I have to confess, I’ve been signing up for some give away events and getting so free reports, probably spending more time on it than I should. Although it is a learning experience, getting idea’s and seeing what others are doing. How they are marketing or drawing in the customers.

After reading a need e-mail this past week, I got to thinking today… I do that sometimes..:)

I tried to think of a time when any marketer has asked me for feedback, and frankly I couldn’t think of too many times. There was one guy who said he’d get back to me in a few days to get feedback on a product i had purchased from him. Never heard a word.

I also thought about the many times I have unsubscribed from a mailing list, ya there are a few that are not worth getting mail from. I thought hard about how many of these marketers asked me why I was unsubscribing. A rough guess was maybe 10%. I don’t know about you, but that’s kinda sad. I know many people use Aweber as a auto responder and I also know they have a feature that you can ask for feedback when some one unsubscribed from your list. Now maybe I’m not getting it, but why doesn’t everyone use that feature?

How do you know what your doing wrong, if you don’t ask? Maybe some people just don’t want to know or admit, their “stuff” might not be up to par?

On the other hand, how do you know when your doing good, if you don’t ask?

Who would be best to give you feedback on your product or service?

You should know by now, your likely not the best judge of your marketing. Feedback could be the difference between a comfortable income and a Guru income.

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Recently I signed up for a couple of giveaway events. What surprised me is how many of the e-mails from these marketers ended up in my Gmail spam folder, more than I would have thought.

Do you test your messages before they go out? Sure most auto responder services let you test to get past the spam filters. You do have to wonder just how accurate they are, you know the filters are always changing.

Do you have a Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail account? Test accounts to verify your e-mails make it into the Inbox and not the spam folder.

I guess you could say, thats too much work, you’ll take your chance. Then again maybe there is a good chance people will see your messages in the spam folder? Not a chance I want to take. How about you?

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I am totally amazed today, even slightly shocked.

I was working on a new site today and needed some products to fill in until I had my own done and set-up.

First place I stopped was a well know Marketing Guru. When I say well known I mean most people in internet marketing would know the name. Of course I am not going to say it here. I signed up for the affiliate program without a problem, what happened next really surprised me…

First off I made it to the links page, where I wanted to get my linking codes. I couldn’t believe that all the links had XXXX at the end. Since I’ve been in many affiliate programs over the years, I figured out that the XXXX would need to be replaced with my affiliate ID, even though the page didn’t tell me that. What if I was a complete newbie and didn’t have a clue? I wonder how many people use those links and get NO credit for any sales that make. Why wasn’t there at least some text on the page that told me the code would need to be replaced? Just amazing. I did receive an e-mail saying my ID would be sent to me. Why wasn’t that the first e-mail I received? Now, all was not lost, if I needed help with my links I could contact support. Gee, why do I need to do all the work? Oh well, I will find some one else to promote.

The second one was a free membership site I thought was up to par. This one I thought paid on the one time offer. First I had to to really do some searching just to find a link to the affiliate, or so I thought it was to the affiliate program details. I was taken to a page that listed a number of offers I could promote. Naturally the first one was the free membership site. I clicked the banner that I thought was a package to promote the offer, it came up 404, page not found. The other link, a text link went to the membership sign up page, not the affiliate program. Well, not even a chance to promote that one. Once again, I will find some one else to promote.

Moral of the story? If your going to have an affiliate program, make SURE the system works and you make it super easy for people to promote your product(s). Think about it, how much trouble would you go through to promote some one else’s product? Too many other fish in the sea. What about folks that are new and have no clue as to what they are doing?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to slam any one, I was just very surprised. And from a Guru that probably preaches the same things. Well, two marketers lost an affiliate today.

If you do not realize it yet, to get folks to promote your products, you need to make it drop dead easy. So easy they would have a hard time messing it up. Think about it as if your an affiliate.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you think guru status and guru income is out of your reach think again. I just gave two examples of how you can beat two guru’s, with your eyes closed.

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