This is how Social Proof Made Me over $3000 in 3 days

Hey Viet,

I hope all is well with you!

I've got something really cool to share with you in this email. I wanted to write a blog post about it, but I decided to keep it exclusive to you and others who are subscribed to my newsletter.

In one of my income report a while back, something I did at the end of the report helped me earn over $3000 during the following 3 days.

The cool thing is that I didn't sell or tell people to purchase anything.

So how did I make $3000?

I'll tell you, but I first have to credit my buddy Mark Mason from http://www.masonworld.com for showing me the way. I had heard about this technique before, but it was on Mark's blog where I actually saw it take place. If you're not following Mark already, I definitely recommend that you do - he knows his stuff, and is one of the nicest guys I know.

Anyways, let me break it down for you in steps:
Find a product that you'd like to promote as an affiliate, preferably one that you've used before, are familiar with and are confident in your recommendation to others (that's my rule for anything I promote).
Contact the creator or owner of that product, and try to get at least 1 free copy that you can give away to your audience. If you can't make that happen, buy some additional copies of your own to give away.
On your site (blogs work best, you'll see why), hold a contest to win those free copies of the product. To enter the contest, people have to leave a public comment about how that product would help them, and what they would do with it.  Make sure those comments are where other people can see them - this is why blogs work best, since they already have a visual commenting structure.
The links to that product that you tell people to view before they leave a comment should be your affiliate link for that product.
Why This Works:

This works because:
People love to get free stuff, so you'll get more people in front of that product (through your affiliate link), because of your contest.
When people leave their comments (there were almost 300 comments on that post), everyone else sees what everyone is saying about that product. That's promotional material - not from you but from other people, which is much more powerful. That's social proof at it's finest right there.
You're not directly promoting anything, and you're not seen as someone just trying to earn a buck. Everybody is a winner!
If the product is good, and has a good landing page (like Instant Article Factory did for me), then it will practically sell itself.

If you can contact the owner like I did, have him or her setup a special price just for you for a certain number of days, then you can increase your affiliate sales even more.

I never once told people they should buy Instant Article Factory, they made that decision on their own based on everyone else's recommendation and praise about the product.

It works.

I hope you enjoyed that cool marketing tip! Here's to you and your success. Cheers!

-Pat