Affiliate X Factor - A Case Study In Viral Marketing

Andrew Fox, the "Guru Slayer", knows how to build an army of affiliates. He has created a viral campaign like nothing you have seen before, for the launch of his new product, Affiliate X Factor. The product is set to launch on March 20th and already he has people scrambling to get their affiliate links.

He has accomplished this by letting his potential affiliates make money by giving away a free report about the upcoming product. You can earn $1.00 for every referral and $.50 on every second tier referral. You can even make money off your referrals referrals! But it gets better than that. Every referral that buys the product will earn you a 50% commission from Clickbank.

Some of you may think that this sounds crazy, but all of you that have marketing experience can surely see the power in this tactic. The money he pays out in referrals will be insignificant compared to the money he makes on launch day. My guess is that he will recoup that little by the end of the first day if not sooner.

Not only that, he is collecting email addresses and building his list at the same time. Actually, he is paying his army of affiliates $1.00 to build his list for him. It is true that some of the people will opt out of his list, but Andrew is an excellent relation marketer and will certainlly retain the majority of his subscribers. The list he will build with this promotion is an asset in itself worth 10 times what he will pay out in referrals.

Let this be a lesson to all aspiring internet marketers. Watch and learn what the leaders in your market are doing. If you want to have their kind of success then you should try and emulate their startegies and tactics. Andrew mentions in his free report that he got to be a super affiliate by studying the tactics of Corey Rudl and Yanik Silver who are arguably two of the best.

If you want to learn more about the free report, you can go here or you can go here and download the report for yourself. Don't forget to get your affilaite link and start promoting the free report. Giving away a free report is an easy way to make a little cash.

Andrew is no longer paying for leads as of March 10th.

Over 20,000 people have downloaded the free report in less than 2 weeks time and the growth is becoming geometric. Andrew has also released more free contnet to fuel the fire. He has produced a video that shows one of his top secret methods for building a list by using traffic from other internet marketers and Google adwords.

Click here to check out the video and learn how you can win a free subscription to Affiliate X Factor. I will be updating this Hub as events happen regarding the launch.

"Picking A Market To Build Your Customer Base In"

Yes, I coughed up the $198 for the product. Two years ago I purchased Andrews Dominating Clickbank product so I already knew that he always over delivers. Plus, he included a payment plan option that lets you make 3 monthly payments.

I also bought the one time offer which is a membership to his inner circle where you can get personal coaching. I hate to say it but I was very disappointed with the Cb Affiliate program. I was lured in by the fact that Andrew picks 2 members each month to do make over of their product and then a joint venture.

There is nothing going on of that nature. There are some videos showing the make overs that were done in September and November of 2007 and that is where it stopped. I went to the mebers forum and it is a ghost town. After repeated attempts to get an answer, I requested a refund. First time I ever got a refund from clickbank.

All I can say is, shame on you Andrew Fox. I think that your Affiliate X Factor is a great product, but using the CB Affiliate Formula as an upsell when you know that nothing is going on there anymore is unexcusable. I don't think I will ever purchase another one of your products.

I just got done watching the first video and was not disappointed. Since I am an experienced affiliate marketer, the section where he shows you how to set up a landing page and auto responder was somewhat boring for me. The rest of the video was quite informative.

He shows you how he does his market research and tells you what criteria he uses to determine if a niche is going to be profitable. This is definitely worth watching, considering his track record as a super affiliate. I am looking foward to putting his criteria to the test and also looking foward to next week's video where he is going to show us how he builds a targeted list.

"Driving Traffic To Your Landing Page To Build Your List"

The second video is a 2 part, information packed, tutorial on how to set up a fully optimized landing page and then how to drive traffic to it using Google Adwords. I am sure that some of you cringe when you here people talk about pay per click advertising. I know that there are at least a few of you who have "lost their shirt" trying to use pay per click advertising. I know, I'm one of them.

The truth of the matter is that it is still one of the best ways to get "targeted" traffic and by far the fastest way to generate visitors to your website. Andrew shows you the keys to optimizing your landing pages and some tricks to re coup some of your initial investment immediately.

Affiliate marketing has changed and the days of sending people directly to a sales page are over. Granted, there are people that still do it, but they are the ones who no longer have their shirt! Today, it is all about relationship marketing. You send your prospect to a landing page where you are going to collect their information so that you can use email to build a relationship. Then you can market to them over and over again. The key is to make your money on the back end.

Here is a brief outline of what the video covers:

• creating a headline
• how to use bullet points
• what to add to your opt in box to increase conversion rates and lower subscriber acquisition costs
• the "sneaky" post landing page to re coup your advertising costs immediately
• an in depth look at how to use Google Adwords
• advance, but easy to implement "killer" tactics to choose keywords
• feeding off launch frenzy's traffic
• understanding how to track how much each subscriber is costing you using Google Adwords tools
• tools to triple your keyword list and a list of resources

Andrew also gives you free templates of a pre and post landing page.

"How To Email Market, What Do You Say And Why It Works"

The awesome content continues in video #3. This is where Andrew really starts to get into the meat of what he calls the "X factor". How to communicate with your email list and create a bond between yourself and your readers. The new "Web 2.0" era is all about interacting. Myspace, Facebook, and other "social" websites are becoming increasingly popular and is what the Internet is evolving into.

