Simple Email Marketing for Poker Affiliates

February 25, 2008

Simple Technique using Email Marketing

Poker Affiliate Email Marketing Tips This article is designed primarily for poker affiliates who are operating poker leagues and are looking for an easy way to pad their bottom line and help fund the growth costs of a live poker league. We developed a super simple technique that worked when we started years ago and still works today, and I’d like to share it with my fellow poker league operators.

This is a simple and effective method that makes few extra hundred per month without too much time invested. The Technique – The Friday Night Online Invite

When we were just starting our poker league, back in April of 2004, we needed capital and we needed it fast. We soon found out that starting and operating a poker league was a ‘wee tad’ more expensive than we thought… and we needed some money and we needed it FAST

We started looking around for ways to make some extra cash from our poker league and we found something called poker affiliate programs.

How Affiliate Programs Work

Affiliate programs pay you a commission if you refer a person to their website and they buy something. That’s the short answer, some programs work differently but for what we are talking about, this is what we mean.

And the commissions are pretty good, too. Over $100 per sale.

And the coolest thing is, with the product I’m going to show you, you aren’t even really selling anything, either! Just getting poker players to do something that they probably already want to do, which is play poker.

So, as I looked closer I found that if we told the people that we played poker with to play with us online at a poker site, that poker site would pay us a hefty commission for every single person we sent them.

The best part is that we didn’t really have to ’sell’ anything, just refer someone to an online poker room and we make over a $100 commission. If we could get 6 people that’s $600 bucks, which bought a lot of playing cards and poker chips to help fund the startup of the league!

We Needed a simple poker affiliate marketing plan

So, while the commission potential is awesome we soon found out there was a lot to put in place to make referring people on a regular basis an easy task.

Here is the email technique that we use that works.

This is a simple and effective method that makes few extra hundred per month without too much time invested.
The Technique – The Friday Night Online Invite Email
The short answer is to invite your friends to join you in an online poker tournament this Friday.

Say:
“Hey Joe, I’m getting a group of guys together to play a small tournament together online this Friday. We’re playing at Full Tilt Poker… do you want to play? ”

Joe says
“Hmm, that sounds fun but I don’t play at Full Tilt, how does it work, how much is it?”

Say:
“We’re keeping it small, just a five dollar private tournament. All you have to do is to set up your account at Full Tilt Poker which takes like 10 minutes… it’s easy. Give me your email address and I’ll email you the invite, reminder and password. It’s a private tourney with me, you, Bill, Tom, Bob, etc…”

Joe says:
“Sounds good, my email is xxxxxxxxxx”

I say “Alright, well if you are itching to get set up tonight, just download full tilt poker and when you sign up use referral code ATLANTA so you can play with us on Friday… I’ll also email you the reminder and password when I get home.”

Joe says:
“Cool”

Here’s what happens next:
I have a pre-written simple email that I send to Joe. This email is very short and to the point, when I get home I send it and it takes less than 20 seconds.

The Personalized Email:

Joe, looking forward to seeing you online this Friday! You’ll want to set your account up earlier in the day and familiarize yourself with the software before the game, but it’s simple to set up and easy to use.

Click Here To Find Our Group. Don’t be late

To find our tournament, click on Tournaments>Private>Bulldogs Poker Club

Password is: 123456

See ya there, and give me a call if you have any questions on setting up your account or anything. Oh, if you use bonus code: BULLDOGS you’ll get a 100% match on your deposit.

Looking forward to it!

Jason
Bulldog Poker Club
555-555-5555

That’s it, that’s the technique and it works VERY well.

If that example didn’t get your wheels turning then I don’t know what will.

Now, this sounds easy enough but if you want to know the essential ingredients to make this work, then keep reading.There are a few key elements that you MUST use to make sure it works properly though… and I’ll describe those essential ingredients here.

Plus I’ll show you how to get $125 Commission instead of the $75 commission from FullTiltPoker and other online poker rooms, too.

Essential Keys to Successful Email Referrals

Here are the essential ingredients to the above things to do to make sure you get proper credit for the referral and how to get an INSTANT RAISE even if you are brand new to this poker affiliate idea.

Key Element 1 – The Referral Code

Any player who uses your unique referral code is tracked to you and you will get a commission from this player when they meet the requirements at the online poker room. Most poker rooms offer this option and in the above example, anyone who used BULLDOGS would be tracked to us. If they were to use your referral code, they would be tracked to you.

The referral code lets you ‘track players’ without any website skills at all. It is hands down one of the best ways to have players through a live poker league track to you. Using the referral code with the follow up email works like a charm if you do it right.

The biggest piece of advice I have for your referral code is to make it unique and non confusing whenever possible. We used BULLDOG as our code because our poker league plays poker in Bulldog Country, near Athens Georgia which is home of the University of Georgia.

Don’t use a confusing code like 0OHFUNN3Y or something where someone might need to type a ‘o’ but types an 0 or something similar.

You can get this bonus code after you have signed up for the affiliate program.

Key Element 2 – Special FullTiltPoker.com link in email

To get your tracking link, you have to sign up to the Full Tilt Poker affiliate program and request a tracking link. This is easy if you utilize the PAW network to sign up.

Anyone who clicks that link and goes to FullTiltPoker.com will be automatically tracked to us, regardless of if they use our referral code.

Your entire link will look something like this:

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/?key=MDAwMDM5QjYwMDAwQTAzMTAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDA-

I don’t know about you, but if someone sent me a link that looked like that in an email, I wouldn’t click it… would you?

Don’t cut and paste that entire link in the email text. Instead just type the word fulltiltpoker.com in your email and ‘insert a hyperlink’. Insert in the long affiliate link so whenever they click the word “fulltiltpoker.com” in the email then you will get credit as sending that player.

That’s it…

Why I like this Email Marketing Method

Non Intrusive – The people aren’t buying anything from me, but instead just trying out a poker room because of me.
This also means no inventory to stock and related expenses.
The players get a great bonus plus entries into special freerolls (if you use the paw network)
$125 commissions per qualifying player (currently, always check current commission rates)
No website needed – nice and easy and you can use my email template above it you want, just change out your affiliate link. It works.
Everyone already knows fulltiltpoker – but many do not yet play there.
Simple to set up private tournaments

It is an easy way to make a few extra hundred bucks without a lot of time effort, or internet knowledge. You don’t have to have a top ranking poker site to send players to online poker rooms.

Key Element 3 – Choosing the Best Network to Affiliate With
I promised I would also show you a way to get an instant raise, and this is it. .

Here are the current commission rates offered at the top online poker rooms.

Utilize the power of the PAW Network where you can pick from the top poker rooms online, managed in one easy interface and for more money… it is a “no brainer” for all new affiliates and most established affiliates as well.

*It’s easy to set up private tournaments, just email support at the poker room you want to play at.

Hope you enjoyed the technique. Bookmark this site and stay in touch with all of our latest posts.

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