Monday Sales Call: Call to Action with Permission

I was out of the office last Monday on vacation and I forgot to post. 30 straight weeks of blogging on Mondays came to an end. My quest in becoming the Cal Ripken Jr. of bloggers is over.I went to Dallas for the Memorial Day holiday to visit my father and see some old friends. I had the opportunity to meet Randy Ray at his book store just outside of Dallas. If you don’t know who Randy Ray is and you are an online gaming affiliate, I suggest checking out his blog. Randy is what I like to call a Guru. He is a master of his domain: SEO. I had a great time chatting with Randy about gaming, his new book store, and easy living down in Texas.In my last post, I talked about Permission and Call to Action Marketing and finding the perfect combination for a website. There isn’t a standard formula for the perfect blend of these two marketing styles because affiliates market different products to different audiences. I spend the majority of my day working with rakeback affiliates and I also dabble in the no-deposit bankroll biz (YourPokerCash.com). However, I have recently been doing field research on traditional gaming sites. The target audience is quite different than rakeback. Since the player type is different, the strategies behind converting a player will need to be altered.”Traditional” affiliates like Randy Ray have made a great living as CPA affiliates. Randy does well because he can drive traffic via SEO as well as anyone in the industry. Driving massive amounts of “quality” traffic is important but converting said traffic is just as important. Converting players who are new to a room or poker in general involves more call to action than say an experienced rakeback player. They are pretty much sold on online poker and just need a push in the right direction as to where to deposit and play.Refrain from posting high level poker strategy on a site that markets to the new poker player. They have no clue what VPIP and pot equity mean. You will scare them off! Tell them about Phil Ivey’s latest tournament on TV or which poker room is the easiest to deposit on.Marketing to a rakeback player involves a lot of trust. Players want to know they are going to get paid every month (if they play at a non auto pay room) and that their affiliate will be operating a year from now. They want references from other players and often post on forums asking if a particular rakeback affiliate is reputable. The trust level between player and affiliate starts from the first time a visitor browses a site. If a player sees a bonus offer at FTP on a Rakeback site it may throw up a red flag. “Why isn’t this guy giving me the best deal at FTP and he is at Cake”, the player might say. And bam, you lose a potential client.Don’t scare of potential clients by violating their permission levels. Don’t send rakeback players newsletters three times a week. A player who rakes $1500 a month for you could care less about the $200 freeroll at “Random Poker Room on Random Network whose player base is >200”. Do not invade his inbox. You will lose permission to pitch him down the road.Know your product and know your audience. Give before you get and mold their impression of you. Put yourself in their shoes. Think like a 20 year old college student who just saw poker on ESPN for the first time. What annoys you about websites you visit during the day? “God I hate half page peels but I think poker players will like them!” Are you doing the same thing in your own industry?On another note, Spring is finally here in Minnesota. After months of little sunlight and frozen fingers, I had my yearly “This is why I love MN!” moment over the weekend. 70 degrees and sunny is something I was unaccustomed to living in Texas. It’s nice to hang out outside and not have to take a shower every 3 hours :)Tony