You cannot start sending blatant sales pitch emails to your subscribers or you will lose them quickly. You need to establish yourself as an expert in your given niche and try to build a sense of community with your subscribers. The selling comes later. 99% of affiliate marketers are not doing this and are having lack luster results. Going the extra mile is the "X" factor that Andrew is talking about. If you put forth the extra effort, then your results will show it.

The third lesson includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• 5 tried and tested email templates and when to send them
• how to get the information that you need about your market to establish yourself as an expert
• explanation of the psychological "triggers" that make people buy from you
• shows you why using signatures, headers, formatting, and characterization are crucial
• what settings to use in Aweber, why you need to see how many people are opening your emails and how many are clicking on your links

You also get the 5 email templates that you can download and a template of a thank you survey page to help you interact with your subscribers.

"Creating Bonus Packages, Videos, Pre-Sell, And Launch Email Copy"

Lesson 4 of the Affiliate X Factor is a continuation of lesson 3. Andrew covers the next 5 emails that you will be sending your subscribers. That will make a total of 10 emails in a 30 day period. By the time the thirty days is up, you will have established yourself as an expert in your niche and established and interactive repoir with your prospects.

Some of the areas that are covered include:

• how to find videos relative to your niche and use them as free content
• how to set up a poll or questionaire to interact with your subscribers
• how to locate and/or create articles to use as free content
• how to locate and procure products that you can use as bonuses when you finally make a sales offer to your list

After watching these last 2 videos, I realized why Andrew fox has been so successful as an affiliate marketer. He has learned how to subtley charm his prospects and turn them into a captive auidience ready to act on his recommendations. I can't wait for lesson 5.

"Creating Pre Sell Pages To Skyrocket Profits"

Andrew really gets down the the "nitty gritty" in this video. He explains what a pre sell page is and why it is so important to use one. Instead of converting 1 out of 100 visitors, which is the industry norm, you can use a pre sell page to drive your conversions up to 1 out of 10 or possibly higher.

He shows you the details of one of his recent promotions where he used a pre sell page to generate a $70,000 affiliate pay day. He accomplished this with only 4858 clicks. His CPS (clicks per sale) was only 19. That is an awesome conversion rate. He shows you all this to drive home the point that it's not how many clicks you get, but the quality of the clicks.

All of those clicks came from the list that he built, using Google Adwords, which made them a targeted audience. He then sent them several emails where he gave away niche related, useful content and built a relationship with his email subscribers. He doesn't push any products until this is accomplished. When he finally makes a recommendation, he leads up to it with a couple pre sell emails that builds some suspense and has his subscribers chomping at the bit to see what the product is.

Finally, he sends out the email about the product recommendation that directs them to a pre sell page where he explains why he is recommending the product. He then reveals the bonus package he has put together and explains why he is giving the bonuses away. He points out how important it is to set a limit on the bonuses to create a sense of urgency. Only after all this does he give the link to the actual sales page.

He goes into great detail about how he structures the pre sell emails and the pre sell page. He also gives you a template of the page and example emails to use. Once again, very useful information that can be implemented by anyone.

"Advanced Affiliate X Factor Tactics To Maximize Results"

This is another one of those lessons that I really can't say to much without giving away the bank. If you want all the juicy details, you will have to buy the product.

I can say that this video covers 3 major topics:

1. What is the best time of day and the best day to send emails to your subscribers. Yes, it does make a big difference.
2. Your follow up product recommendations. When to squeeze your subscribers and when to ease off.
3. The "Anti-link" formula. A tactic that Andrew learned from his friend Chris, of "The Day Job Killer", that will drive your conversion rates through the roof.

This is some really good stuff, especially the "anti-link" formula. I had already learned about the best days to email from reading Mark Joyner's "Confidential Manuscript". The best information that I took away from these lessons is the break down of the email series and how Andrew shows you how to get in touch with the emotions of your subscribers so that they can relate to you.

Also, the use of pre sell tactics and the importance of building a list of super targeted subscribers. I use several methods to build my list. I just started using JV Giveaways this year and have been giving away a viral system that uses traffic exchanges for a couple years now. I have built a larger list using the JV Giveaways but have generated more sales from my smaller list. Just goes to show that quality beats quantity any day.

I have shied away from using Adwords because I took a beating the first time I attempted to run some campaigns. I see now that you have to make sure that you capture email addresses and have your auto responder in place to reclaim your advertising costs or you are doomed to fail with Adwords. Andrew has showed me how to test a niche first to see if it will be profitable and worth the investment before I make a big spend.

Once you have mastered relationship marketing with emails, you can afford to use Adwords to build your list because you know that you will make your money back, and then some, on the back end. Just look at the campaign that Andrew put together for this product. He paid out over $20,000 for leads during the pre-launch. The truth is that he acquired those leads with nothing out of pocket.

He accomplished this by simply making the affiliate payouts 60 days after, which was 30 days after the actual product launch. By the time he has to cut the affiliate checks, his bank account will be bulging with the money from his sales. If you want to have success like the "big dogs", you would be wise to emulate their means and methods. That is why I highly recommend the Affiliate X Facotor by Andrew Fox.