It’s Q4 and everyone is shopping. That also means you can earn more right now, faster and easier than many other times of the year. If you’re looking for a fast way to generate at least a few extra sales, prep to take over Q1 markets or just want to have fun, here are 5 things you can do and should think about.
1. Impulse buys:
Look for stores that have these or are entirely made of them. Check out bachelorette.com’s Affiliate Program which I reviewed yesterday. The site is filled with hundreds of impulse buys and gag gifts. However, you don’t want to talk about bachelorette.com when you’re promoting them, you want to focus on the actual product you like. If you say a name that is descriptive like bachelorette.com, people will think it isn’t relevant for them and may not click on the link. I did this yesterday (not with Bachelorette.com) for a test, and it worked.
2. Making sales on Facebook
Think about what types of impulse buy products are perfect for or relevant for people right now. Right now it could be holiday gear, gag gifts or anything else for the holidays and then get ready to share it. In the picture above, I took a screen shot about 45 minutes after I sent out a message from a blog fan page on Facebook. Instead of saying what the product is, what the store is (from my point above), I just said I love this, did not show a picture so I could get people to actually click and be more engaged (interested), and go to the site. The other thing I did was use Bit.ly for tracking so that it didn’t show what site people are going to. This way the people who were clicking on the link were completely in the dark. If they wanted to know what I thought was cool, etc… they would have to click on the link and then they were on a site with a ton of impulse buys that are hard to resist.
3. Remember to cross sell and pre sell.
This is huge. If you are selling kids toys or have a gift guide, make sure you also mention a few stocking stuffers (that are also at the same store) that go along with the gifts. Don’t just go after the big items, remember to mention the smaller ones, include links or ask the Affiliate Manager to create a widget with the ones you want and give a link to add them to the person’s cart. This is a great way to increase the person’s AOV and increase your commissions without much extra work.
4. Show them what they don’t need, but have a use for.
As seen on tv products are always showing you solutions to problems you didn’t know you had. They are created to solve an issue and given cheesy music, bad acting and lots of sales copy. If you have recipes or people who are hosting events and parties, show them a widget or storefront full of cool or funny aprons and things to keep their clothes clean while they are prepping and serving. Talk about how it can get people to laugh, have fun and protect your clothes so you don’t ruin the outfit you spent forever choosing and putting on. You could also talk about the fun pictures people will take which brings emotions in and helps to drive impulse buys.
5. Create a sense of urgency.
If you are doing something with your newsletter list, instant results like PPC, with your store or with social media, create a sense of urgency. Numbers are great to do this with. 2 hours left, 50 products out of 500 remaining, 2 days left to ship until Hanukah, the next 200 people, save 50% for the next 30 minutes only. Combine urgency with numbers and words that will catch someone’s eyes and you can drive quick click throughs and hopefully generate sales. You need to make sure the landing page has the same messaging and urgency in it as well.
Those are 5 things you can do right now to earn extra money for Q4 and even use during other times of the year. Feel free to share your own ideas and tips to make extra money during the last couple weeks of Q4 in the comments section. Thank you again for reading.
