Here are some things I tested in June, the results, and what I learned:
- Since April, I had a link for my free product offer (Holland’s Iceberg Method) on my blog (this website), Quora posts, and Quora profile. I had a link in these three places to track clicks and see where the most interest comes from. I wanted to answer whether people clicked the link in one spot more than the others. In May, I had 9x more clicks on my blog link than my Quora posts and profile links. In June, I had 6x more clicks on my blog link. This tells me that most of the interest in the free product comes from those visiting my blog. This is great! This corroborates what I learned in my coaching program: I’ll get more interest (aka clicks) from my blog links than social media.
- One action step I will take is to discontinue having a link to the free offer on my Quora posts and profile. I heard from another affiliate marketer that he doesn’t put product links on his social media posts because he doesn’t want his content to feel or be viewed as promotional. Instead, he wants to post good content to attract an audience without it being about making money or promoting his products. He’ll put a link for a product in a post occasionally when it is appropriate. He prefers to drive traffic to his blog, where his product links are housed. He wants people to get to know him more so they feel comfortable looking at his products. I agree, so I removed the HIM (Holland’s Iceberg Method) link in my Quora profile (the only link is to my blog), and I won’t put links for HIM or other products in my posts unless I feel it could be beneficial to do so.
- Another angle is to end my social media posts with something like, ‘If you want a free training video with more information on this topic, send me a message or comment, and I will send you a link to get the video.’ So, instead of putting a link in the actual post (which might be viewed as too promotional), I’ll tell people to message or leave a comment only if they want more information. This gets those interested to raise their hands, and I send them a link to an appropriate product.
- I’m rethinking my free product because, even though it is really good, I still don’t feel it has enough traction or interest.
- This could be because I haven’t been driving traffic to it correctly, or the offer isn’t attractive enough.
- One day, I saw a free course offer from another affiliate marketer. I thought about the concept of offering a free course instead of training. Is a free course more valuable than free training? Am I overthinking this? I don’t know for sure, but I can test this. I’ll consider changing the offer to a free course and see if there is more interest. I’ll give it a month to see if I notice a difference in clicks and opt-ins to get the course.
- In June, I dabbled with Artificial Intelligence software.
- This was surprisingly beneficial for my writing. I can input a topic into the A.I. software to produce the first draft of a blog or social media post. I then rewrite parts using more of my ideas and writing style. Overall, it saved me time the 4-5 times I used it during the month. I’ll continue dabbling with it and see if it sticks with me as a go-to tool for my business.
- In July, I want to dabble with Quora advertisements.
- In the past, I have run online ads on Google Adwords, FaceBook, and Microsoft’s advertising platform. I am familiar with how to set up and run the ads. I liked FaceBook’s ads. However, there is more work to do to set up the ads because FaceBook wants more business information upfront, and the ads have more sections with words, pictures, and a built-in opt-in page (FaceBook lead ads). Google and Microsoft ads are easy to set up but are pretty expensive.
- My goal isn’t to spend much but to dabble to get a sense of how my free product offer will perform and how much it costs to run ads so I can gauge a budget to use in the future when I’m ready to dive deeper.
- I’ll probably write more about this as I work on it during the month.
There are a lot of exciting things happening, so stay tuned!