Can YouTube Boost Your Affiliate Sales?

Posted by Ron Givens

You tube Image The other day I saw an interesting YouTube video, created by AWeber affiliate John Chow. It was a quick demonstration of our recent Twitter integration.

The 2 minute video explained what our Twitter integration does, plus it gave simple instructions on how to use it. At the end, John included his affiliate link (and yes, I did click on it ).

With the growing popularity of online video, I think screencasting should be in the arsenal of all serious affiliate marketers.

Let’s take a look at how posting videos on YouTube can drive traffic to your affiliate website, and boost your sales.

What Do I Need To Get Started?

Getting a video up and running on YouTube can be done quickly and easily.

All you will need is screencasting software, your imagination, and you will be ready to become the next George Lucas.

Some screencasting programs I recommend are:

Camtasia - Created by TechSmith. Costs around $70 to $146
Imovie - Normally bundled with all new Macs and can be used right away.
The Jing Project - The Jing Project is free, and is also created by TechSmith.

After finding a screencasting program that works for you, you’ll then be ready to work on the content of your video.

What Should My Video Be About?

Remember, the aim of your video should be to show how AWeber can potentially increase someone’s business productivity.

Make sure your content is brief, easy to understand and gives the viewer a good reason to visit Aweber via your affiliate link.

If you are an AWeber customer, a great idea could be a video about a feature that has really helped your business grow in the past.

Some other useful subjects for your videos could be:

AWeber’s RSS to email feature, and how it can convert blog subscribers to newsletter subscribers.
One of our new analytics features and how it can add value to an email campaign.
Adding web form features such as a light box, a subscriber count chicklet, or sending downloads.

With the many features of AWeber, you should have no problem finding one suitable to publish as your next screencast.

How Do I Publish My Video On YouTube?

Founded in February 2005, YouTube is now the most popular video sharing site on the internet. Anyone can sign up for a free account and get started right away.

Once signed up for an account, you can very easily upload your file using ( YES! ) a video tutorial on how to load videos into YouTube.

After your video is loaded, it can then be easily seen alongside the over 150,000 daily uploaded videos.

This is a great way to give your affiliate campaign more exposure and increase your affiliate click-throughs dramatically.

Good luck and happy screencasting!

Not an AWeber Affiliate? There’s no better time to start than right now.

Sign up for free today!

Tags: affiliates, video email

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20 Responses

youtube friend adder
December 11th, 2008 at 7:21 pm

well thanks for the nice tutorial. It is really good.
Grant Waldman
December 12th, 2008 at 11:57 am

YouTube is another way to spread your word on the web! It is all about multi-channel marketing today since your competitors are thinking the same thing.
Tobias Fransson
December 12th, 2008 at 12:33 pm

Another way you can use video is by self host videos on your own website and when you get visitors that looks at the video your Alexa Ranking will drop (which is a good thing) by still uploading some off the videos of youtube you can direct traffic to your website.

There are several clever ways of using video in order to increase the use value to others.
Chris Desouza
December 12th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

Kinda late in the game buddy. Marketing on YouTube peaked in early 2008. It’s nice to say "How to?" - But support it with data.

This herd mentality creates nothing but clutter.

Every marketer promoting to another.

When will folks learn?
Lee
December 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Great article. Thank you for the detailed explanation of how to use youtube. Also thanks for the list of screen casting programs that will help me record the videos. Very helpful information.
Donald - internet money making
December 13th, 2008 at 10:20 pm

great article on affiliate marketing.. i like the part about the free tools~
keep them coming please!
thanks
Winson Yeung
December 15th, 2008 at 6:26 am

Great articles.
I’m sure video is gonna dominate the internet in the near future and video marketing will only get more popular.
Lastly, thanks for sharing the articles, it’s really great
Ron Givens
December 16th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

Thank you very much for the feedback, guys.

We always appreciate your input.

Video is quickly coming to the forefront of affiliate
marketing practice, and I think all affiliates should be
aware of this surge of popularity and use it
to their best advantage.

Overall, it is quite easy to get up and running
and given the state of the indsutry right now, there
is certainly limitless content out there.

