When you offer a bonus, there's one very important principle that you should bear in mind: your bonus MUST add value to the product. Impress your prospects, or don't even bother. You do not want to offer a 99p report that you got from eBay, or something that everyone and his dog have. If your bonus is lousy, your reputation will ruin faster than you think.



Hopefully the following tips will give you some ideas on how to create your bonuses. I have used the strategies and watch my affiliate commissions soar. I believe yours will too.

1.Create a quick start guide: Most customers are clueless when they first bought the product you recommend. Ideally you do not want to promote something that you haven't use. As a user, you have first hand experience with the products. Create a guide that will help them to get started quickly with the product. This can be a video tutorial or PDF guide.

2.Offer your helps: Does the product require some technical skills to get it running? If so, offer your helps and service to customer who bought through your affiliate link. This strategy works well with software promotion. You can offer free installation of the software for your customers. Many vendors charge small fees for software installation. If you can offer this service, not only that you will save the customers' money, but also build solid relationship with them. Many prospects are non-techcie and will thank you for this. In addition to service, you can also offer to coach your customers. As mentioned you should know the product better than your customers. Offer emails or phone consultation.

3.Interview the experts and record it: It is easy to do with Skype and recorders. When marketers launch their products, they want exposure. Make a friendly call to them to arrange for interviews. Before that do your survey well and ask the appropriate questions. Make sure the interview contains some useful tips, not just hypes and sales pitch. You might also want to go as far as offering a transcript of the interview. Some of your prospects might be from other side of globe and have hard time understanding your slang. Create a transcript for them.

4.Conference calls: Organize a conference call for your customers to discuss on how to best use the products, give away useful tips, or you can offer live tutorial on how to get started with the product, just like strategy #1 that I mentioned just now. The difference is, instead of creating a guide, you give live presentation. Don't forget to record the calls and give away to customers who miss it.

5.Rebate: this is the easiest way to offer a "bonus". Ideally, you rebate half of your affiliate commission to your customers. Be careful while using this strategy as it is frowned upon by some affiliate network like Clickbank. However I've seen many Clickbank affiliates doing it without getting banned. Use the strategy at your own's risk.

7.Voucher/coupons: Offer vouchers or coupons to your customers. You can sometimes get vouchers/coupons at bargain price from eBay, or you can do a search from Google. Here's an example: If you sell Adwords related products, offer your customers Adwords coupon. There are some good bargains on Adwords coupon in Digitalpoint forum. In the past I've bought a coupon worth $100 with only $37.