Last week I mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of the Squeeze Page method. I owe that comment some clarification, and I have a confession.

First, the confession: I ordered the Starter Package from Opportunity that includes 8 squeeze page packages — complete with professionally designed pages, PDF reports to give away, and pre-written email follow-up series (see image to the left). Each package targets a different niche, of course.

A Squeeze Page is basically a mini-site or a one-page website designed to compel visitors to sign up for your mailing list. This is done by dangling a carrot or offering them something for free — a free report, for example.

They request your freebie by entering their name and email address in the form, which allows you to build a targeted email list that you can follow up with on that topic — with tips, resources, offers, etc.

I had said that I’m not a huge fan of Squeeze Pages. This is a successful method of course, it’s just not my personal preference. I went on to outline what I generally do instead — but I do owe that some clarification. I dont dismiss the list-building aspect of Affiliate Marketing, and in fact I have an email list for every niche affiliate site that I create.

In case you’re not familiar with a Squeeze Page, here is an example: Easy Unique Content. This is actually a pre-sales page designed to build a notification list. I often create these while I am developing a product or report to build a mailing list of people who are interested in being notified about that product. A better example would be Small Reports Fortune by Jimmy D. Brown. You can of course learn more about Squeeze Pages at Wikipedia too: What is a Squeeze Page?

Example: The Squeeze Page

This marketing technique works particularly well when you are promoting informational products. To give an example, let’s say that you want to promote an info-product that teaches people how to learn Spanish, as an affiliate. You could interview a local spanish teacher or a known expert on the topic, creating your own info-product.

You would then set up a Squeeze Page offering that interview or product for free. When your visitors sign up to receive the freebie, they are added to your mailing list — and so this method allows you to build a targeted email list of people specifically interested in information on that topic.

Example: The Follow-Up

Ideally your first few emails to this targeted list would get them engaged with you. You start out by following up on the product they downloaded — your product. People download things on the internet all the time and don’t always open them. You want to make sure they consume your product. This is the first step in building a relationship with that person.

Ask them if they received the product. Give them the download link again. Mention something specific within the product, using a page number or other reference point, that most people found particularly interesting. This will pique their interest and encourage them to open the file if they haven’t already.

In your next email you might offer a poll. You could ask them why they are interested in learning Spanish, what their plans are, etc. Make sure you give them an incentive to participate. Offer to share the results, or to cover the points in an upcoming interview that you’ll also share with them for free.

Continue engaging your subscribers on this level before you start promoting products to them. Follow up again with a thank you note, and give them one last chance to participate if they haven’t already. Next find a great article, blog post or forum thread that would be of interest to your readers and send them the link. It doesn’t have to be on your site — just send them a resource you know they’ll enjoy.

This type of follow-up will condition your subscribers to open your emails when they arrive, and keep them engaged (ie clicking) — which is exactly what you want.

If you would like in-depth training on this method see Mini-Site Profits by Michael Rasmussen. This is a FREE online video training series and you can get an outline of the series here: Minisite Profits Video Summary

Clarification: Why I’m not a huge fan.

The Squeeze Page method is very successful, especially if you use the outline above. The reason I said that I am not a huge fan of this method is because it is generally taught as creating a one-page mini site which you promote via pay-per-click advertising such as Google Adwords.

My preferred method of generating traffic is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization — meaning I create pages that rank well in the major search engines and get a lot of free traffic from very specific searches.

This is much easier than maintaining pay-per-click campaigns, which makes for more of a Passive Income model.

You’ll be hard pressed to get very much free search engine traffic with a one-page site. Search engines like content, and there is very little content involved with the Squeeze Page method. I don’t like to suggest this method to newbies because there is a steeper learning curve to Google Adwords, the art of split testing and increasing conversions, etc.

It is also very hard to get quality links to a Squeeze Page. Links bring traffic, and links bring good search engine rankings, but even with an incredibly good offer it’s hard to get people (bloggers, other webmasters, etc) to link to this type of page without incentive.

See my post on Thin Affiliate Sites. It could get very frustrating trying to get around things like Quality Score on Google Adwords and the lack of search traffic if you’re just working with the Squeeze Page alone as your only marketing strategy.

The solution to these issues, and to using a Squeeze Page successfully, is to create a larger website around your topic. Each of your pages would then point to the Squeeze Page as the call-to-action, encouraging your visitors to view the the page and request your free offer. You could also create content that links back to your Squeeze Page on 3rd party sites like Blogger, Squidoo, Hub Pages, etc.

These content pages could get links more easily, and search engine rankings of course, which would funnel traffic into your Squeeze Page.

