Affiliate Marketing for Dummies
How To Recruit Affiliates to Promote Your Product
Affiliate marketing software simplifies and amplifies word of mouth for your product. Building a tribe of affiliates allows you to tap into their traffic, their sources and their customers. They wouldn’t be an affiliate if they didn’t believe in your product. They know promoting a product affects their reputation. And they’re not going to risk the rep on a so-so product.
Often, affiliates are customers first. And you know that nothing beats a referral from a customer. When customers tell their friends and colleagues about your product, they’re most likely going to look into it because they trust the person telling them about it.
Remember, it’s affiliate marketing for dummies. First things first before you promote that affiliate management program, you want to provide prospective affiliates with the information they need.
Make It Easy to Learn About Your Affiliate Management Program
Start by reviewing your web page. Does it explain the program in simple terms and answer common questions? An affiliate management program can be complex or it can be easy. It largely depends on the affiliate marketing software. One that’s “stupid simple” can still fail to attract prospects when the web page says little or doesn’t explain what’s in it for them.
Use these questions to guide you in creating your affiliate 411 web page:
- What’s in it for an affiliate?
- How long does it take for an affiliate to get approved? (Instant is best, of course!)
- What does it take to set it up?
- How much does an affiliate earn per sale?
- How does an affiliate get paid? How often?
- How well does the product convert?
- What affiliate tools do you provide? (Affiliate dashboard? Link creator? Social media content sharing? Copy they can use?)
- How to sign up? (Keep it simple!)
Capture questions from prospects and answer them on the page. Or start a FAQ on everything related to affiliate management works. Go the extra mile by providing creative (logos, graphics, etc.), ideas and tips. Now that you have a source to do the talking for your affiliate management program, you can start recruiting.
Start with Your Customers
One of the best ways to tap into your customers is to automatically send an email to become an affiliate as soon as they buy from you. When customers purchase something from your store, the affiliate software marketing platform sends an email describing the referral program and invites them to join with a simple click. Your customers can immediately refer the product they just bought and earn money.
At that point, the customer is happy with your product and more receptive to promoting it especially when there’s money in it for them. If you choose affiliate marketing software that comes with an automated affiliate emails feature, you won’t have to deal with the time-consuming, tedious task of emailing people one at a time. (Yes, even if you’re a copy / paste master.)
Look for businesses who can sell your product to its own customers. For example, a company that sells time tracking software works with companies in a variety of industries. Many of its customers include law firms. Because of this, a law management software company learned about the time tracking product and became a customer and affiliate.
Connect with Writers and Influencers
Prospective customers and affiliates tend to listen to influencers and objective writers or bloggers. Since you sell your product for a fee, the best way to catch their attention is to offer a complimentary copy of your product with no expectation of anything in return.
When you contact the writer, ask the writer to follow up if interested in trying your product. If you send the product to the writer, you have no way of knowing if the writer received or deleted your message. You’re left hanging for an unknown amount of time.
Better yet, charm a writer by reading up on his or her work before touching base. Journalists receive many generic emails and calls from people who have never looked at their articles or websites except to look up contact information. Show them you did your homework. You could reference the writer’s work, but only it sounds genuine.
As you write the email, think of what’s in it for the writer. How is looking into your product going to make the writer look good with editors and readers? Is it part of a trend? Will it save time? Does it speed processes?
Hit the Public Circuit
Two other places you can promote your affiliate management program are forums and affiliate marketing directories. Be sure to read the rules before posting anything. This ensures you post the right information in the right place.
Here are some popular forums:
- 5StarAffiliate Programs: More than 18,000 members and 100,000 posts.
- ABestWeb: More than 100,000 members and conversations.
- Affilorama: More than 200,000 users and 90,000 articles.
- WickedFire: Almost 180,000 members and more than 2 million posts.
- A quick search yields many affiliate directories out there. Some free. Some fee.
Here are affiliate directories to get you started:
- AffiliatePrograms
- AssociatePrograms
- Top-Affiliate
If you have an email newsletter or blog, mention your affiliate program with a clear, can’t-miss call to action (CTA). It’s easy to fall in the trap of having too many CTAs in a message. Stick with one CTA: Learn more about our affiliate management program.
Avoid adding other CTAs even if it’s for something unrelated to your program. Too many CTAs may lead to indecision. If your audience consists of hotter leads deeper in the pipeline, then create a “Sign me up” CTA. You can include your affiliate management program in brochures, promote it at conferences and mention it in social media.
Whether you are new to affiliate marketing or have been trying to conquer this realm for quite a long time, here is your ultimate guide to do it right. Learn how to recruit affiliates and how to promote affiliate program through our affiliate marketing platform. Avoid mistakes to prevent risk, and follow the guidelines that will expedite your journey towards success.
