Having created and marketed dozens of information and software products ranging from $17 up to more than $10,000, and having put together an affiliate network of over 1,000 affiliates including some of the biggest names online today – we’ve been able to understand well the things that affiliates look for in a product.
By far the fastest way to grow your business into something really big and powerful is to recruit an army of active affiliates that not only promote your product once, but are willing to place it into an ongoing promotion system where they provide you with ongoing referrals.
But, when you are just starting out as a new product developer, without a big following or big name behind your product or service, how do you improve your chances that affiliates will find and then promote your products?
5 Killer “Get Active Affiliates” Tips
1. Is it relevant to their subscribers? When you first start out you want to actively contact and promote your affiliate program to top affiliates… but most people waste their time because they take an unfocused, “shotgun” approach to finding affiliates. Instead, you want a “laster-focused” method of finding affiliates that are most likely to target customers that want your product and services. Now, this means you need to get a basic understanding of your affiliate prospect’s business…what is their value proposition and who are their customers likely to be. A great way of locating affiliates is to find a top selling product in your marketspace and then perform Google searches to see who is promoting them…now you can go and approach them about your product as well.
2. Want to know the product is solid. I promote a small handful of affiliate programs each year to my loyal subscriber list…before I consider promoting anything I need to see and ideally use the product I will be promoting. At this stage I turn down about 90% of the opportunities I have for promoting products because they are either junk or miss the mark for what I know my subscribers want. When I am talking with a potential affiliate I make it a point to have them review my products first…that way I know if they are blown away by the product, they will be far more effective when they agree to promote it.
3. Sales letter must be good and convert. About 75% of assessing a sales letter is just “gut feel” and 25% is obtaining some proof from your affiliates. Here’s the bottom line…if you haven’t figured out how to convert visitors into customers at a rate of at least .75% (1 customer per ~130 unique visitors) then do everyone a favor and work on your sales letter first…don’t ruin potential joint venture and affiliate reletionships by having them send traffic to a sales page that does not work or to a product that does not sell…TIP** Use systems and techniques available within Information Marketing Zone to improve the positioning and marketing of your information products and services.Â
4. Commitment to your affiliate program. Is your affiliate recruitment process professional and thorough? Do you have a credible and easy-to-use affiliate tracking system (I have dropped promotions for this reason alone in the past)? Do you have some example affiliate tools to get your affiliates started with promotion? Do you have an effective email foll0w-up campaign that will convert more customers over time? Do you offer multiple products and services under the same “cookie” so that when I send traffic to your site I may get more sales over time? Do you communicate with your affiliates regularly? A well run affiliate program incorporates all of these and will lead to far more success than a one-time promotion of an affiliate link.
5. Your commission structure. Notice the level of commission and amount of commission is placed 5th…two important points here. Number 1 you need to get your product pricing (or upsell, cross-sell potential) to a point where commissions are at least worth the promotion effort…somewhere around a 50% commission on a $37 product is pretty much the baseline. If you are giving away 25% on a $47 product or 50% of a $17 report that will not attract serious affiliates unless there is a proven upsell where they can make more down the road. Another attractive aspect of commissions and payout is commissions that recur with ongoing billing for things like paid newsletters, membership sites, product of the month programs, etc… That way, your affiliates may only make $15/month, but over 12 payments that can really begin to add up.Â
Other ways you can ramp up your affiliate program is to make contacts within your industry using live events, personal email contact, social networking sites like Twitter or even buying a product or service from them – customers are hard to ignore 🙂
Believe me, the rewards of securing some active affiliates who will continually promote your products for you is well worth the extra effort of setting up your affiliate program properly and approaching the right affiliate partners in the right way.
