Dear [CONTACT.NAME],
We've noticed that the most effective and highest converting links are often product links. This being said, we want to make it as easy as possible for you to get our products on your site. We've come up with a set of tools that will enable you to do this quickly and easily so that you can increase your sales immediately!

Our Product Push Kit Includes:

Free Merchandiser Datafeeds

Product Showcase Creator

Web Marketing Tips

These three tools should boost your sales as soon as you have them set up! Follow the links above to learn about each tool, or scroll down to review each section in order.

These tools are the result of YOUR feedback and requests!
Thanks to all of you who offer ideas on ABestWeb and to me directly via email and phone.

Andy Newlin
 Affiliate Marketing Supervisor
 www.SierraTradingPost.com
 anewlin@sierratradingpost.com
 307.775.8349

That's right, if you want to use our datafeed and are not currently Linkshare Merchandiser-enabled, send me an email and I'll have the $250 setup fee waived. Merchandiser is a tool that allows you to download our entire product feed pre-built with your encrypted affiliate ID on every link. We have seen tremendous success among affiliates who use this feed to push our products, and would like to see you do the same!

For Linkshare's explanation of the program, visit: http://www.linkshare.com/rc/merchandiser_aff.shtml

"Merchandiser facilitates the distribution and updating of individual product links for affiliates that require access to a complete and dynamic inventory of a merchant's products as part of their business model – shopping comparison, price comparison, and product search engine sites. Merchandiser allows you to integrate individual product links on your website without having to manually create links to each product that is carried by a merchant – an impossible task for affiliates that want to carry hundreds of thousand, even millions, products. "
© 2004 LinkShare Corporation

How do I get started?

1. Send me an email expressing your interest. (anewlin@sierratradingpost.com)
2. Fill out Linkshare's Request for Participation form. (http://www.linkshare.com/rc/affiliate_request.shtml)
3. Linkshare will contact you with instructions on how to download the feed.

Andy Newlin
 Affiliate Marketing Supervisor
 www.SierraTradingPost.com
 anewlin@sierratradingpost.com
 307.775.8349

...In seconds, literally. Take a look at the sample showcases I've created below - it took me less than a minute to create both of them, and you can do the same thing now!

Sierra Trading Post has become licensed by affSolutions for this tool so that you can use it for free and create as many product showcases as you wish! The Product Showcase Creator eliminates the need for hand-coding each individual product link on your site - simply tell it what you want and it gives it to you!

For affSolutions' explanation of the tool, visit: http://affsolutions.com/solutions/product_showcase_creator/product_showcase_creator.html

Example #1:
I want to add some skis to one page of my website. My page has room for a table that is 500 pixels wide, and I would like to display 9 pairs of skis.
How do I get what I need?

1. Go here: http://psc.afftools.com/sierra
2. Enter your Linkshare encrypted Affiliate ID.
   1. To get this, look at one of your existing Linkshare links, or create a new one, and look for something that looks like this in the code:
      http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=WE7wJezu2qQ&offerid=7097
   2. The highlighted text above is your encrypted affiliate ID.
3. Since I want to display skis on my site, I pull down the category box and select skis
4. I customize the settings box to indicate that I want to display 9 products.
5. I click on "Create Product Showcase," and the resulting page gives me the code to use and a product display!

KARHU MAUJA WAXABLE TOURING SKIS	KARHU TUVAK WAXABLE TOURING SKIS	FISCHER SKIS BIG STIX 75 SKIS
SALOMON SCREAM 10 PILOT S912 ALPINE SKIS	SALOMON SCREAM 8 PILOT S912 ALPINE SKIS	SALOMON CROSSMAX 9 ALL-MOUNTAIN ALPINE SKIS
SALOMON 9P S810 Ti CROSSMAX ALPINE SKIS	SALOMON X-SCREAM ALL-MOUNTAIN ALPINE SKIS	ROSSIGNOL ALPINE BANDIT SKIS

Here is a list of some of the ways we see as very effective web marketing tactics. These are just a few suggestions - the most successful affiliates find ways to get creative with tips like these and find the market that pays.

• Use product links
  • These links consistently show high conversion rates!
  • Use the tools in our toolkit to get these links, use our Linkbuilder feature in Linkshare to create links to any page you want, or use our pre-made product links already available to you in your Linkshare interface.
    
• Search Engine Optimization
  • Create sites that are easily crawled by search engine spiders.
  • Optimize the copy on your site for what people are searching for!
    • To find out what people are searching for, use tools like Wordtracker or Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool.
    • To search engines, "Content is King." Make sure your site has plenty of content that is related to the products you are trying to sell. Web pages that search engines see as "informational resources" rank much higher than pages that give no information on a topic.
  • Build your link popularity!
    • If you have a valuable resource on the web, tell other webmasters about it! Try to get them to link to your site, and offer a reciprocal link in exchange possibly. Remember, outgoing links, as well as incoming links, play an important role on how your site ranks; remember the airport analogy - "A web page is ranked like an airport, if it has no flights (links) arriving, it is not a very important airport, if it has no flights departing, it is not very important, if it has flights arriving and departing, then it is a valuable resource for people who are trying to get somewhere."
    • Get your site listed in major directories - these get crawled by spiders and contribute to your link popularity.
• Email newsletters
  • Does your website offer its members newsletters via email? If so, pop a Sierra Trading Post banner or text link in it!
  • Nowadays, all email lists must be opt-in, and members enjoy getting your newsletter. By placing our links in your newsletters, you might be adding value to your user's reading material.