go hungry ever again. In fact, sales personnel are some of the highest paid people in the world - so you will truly benefit from mastering this skill.

You’ll soon discover some of the deepest secrets of how expert web site copywriters craft their messages to ensure that they’re able to suck cash out of their Prospects’ wallet within minutes - even though they’ve never met and will never ever meet!

This product normally sells for $97. However, for the next few days, you can get it for only $58.20. You save a whopping $38.80!

Go to http://www.SenZe.com/copywriting to buy it. Ignore the $97 price and click on the “Buy” button. You’ll immediately see the reduced price on the order form.

Bob Serling’s “How To Market Your Way To A Million-Dollar Professional Services Practice”
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If you’re a Service Provider (like Consultants, financial professionals, accountants, computer professionals, baseball and basketball coaches, professional speakers, investment counselors, heating and air conditioning service companies, insurance agents, mortgage brokers, marketing consultants, sales trainers, motivational trainers, web site designers, physical therapists, chiropractors, seminar presenters, graphic artists - ANY Service Provider at all), you’ll discover how to create a super-successful professional service practice by using Reverse Marketing techniques.

With these techniques, your Prospects will call on YOU to buy your services!

How often does this happen to you, where you’re likely the one doing all the work in getting your Prospects to even listen to you? Your practice will never be the same ever again!

This product normally sells for $147. Get it for only $88.20 during the next few days! You save a whopping $58.80!

Go to http://www.SenZe.com/service to buy it. Ignore the $147 price and click on the “Buy” button. You’ll immediately see the reduced price on the order form.

Paul Hartunian’s “Million-Dollar Publicity Kit”
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Discover how to get newspapers, radio and TV stations to feature you and your business for free, from one of the world’s foremost experts in this area. You need never pay for advertising again!

I’ve had my fair share of free publicity in the media which includes radio stations, all the major newspapers and all the TV stations in my country. I’ve even appeared on CNN News at one time, which was seen worldwide!

The total value to me in terms of publicity for my business and cause was in the millions of dollars.

You’ll discover some of the most treasured secrets of getting the media to love you and what you do - and turn this love into big money for yourself!

There are 2 versions of this Kit:

The Basic version normally sells for $497. Get it for only $298.20 during the next few days. You save a whopping $198.80!

The Deluxe version normally sells for $697. Get it for only $418.20 during the next few days. You save a whopping $278.80!

Go to http://www.SenZe.com/media to buy it. Ignore the $497 and $697 prices and click on the appropriate purchase link.

You’ll immediately see the reduced price on the order form.

I’ve thrown in some bonuses of my own, so you’ll get some of my perspective on this topic as well.

TAKE NOTE

This sale ends this Sunday, February 24th 2008 if you’re in the US, or Monday February 25th 2008 if you’re in Asia.

After this date, all discounted products revert back to their usual prices. If you’ve always wanted to get the above products at their lowest prices ever - now’s the time!

You’re probably aware that I’ve never held any sales event for the products I carry because of their exceptional value to you even at their regular prices.

However, I’ll make a rare exception in this case because it isn’t every day that I have a new baby joining the family.

So go grab your deals right now before the prices go up again!

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://SenZe.com/business-blog/sale/Sen-Zes-1st-ever-sale.htm

The “MOACA” that I mentioned in my last post isn’t any single entity that provides everything under one roof, but a combination of entities and services that will help you solve all the issues you have with using Clickbank.

In fact, you’ll be so far ahead of Clickbank that you wouldn’t miss it!

Here are the different components for MOACA:

1. Use PayPal to accept online payments from your customers
With PayPal, you’re acting as the Merchant, selling directly to your customers, since PayPal isn’t a Retailer and will not be selling your product for you.

PayPal charges only 2.4% - 3.4% plus $0.30 per transaction (depending on your volume).

For your customers to use PayPal to pay you, they must fund PayPal with their bank account or credit card (depending on which country they’re in), or receive payment from another PayPal user and then use that money to pay you. PayPal also accepts credit card payments from those without a PayPal account, so you’ve pretty much covered everybody.

However, PayPal does not come with an Affiliate Program software for you to use, so this brings us to the following….

2. Set up your own Affiliate Program to run off a 3rd party Affiliate Program software
The Affiliate Program software is the core component of MOACA. A great piece of Affiliate Program software will enable you to create opportunities for both you and your Affiliates where none existed before.

Now you don’t want to install the software on your own server because of the issues I raised in this post, but use one hosted on the 3rd party’s Affiliate Program software vendor’s server. This 3rd party will be maintaining this software for you to ensure you have the latest version running, and fix any bugs it may have when they surface - thus saving you the headache of having to do this part on your own.

Setting up with your existing web pages will only take a day or two, and then it’s up to you to upload all your marketing materials to it for your Affiliates to access them for their marketing efforts.

3. Ensure that 3rd party Affiliate Program software allows you to use your domain in your Affiliates’ Affiliate Links
Even though the Affiliate Program software is running on a 3rd party’s server and hence a different domain, it may have a feature where you can use your domain name in your Affiliates’ Affiliate Links.

You will only use this software if it has this feature.

This feature will help you with your web pages’ ranking higher in the Search Engines since now all your Affiliates are linking directly to your domain, instead of to a 3rd party’s before being re-directed to yours (like Clickbank).

4. Ensure that this Affiliate Program software allows you to link to any sales page for any other products you may have
If you have more than 1 product to sell, your Affiliates must be able to link directly to all or any of their sales pages, instead of just to your 1 Home Page.

This helps them focus on the product being sold, and reduces distractions. It also gives your Affiliates great flexibility to link to any web page of yours, if they think that would be a better option.

5. Pay your Affiliates’ commissions yourself, using PayPal’s “Mass Pay” feature
One thing you’ll have to do on your own is to tabulate all your Affiliates’ commissions and send them over. The tabulation is done automatically by the 3rd party Affiliate Program software, so there’s nothing extra for you to do here.

You can then use PayPal’s “Mass Pay” feature to send your Affiliates’ commissions directly to them from your own PayPal account to your Affiliates’ PayPal accounts. All you need to do is to upload a spreadsheet with 3 columns to your PayPal account Mass Pay section stating the e-mail address of the recipient, the amount he’s receiving from you, and the currency you’re paying out in.

The 3rd party Affiliate Program software may be able to help you generate such a spreadsheet automatically - so again, there’s nothing much for you to do except log into your PayPal account, upload the spreadsheet and click on “Pay”.

With PayPal being available in most countries in the world, you’re able to pay your Affiliates easily without ever having to write out a check and posting them. On the rare occasion when your Affiliates prefer to be paid by check, you can simply write out those few and send them over.

By using PayPal to pay your Affiliates, you’ve lessened the impact Clickbank has in doing all the grunt work in paying out commissions to its Affiliates for selling your product. All you need to do is to set aside a few minutes one particular day of the month to do the Mass Payment in PayPal, and you’re done!

Note: You must have a checking account linked to your PayPal account before you can use the Mass Pay feature.

And that’s the “MOACA” in a nutshell…

Neat, yes?

In my next post, we’ll take a look at the best Affiliate Program software ever created for both the Merchant and Affiliate, with some unique and outstanding features for the Merchant to make even more sales with less time and effort, simply by keeping his Affiliates very happy…

Stay tuned…

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://SenZe.com/business-blog/internet-business/mother-of-all-clickbank-alternatives.htm

Technorati Tags: Clickbank, Affiliate Program, Affiliate Program software, PayPal