Is An Affiliate Program Right For You?
A lot of us got started selling products for a commission. We were marketers who joined an affiliate program and promoted products. Once you start creating and selling your own products, you can be the vendor who is looking for affiliates.
The reason is simple. Even though you will be the one who is paying commissions, you will also be getting traffic without any effort on your part. Sure, you're paying by way of the commissions, but you don't pay if there are no sales.
An affiliate program is a great way to increase your sales and profits. You give up some of the sales price, but you don't have to pay for advertising. You are only paying for results.
And the best part is you are going to be able to build a customer list that you can use to sell other offers that you have.
An important point here is that you don't want to try to keep most of the money by offering a low commission. In the digital product world, it is easy to find items that pay around 50% commissions.
You want to attract affiliates that have the ability to drive a lot of traffic to your offer. It is likely that your affiliates have a mailing list. If you attract top affiliates, they may have a list of 5 to 10 thousand subscribers, meaning an avalanche of traffic and orders.
And remember that you don't pay until a sale is made. Be generous with the commission rate you offer to get the top affilates on board.
How To Set Up An Affiliate Program
Setting up an affiliate program doesn't have to be hard. There are sites that you can use to do all of the heavy lifting for you. They are set up for everything you need. Here are 3 sites that you can use:
These sites have affiliate programs built into their platform. You don’t have to invest in software and figure out to set everything up.
It's true that you have to pay a fee for the convenience, but it will save you a lot of headaches. For example, they will track affiliate sales for you, and handle the payout of the commissions. They provide the affiliates with their links.
Another huge advantage is that when you become a vendor and offer your product for sale, potential affiliates will be able to see your product, description, and commission rate. It makes it a lot easier to get new affiliates on board to promote for you.
At this time, Clickbank handles the payment for you. The other two require you to have a payment processor in place. For example PayPal or Stripe.
Getting Marketers For Your Affiliate Program
As I mentioned above, the advantage of these sites is that once you add the product, you will be listed so that everyone who is looking for a product to promote may come across your offer and decide to promote it.
Search for marketing forums and look for the ones where you can place an ad. For example, you can place an ad in the “Joint Venture” section of the WarriorForum.com (requesting affiliates).
Join a site like Muncheye.com. This site is one of the top ones when it comes to a listing of affiliate offers. This works really well if you have a launch date when your product will become available. It is a good site to get potential affiliates.
Let everyone you know about your affiliate program. Email your list, announce it on your social media accounts, and in forums. Add links and info to your blog posts and articles.
Another way to get affiliates is to seek out affiliate marketers and ask them.
You can look at related products that are selling on any of the sites I mentioned and take note of the sellers. You may find that some of these marketers are potential affiliates.
Use search engines and look for review sites that are related to your market. If someone took the time to publish a review, they are an affiliate marketer. Make a list of these sites and the contact information. These are excellent people to recruit for your affiliate program.
Once you have a list of potential affiliates, it's time to contact them. There are some things to consider first:
Try to get to know them first. If you just have a contact email address, and they don't have a social media presence, it can be difficult to to this. But if they have a blog or social media page, you can comment and participate for awhile.
Show that you are interested in what they are doing, and by being helpful, they will notice. This makes it easier to ask a question and interact with them.
Once you have put in the time and effort, you can present your affiliate program and your product and ask them if they would be interested in promoting for you. You'll get a better response if you let them get to know you first.
Offer exclusive perks. Let them know what commission you are offering other affiliates, and offer an exclusive bonus just for them. You could decide to offer a higher commission or a bonus if they reach a certain number of sales.
If you get good marketers into your affiliate program, and they appreciate how you treat them, you have an incredible asset.
These are the people who are going to be happy to promote your next offer, and the next, and the next,
At first this may seem like a lot of work. And it is. But it pays off in the long run, because with each promotion you are getting more affiliates into your affiliate program. You're building your list bigger and bigger.
Each time you release a new product, you'll have more affiliates, and a bigger list. Which equals more sales and profits for you.
All from your decision to start an affiliate program for your business.
Here’s a sample email you can tweak and send to prospective affiliates…
Final Thoughts
You want to make it as easy as possible for affiliates to make sales. And to do that, do what other vendors are doing:
Creating marketing materials that your affiliates can use for their promotions. Things like graphics of several sizes and designs that they can use on their sites and social media.
An email series that they can edit or use as is to help them get the sale.
A series of articles that they can use in blog posts on their sites that will help them promote your product.
And for your best affiliates, you could let them offer the people who buy from their link an exclusive bonus from you that they can't get anywhere else. This will increase sales and make it more likely that your affiliate will be around for your next product launch,
It's not really that hard to create an affiliate program for your business.The resources are there for you to use, and even though it does require time and effort, you will be rewarded for your hard work.
Go from zero content, zero ideas to being the hero of your family and friends by creating your own in-demand profitable info product ready to take orders in the next month! How is that even possible? Let Me Show You…
