Whether you create digital products, provide a service, or have a physical product, it’s very important to start an affiliate program today. An affiliate program essentially is like having a sales force working for you that you only pay if they are successful in making sales. It’s really a no brainer. But if you really want to be successful, you want to find dedicated and serious affiliates to add to your program.
Choose Your Affiliate Technology
There is a lot of different technology you can use today to run your affiliate program. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel and hire a programmer today. A few options to use are Amember.com, Kajabi.com, Kartra.com, Infusionsoft.com, and others all can have an affiliate program. There are also plugins for WordPress and many shopping cart programs that include an affiliate program.
Set Up Your Program
Once you choose the software you want to use, then you can set up your program. Ideally, you’ll want to offer the highest commission percentage possible that allows you to still make a profit. The going rate is normally 50 to 80 percent for digital products, 10 to 50 percent for services, and 2 to 20 percent for physical products. However, you need to do the math for yourself, so you ensure that each sale, after payments, constitutes a profit.
Locate Potential Affiliates
You will find potential affiliates by looking for movers and shakers in your niche. For example, a popular blogger who regularly speaks to your audience demographics will make an excellent affiliate for your products or services. Follow them, join their email lists, comment on their posts on social media. Get to know them, then contact them to find out if they’d be interested in seeing your product to find out if it’s good for their audience.
Build Relationships
You must remember that it’s very important to build relationships with the people you want to promote you and your products. The better the relationship, the less you have to work on trust. If they feel they know you, they’re going to want to promote your product because they aren’t worried about any risk.
Incentivize Them
Your commission rate is one way to incentivize affiliates. If you start at 50 percent, but you know that the person is a super affiliate (one that may bring in six figures a year in affiliate sales) with a large audience that wants what you offer, you may want to boost that commission up to 80 percent for them. Plus, you also want to offer lots of marketing collateral for them to use. The main thing is, make it so easy they can’t say no. It’s almost like free money to them if you set it up right.
Once your program is set up, you’re ready to start promoting it. Remember, the more marketing collateral you offer your affiliates, and the more you make it “cut and paste easy” the more likely they are to start sending out emails to help you make more sales. Not having an affiliate program today is a huge mistake, especially if your products are digital. After all, ultimately, it’s not really going to cost you anything to do it, it’s going to be a huge profit center for you.
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