Squeeze Pages for Promoting Physical Products

Another reason I am not a huge fan of the Squeeze Page method is because it lends itself best to informational products, and I often like to promote physical products as an affiliate. The goal of the Squeeze Page is to squeeze an email address out of your visitor before you send them to the merchants website — or to any other page on your own website.

If someone is searching Google for elvis bobblehead they most likely want to view and buy Elvis bobbleheads. As an affiliate I create a page that features Elvis bobbleheads and then link directly to the website where they can buy them online — using my affiliate link, of course.

Imagine how annoyed you would be if you were searching for a specific Elvis bobblehead and you kept clicking through to Squeeze Pages that wouldn’t let you view the products without subscribing first. (No worries — Google wouldn’t let that happen )

That said, if you had an affiliate site for Elvis collectibles then you might offer a mailing list for Elvis Fans. You could place your opt-in box on every page of your affiliate site, and also create a dedicated Squeeze Page that offers a fun free report of Elvis trivia or an exclusive interview with someone that knew Elvis personally.

The Squeeze Page Mistake

A lot of people make the mistake of creating a Squeeze Page, and immediately trying to promote a product on the backend. This method is not a means of making direct sales, it is a method of building a targeted mailing list. And so the focus should be on building that list, and building a relationship with those readers.

The promotions and conversions and sales and all that good stuff you’re sold with the Squeeze page method. come only after you have achieved this. Period.

Put a lot of thought into your process when creating a Squeeze Page to promote affiliate programs. You want to start by getting into the mind of your ideal subscriber — what are they searching for, what can you offer them, how can you continue to add value to that offer and build trust with that person, what would most likely make them open emails from you?

You have to step back from the I want to make money online mindset, and really get into the process of serving your market.

The good news is that much of this relationship-building can be set up as an automated system using an autoresponder. You simply create a series of follow-up messages like I outlined in the follow-up example above and load those messages into your autoresponder. When your visitor requests the free offer they will automatically receive the series starting with the first message.

If you tried to do it newsletter-style, or write and send the messages manually, someone who subscribes 6 months from now would miss all of your initial messages and it would be like walking in on an event that is already half over. Using an autoresponder allows you to automate your profit model, and gives each individual subscriber the exact same experience.

You’ll need Aweber, which is the mailing list manager that most of us use. It allows you to set up unlimited mailing lists (for unlimited niche affiliate sites) which you can use to set up newsletters, autoresponders, etc. You can start with a free trial .

I hope this clarifies my original comments on Squeeze Pages, and helps you to make the decision on which method you’ll use to promote affiliate programs. There are a lot of options, and a lot of ways to really make this work for you. Done right, the Squeeze Page method can be very successful in practically any niche.

As I mentioned, I just bought 8 pre-designed Squeeze Page packages myself when I signed up for Opportunity. If you signed up but passed on that offer, I believe John is going to make it available again (watch your email). If you haven’t signed up yet, you’ll find that offer right after you do. Give it serious consideration — it’s a really good deal.

You’ll also get specific training on how to upload the files, set up your autoresponder series in Aweber, etc — they are adding step by step training videos specifically for using this package.

One of the things I really liked about Opportunity (which is an Affiliate Marketing training center) is the way John Reese teaches the combination method for making affiliate sales. Meaning a combination of Direct Sales and Squeeze Page methods — using both content and email marketing together. This is the method I prefer to use myself.

Even though I’m not a huge fan of Squeeze Pages, I really couldn’t pass up the deal on the Starter Package. When you use the Squeeze Page method you need the free product to give away, you need a quality web page with visual appeal and nice cover graphics, you have to write the entire follow-up email series, etc.

It can be a lot of work, or cost you quite a bit upfront to hire designers and writers if you outsource it all.

The Starter Package was only $197. That breaks down to less than $25 each for 8 ready-to-use Squeeze Page sites, including the products & email series. If you’ve ever tried doing all of the work yourself, figuring out how to create decent graphics and write compelling sales copy, or paid to have just ONE created start to finish. then you already know what an incredible deal this is .

My goal is to take each of these Squeeze Page packages and expand on them in my own unique way. To develop affiliate sites or blogs around the topic to go along with the Squeeze Page (ie the combination of methods). I’ll be using these as case studies within my private brainstorming group. Membership to that group will be open again soon — I’ll keep you posted on that as well.

Best,

p.s. The 8 niches targeted in the Opportunity Starter Package are: career, cooking, dating, fashion, real estate, internet marketing, stock trading and weight loss. Even if you only decided to worked ONE of those niches, you can’t beat the deal on the Squeeze Page package + all the affiliate training you would need to be incredibly successful in that niche with your new site.

This is hands down the best ‘opportunity’ to get an affiliate site up & running with hands-on step-by-step help — all in one spot — that I can recommend. Period.

Watch this 10-minute Video for all the details