Building Your Affiliate Marketing Program

Building Your Affiliate Marketing Program

Affiliate Marketing

Building Your Affiliate Marketing Program

Affiliate marketing isn’t a fast results type of program. A well-planned affiliate marketing program built today can pay off in spades tomorrow. But, remember – it’s a long-term plan, not a short-term overnight success type of situation. So, get started on the right foot so that you can do it right.

Set Up Your Website Right
You don’t want to have a terrible website with ineffective sales pages if you want affiliates to take an interest in your offerings. Ensure that your about us, privacy policy, return and shipping policy (if dealing with physical products) and contact information are clear for all to see.

Don’t Link Away from Your Site
When it comes to promoting a product, the page should promote that product and nothing else. You don’t want to lead people away from your website when they’re coming there to learn about a specific product or service. Take away anything that links them away. Your affiliates will appreciate it.

Clear Contact Information
If someone has a question that they need answered, you want clear contact information so that they can contact you easily. You can also use a service that provides a chat with people to help them make purchasing decisions. Whatever you decide, make it easy for people to ask questions and get answers.

Product Pages That Convert
It’s imperative that you have a clear call to action, great images, good descriptions and benefits of the product on the page. If your product pages don’t convert, then affiliates won’t want to touch the product.

Converting Marketing Collateral
Affiliates need copy, images, text and more to promote your products and services. They’re not going to create it for you. If you want them to send out emails to their list, create an email that they can edit and make their own. Do the same with all the marketing materials you offer them to ensure that they promote your offerings.

A Fair Commission
Affiliates are like sales people who get paid only when they make a sale. If you want them to do a lot to make that sale, then they’ll need a fair percentage of sales to make it worth their time. If you don’t offer at least 50 percent, you are unlikely to attract high-level affiliate marketers to your program.

Offer Incentives to Affiliates
In addition to a fair commission, you can also offer prizes to top sellers so that they work harder to promote your offerings. People like competition and if you give it to them and let them win prizes such as additional money or a physical prize, they’ll want to win.

A Fabulous Product
Of course, if you want to attract affiliates, you need a product that is everything you say it is and more. You want your affiliates to be excited to promote the product because it does what the sales page says it will do.

Having affiliates to promote your products and services is like having a legion of fans screaming your name. They’ll blog about you, promote you, and be excited about it – because if you are offering a great product or service, they know that it makes them look good. After all, their job is to promote things to their audience that solves their problems. Your product could be the answer.

Different Ways to Find Affiliates

Different Ways to Find Affiliates

Affiliate Marketing

Finding affiliates is the next thing you need to do after you create an affiliate program. You aren’t going to get affiliates without telling people about your affiliate program. There are numerous ways that you can do that, but here are a few ways that you might try to find affiliates for your products and services.

Link to Your Affiliate Program Right on the Product Website
Don’t hide your affiliate program. Even if you want only buyers to be part of it, use it as another sales page. Link to the affiliate program and then require a purchase to be able to earn commissions.

Host a Google Hangout to Recruit Affiliates
Google Hangouts are awesome to promote products, but they can also be used to promote your affiliate program. You can attract people who want to earn money within your niche to the hangout, and offer attendees an extra incentive to join and make their first sale.

Create Awesome Products
Nothing can beat an awesome product. It’s true – if you create products that people love and talk about, you’ll naturally attract super affiliates as long as you have a good program. The product can speak for itself on many levels.

Deliver Excellent Customer Service
Another added incentive to get people to join your affiliate program is your customer service program. Affiliates don’t want to have to worry about returns and problems associated with promoting your product. Be sure that you have implemented an effective customer service program.

Develop Effective Sales Collateral
Don’t make an affiliate work too hard, or they won’t want to be part of your program. Offer graphics, text content, images, samples and more for your affiliates to use. Offer to have a webinar for super affiliates or any affiliate who sells more than a certain number of items. The more you can help your affiliates, the more sales they’ll make.

Give Bonuses/Gifts after Their First Sale
If you really want to attract serious affiliates, offer them a bonus for their first sale and then progressively better bonuses for their 10th, 50th and 100th sales and so forth. These bonuses or gifts will not only attract more affiliates, but it will also make the ones you have work harder to earn the benefits.

Run a Make Money PPC Campaign
You can also use pay-per-click campaigns to attract affiliates. Make the ads directed at people who want to earn a living from home as an affiliate, and also run them directed at experienced affiliates.

Go To and Participate in Live Affiliate Events
There are several affiliate events each year that you can attend when you run your own affiliate program. Find them, volunteer to help, offer to host a course, or speak, and get involved so that you will be seen as an authority.

Offer Lucrative Commission Rates
Good affiliates aren’t going to waste their time with poor products or low commission rates. Keep in mind that you can afford to give higher commissions when you are promoting digital products. Even if you only make 10 percent yourself, that’s still a lot of money for no extra work.

Offer Buyers the Opportunity
A really great way to get affiliates is to offer the opportunity to promote and refer your products to the people who have purchased the product. They’re the ones who will know the most about the product since they are really using it. They likely know people who will want to buy it, too.

If you want to have a successful affiliate program, these tips will help you accomplish that. Every aspect of your affiliate program, from the product to the execution of the program, matters when it comes to attracting affiliates to your program.