In reference to YouTube, doing a quick search of
any of the super affiliates in the industry will result
in many results and instances of these affiliates
posting videos on a very regular basis. My experience
is that these affiliates do gain a noticeable increase
in click-throughs through these video promotions.

It is better late than never, and once again, all affiliates
should take advantage of this effective marketing tool.
Dick Green
December 18th, 2008 at 10:52 am

Great article! Like the another post mentioned thanx for the freebies!
Tony
December 20th, 2008 at 11:52 am

Where did you see that pricing on camtasia? All I see on their web site is $299 and it has been that price forever. Would love to pick up a copy cheaper if it’s out there. Thx
V
January 4th, 2009 at 9:18 pm

Great post. This is really important since marketing with video sharing sites like YouTube is the future of internet marketing. Click "Video Marketer Pro" to learn more about how you can optimize any video to get the most traffic out of it. Having a video is only a quarter of the battle… thanks again for the post!
Gley
January 6th, 2009 at 12:54 pm

Nice tutorial! The most recent medium of getting home business traffic is viral videos. Websites are flooding the Internet with home videos and clips produced by everyone from home business owners to established companies to get the most profits from this free opportunity. So, what you are waiting to get you share of the increasing web traffic due to this new technology that are leading to adding more subscribers and more money in your bank account.
Joe
January 7th, 2009 at 1:05 am

Thanks for your affiliate suggestion. YouTube is really dominating the marketplace and for those looking to get an edge, just go to Amazon.com and type in "YouTube". You’ll find a ton of books from "YouTube for Business" to "YouTube - Making Money by Video Sharing".

There are products better than iMovie on the Mac. For example, Screenflow is excellent for recreating tutorials based on your online actions. You can also do some integration with the new iWork 2009 for some really nice results.

Good luck!
Tom smart
January 9th, 2009 at 8:49 am

Youtube itself is a fantastic way to get your site noticed in google.
We saw a 500% Increase in visitors to The Forgottensite.info after we posted the video
Of course we use aweber to capture emails so we can keep people up todate about the secret of the secret
keep it up i say
Greg
January 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am

Getting traffic to your affiliate site is something that Youtube can do for you. However, getting targeted traffic to your affiliate site is not as cut and dry. If the traffic isn’t targeted, your sales are still going to be flat. I guess it all depends on what your affiliate site is promoting.
Joe
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:38 am

Ron,
Your article was very interesting, except John did not have his affiliate link at the end of the video? This does not make sense. Why go through all the trouble of creating the tutorial, just to leave out the affiliate link?
There was a link to his website, but I did not find the affiliate link there either.
Ron Givens
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:17 am

Hey Joe,

You have made an interesting point.

Although John does refer to a function within
AWeber that will assist his readers in tweeting
their broadcasts, he does NOT have his affiliate
URL embedded within his video.

He does have a link to his blog which
contains many instances of his AWeber affiliate banner
however I would highly suggest inserting
that link directly into your YouTube video.

You can use your AWeber custom sub-domain
as the link within your YouTube video, which will
link to AWeber and give you credit if a visitor
does purchase an account.

http://www.aweber.com/blog/afftips/affiliate-url

-Ron
Joe
March 24th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Hi Ron,
Thanks for the tips. I was wondering, if I put a link WITHIN the video, then it will not be clickable, right?
Wouldn’t it be better to put a clickable link beside the video, instead of within it? Or maybe both is the best solution.

Joe
Ron Givens
March 24th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

Hey Joe,

Thanks for your enthusiasm and questions.

You CAN actually both embed your link in the
video as well as in the videos description
on YouTube, however the former is a little
tougher than the latter.

I saw a great thread about this over at Warrior Forum

http://tinyurl.com/cxa7be

That will get you going in the
right direction.

Lately I have seen some very creative videos out there.

Use your imagination and see what you come up with.

Happy Marketing!

-Ron
Li Weng
May 28th, 2009 at 7:41 am

I’ve got a couple of videos on there but
just too lazy to do it on a consistent basis.
But will look into it some time.

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