How Affiliates and Home Business Owners Can Profit From the Day After Christmas Rush

How to Increase your Affiliate Income!

The holidays, as many affiliates already know, are one of the busiest times of the year for online shopping. Each year more consumers are taking to their computers and mobile phones to look for unique gifts and deals to buy for family and friends. However, more affiliates can benefit from taking advantage of affiliate programs that target one crucial part of the shopping season. The day after

Christmas

is just as popular as pre-Christmas shopping.

Just as you would prepare your virtual mall, coupon site, and PPC and SEO campaigns for the holiday rush, you can also prepare for day after Christmas. ComScore reported that in 2006 “the day after Christmas saw online sales of $545 million, more than double the sales on the same day” of the previous year. While these statistics are a few years old, you can imagine how this compares to the potential number of consumers who in 2011 will be actively seeking gifts and deals after Christmas has passed. If you want to find a way to earn more this December, here are five methods that can potentially help you profit from this time of year.

1. Be a Planner, Not a Procrastinator

I am sure that any other affiliate marketer will agree with me when I recommend that affiliates plan and negotiate promotions for offers before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Why? Well, because merchants, affiliates and affiliate managers are all very busy. By setting up your day after Christmas promotions in advance, you can simply plug-in your special offers before you get ready to eat your turkey and mashed potatoes. However, if you haven’t done this yet, make sure you get your promotions prepared right away. It helps if you have a schedule to determine exactly what promotions will go live on specific days.

2. Target International Consumers

In Canada, the day after Christmas is commonly known as Boxing Day. The 26^th of December and following days before New Year’s Day generate millions of dollars for retailers north of the border. Canada is not the only country that observes Boxing Day; other countries like the United Kingdom and Australia also consider December 26^th a public holiday with online shopping sales soaring into the millions in those countries. If you really want to distinguish your offers from other affiliates, it helps to go where your business could be most valuable. The Canadian economy was not hit as hard during the credit crisis; therefore, Canadians have a bit more cash in their pockets to spend than Americans. Working with merchants that offer free shipping to Canada and other countries, as well as discounts on large orders can only help you perform better in international markets.

3. Get Creative with Coupon Codes

Ask any blogger, journalist or publicist and they will tell you how crucial a headline is to attract the attention of a reader. The same can be said of promo and coupon codes. Instead of having boring content citing “The Day After Christmas Sale”, try something like “Best Gifts Ever After Christmas”, or “Save Money On These Top 10 Boxing Day Gifts”.

Also promo codes such as XMAS are not that creative. You can try to negotiate more unique codes with an affiliate manager like 75AFTERXMAS or 25OFFBOXING to make your offers more unique than the thousands of other affiliates out there looking to generate sales. Moreover, co-branded coupons or day after Christmas promo codes should be confirmed two weeks in advance so you have enough time to make those live before December 25^th and allow consumers to get familiar with your offers.

4. Make an Excellent First Impression

If you are already swamped with trying to place offers on your website, then you are better off optimizing and promoting a landing page that will showcase your day after Christmas offers. Having a specific landing page to make it simple for consumers to find products can only work in your favor. Furthermore, try placing keywords in your URL. A landing page with “/special-day-after-christmas-sale” in the URL will perform much better than a landing page with random alpha-numeric variables in the link.

5. Make Special Deliveries

Online shopping can be summed up in one simple word: Convenient. Affiliates should make it convenient for shoppers to find day after Christmas offers. Not enough space on a landing page to place all your special items? Try delivering the offers directly to your visitors’ inbox. And to help you gather more emails on your mailing list, why not try putting a subscription field on your home page or aligned with strong call to action specifically tailored to receiving day after Christmas notifications? Remember, you are fortunate enough to receive the attention of an online shopper when they land on your website. Make sure you retain them and increase your conversions.

Above all Else, Smile, be cheerful and be careful...A new year is upon us that will be very prosperous.  Use this information wisely it will greatly effect your bottomline :-)

Happy Marketing,
John Pate

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P.P.S. Have you read my all time favorite blog post, combined with this knowledge you will be unstoppable :-) take a read here: The Greatest Lesson I ever learned about Internet Marketing