CHAPTER 2: Create A Value Proposition
Part 1: Internally Determining What Your Unique Value Is
If there’s one rule to remember when designing your affiliate sites, it’s that you must always provide your players and visitors with something of value. Simply stated, your value proposition is the reason your customers have for giving you their business. And when you’re offering unique content that helps players feel like they’re getting an edge, which gives them a reason to take the next step towards becoming depositing players.
Remember that determining your value proposition is very different from determining your target market or niche. You may decide that you’re a poker site that targets newer players by providing them with instructional videos. The videos are the value proposition that makes your site worthwhile to visit on an ongoing basis.
Your value proposition is also your chance to stand out from the pack and make your sites into something really special. So when you’re thinking about what to do, put yourself in the shoes of the average Internet user. (Which, chances are, you’ve actually been at one point or another.)
Think about all the times you’ve searched for something like, Texas Hold ‘Em FAQ only to be directed to sites offering keyword heavy garbage content with lots of links and not much help. These site don’t provide value to the customer and, therefore, don’t give much incentive for them to take the next step. With a few simple steps, you can easily convey your value proposition to potential depositors, no matter what your level of technical skills.
Part 2: Conveying Value In An Outbound Message to Your Market
Once you’ve determined your value proposition, it’s time to get that message out to the world, or at least that narrow demographic that you’re targeting. This is where the rubber meets the road and you start developing high quality content, and creating real buzz in a number of formats such as videos and online forums.
Videos
Videos are an excellent way of getting your message out because they don’t require much effort on the part of your customers to view.
Online videos are becoming a much bigger part of the overall Internet picture thanks to the success of YouTube. YouTube is currently the third most visited site on the Web and it’s responsible for a tremendous amount of commerce.
Interactive video marketing applications like EasyVideoPlayer and Video Traffic Academy allow web masters to easily create videos that help convert players. These videos include simple, but effective, marketing tools like on screen Buy Now Buttons to move products, and Opt-In Buttons to help build effective marketing lists.
Forums
Another way of creating value for your visitors is by insuring they get an opportunity to interact with other players and feel that they’re part of a community. One of the best ways of building a community, and driving repeat traffic is by setting up an online forum to give your players a chance to share strategies, gripe about their losses, and generally vent their spleens.
If you’re looking to build one of the high quality, revenue driving forums but aren’t sure where to focus your efforts, take a look at online offerings like the Community Forum Course. This web-based video course teaches affiliates and web masters how to make the most of a forum; what types of content to focus on; and how to drive traffic through state of the art marketing techniques.
Content
One basic rule remains consistent—“Content is King.”
The content on your site should be informative, concise and should directly support your value proposition. Every single time you write, or hire someone to write, content for your site you have to ask whether or not it’s bringing value to players. Remember, you’ve only got a few seconds to catch a site visitor’s eyes before they move. Here are a few rules you should always be applying to your value driven content.
- Make copious use of bullet points and lists – Web users love list and that why the Internet is full of articles like, Yahoo Search Engine: 5 Things You Didn’t Know. Not only is this type of content easy to read, it’s extremely SEO friendly. Google’s algorithms value lists.
- Inaccurate content loses potential customer – This should go without saying, but far too many web masters simply don’t give their content the attention it deserves. Again, out yourself in the customer’s shoes. If you visited a gaming site that was loaded with inaccurate content, would you stick around to give them your money or would you move on? A site with week old game previews is going nowhere.
- Ensure that content is continuously updated – Repeat visitors to your site won’t be repeat visitors unless there’s something new for them to see. And remember, frequency of content is one of those factors that Google’s Panda updates value highly when ranking sites.
- Maintain your site – Would you shop at a grocery store with broken windows and out of date milk? That’s the brick and mortar equivalent of site with broken links and outdated content. With high quality, and affordable, content generating tools like Content Revenge that keep your site updated automatically, there’s no excuse for not having regularly updated content.
Create Clear Calls to Action
The real purpose of your value proposition and content is to get the visitor to do something; deposit money in an online casino or opt in to a newsletter list or almost anything. But you have to ask them to take that next step with a clear call to action. Remember, if you’re doing it correctly, the call to action is part of your value proposition; it gives the player something worthwhile.WordPress Plugins like Call to Action that generates custom value propositions automatically.
Learn more about Creating Calls to Action: http://searchengineland.com/the-anatomy-of-a-compelling-call-to-action-button-81244 and Why Your Emails Need A Clear Call to Action.
What’s Next? Chapter 3: Tweak Your Design Layout