David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

A quick overview of visitors, customers and so forth.
 
A visitor is someone who lands on your website. Forget bragging about hits, they are not necessarily visitors. Take a look at this:



174 hits is OK. That's in a couple of hours so I could safely assume 762,120 hits over a year. But if I used that number for anything other than pageviews per user, I would be a fool.

48 visitors (usually) represent 48 people. Physical people. Depending upon stats packages, some record spiders as a visitor. Some don't.

So big whoop, what's the deal here?

Well, in Internet marketing, the big boys are the one's who know how to convert a visitor into a customer.

So what defines a customer?

A customer is someone who comes back time and time again to buy from you.

Practical example: You go down to Asda and do your weekly shopping. But for some reason, you didn't enjoy it. Perhaps the prices were too expensive, the store is too far away... whatever the reason, let's just say you weren't a happy bunny.

The overall result here is that even though you shopped at Asda, you are highly unlikely to use them again. You are not a customer.

A customer is only a customer when they purchase more than once from you. If they purchase once and never again, it's just a sale.

So let's go back to Internet marketing. We hold no stock. We just run websites. We don't sell.

WRONG!

Take a look at the big boys.

Free UK Stuff (http://www.freeukstuff.com) is a portal showcasing freebies and affiliate offers and deals on the web. The key is that it encourages you to sign up as a member. If you sign up to be a member anywhere on the web, the chances of you returning are highly significant.

Greasy Palm (http://www.greasypalm.co.uk) offers cashback on purchases. The sticky part of the site is that you need to earn enough to get paid. In essence, it is what we affiliates are like. Rather than paying us when a sale clears, the majority of networks pay when you reach a certain amount. That bar encourages us to promote that network's programs more until we reach the threshold.

Shop Safe (http://www.shopsafe.co.uk) has developed a reputation for promoting 'safe' websites. Internet newbies are the main audience, I suspect, as essentially, it is a list of affiliate links. All good and well, they seem to be very successful. They've cornered a niche and are prospering with repeat visitors who trust them.

We can, and should, learn from these sites. All 3 are extremely successful so we would be daft not to look, listen and learn.

Tips

1. Run a targeted mailing list. Sign up as many relevant people as possible. Encourage signups however you can
2. Forget selling to the invisible (wo)man. Start selling to the list. Divulge exclusive offers to your list rather than to the unregistered few.
3. Develop a highly targeted niche website
4. Look, listen and learn