Marketing Confidential

To be able to gain a higher gravity score than your competitor in the Clickbank marketplace, you need to fully understand how Clickbank Gravity is calculated.

When an affiliate makes their first sale of a product, CB add 1.00 to the gravity for that product. However, if that affiliate doesn't make another sale, their gravity score is reduced by approximately 4% for every day that that affiliate fails to aake a sale. If the affiliate fails to make a second sale during the following 8 weeks, that affiliate’s sales are dropped from the gravity calculation for that product.

So, it's not just about recruiting affiliates to build gravity, it's also about maintaining gravity by encouraging those affiliates to make repeat sales.

Breaking the objective into two areas..

1. Recruiting affiliates.

The obvious starting point is to track down the people who are selling your competitors products and make them a better offer.

When someone has already gone to the trouble of setting up a review blog, an autoresponder sequence, articles and other promotional materials then it will take a lot to persuade them to shift from an established product toa new product.

The vast majority of affiliates are looking for an easy life and, therefore, the more you do for them the more likely they are to accept your offer.

It's vital that you make it easy for them to become your affiliate. You must offer them a wide range of promotional materials including articles, blog posts, press releases, banners, PPC ad copy, product reviews, autoresponder sequences, solo emails, forum signatures, free viral reports, etc.

You really need to focus on "selling" the affiliate opportunity. Offer to create a unique promotional piece just for them. Offer them the highest commission rate, ask them what it would take from you to pwrsuade them to promote your product.

You should also look to recruiting new affiliates. Look in the CB marketpace for complimentary products. Look in other affiliate networks such as CJ, PayDotCom for competing and complimentary products. Research the CPA networks to see if there are any offers that could be associated with your product.

Seek out the JV brokers such as JV Alert, JV Notify Pro, etc. and see if their members have suitable lists.

Seek out ezine and newsletter publishers within the niche market and see if they would be interested in promoting your product as an affiliate.

Browse sites such as Blogger, WordPress, Squidoo, HubPages, Google Knols, etc. and look for content that is related to your product. Contact the writers to see if they are interested in becoming your affiliate.

Search for forums within your niche and look for members with affiliate links in the forum signatures.

Visit all the Internet marketing forums where your potential affiliates hang out and, where appropriate, post in their affiliate marketing and joint venture sections.

2. Motivating affiliates.

While getting that first sale from each of your affiliates is critically important, it is meaningless if they don't make regular repeat sales to main tain their contribution to your product's gravity score.

The most important thing you should do is to get all of your affiliates to sign up to your affiliates list. This list must NOT be used to sell to your affiliates. You should main tain contact with your affiliates, keep them up to date with the latest news, offers and developments.

Be sure to regularly make new promotional materials available to them.

Offer special incentives such as a prize for the maximum number of sales within a specified period of time.

If you have sufficient sales volume, publish a league table of affiliate sales and encourage your affiliates to compete for top position.

Your affiliates are affectively your sales team. Treat them as professionals, keep in regular touch and provide them with the best resources you can to make their job easier.