One really good way to drive traffic to your website is by starting an affiliate program. However, many people start these programs, and then they’re disappointed by the results. Often times it seems like affiliates promote an offer once or twice, and then move onto another affiliate promotion. You get that surge of sales initially –especially during a product launch – but then everything goes quiet after that.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Check out these ideas for motivating affiliates and keeping them consistently promoting your offers…
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Train Affiliates
Not every affiliate who joins your program has the knowledge necessary to generate sales. That’s why you’ll want to add training to your affiliate center that’s aimed at beginners and specific to your affiliate offers. For example, you can train affiliates to set up lead pages, drive traffic to those pages, and then close the sale on your affiliate offers.
This training can take multiple forms, including:
- A course.
- A guide (ebook or report).
- A fixed-term membership site.
- A video (or a video series).
The key to good training is to be as specific as possible about what your affiliates should do and how to do it. For example, don’t just tell them to “start promoting an offer.” Instead, make a suggestion to them about which offer, specifically, to start promoting. Typically, this should be one of your highest-converting offers, because once affiliates make sales, they’ll be eager to keep promoting.
NOTE: If you can provide them with the tools needed to start promoting your offers, that’s even better.
Which brings us to the next point…
Stock the Affiliate Center
Whether your affiliate program is full of seasoned marketers or beginners, they’ll all benefit from using the sales materials you provide in your affiliate center. Here are the types of materials to create and distribute:
- A rebrandable report that affiliates can give away for free to their audience.
- Blog posts.
- Standalone emails.
- Email sequences.
- Videos.
- Social media blurbs.
- Short ads for pay per click platforms and similar.
- Graphics such as banners and other graphical ads.
You’ll also want to make sure yourself available for interviews with your affiliates. You can share some of your secrets and then promote the offer using your affiliate’s link. That way, you both make money whenever someone purchases something through the interview (which may be a text interview, audio interview, video interview, or even a live interview via a webinar).
Motivate Affiliates
Another good way to motivate affiliates is to send regular emails to them. These emails can include announcements about new products, sales and other promotions. The idea is to constantly give your affiliates something new to promote (a new product, a new sale, a new rebrandable report to distribute, etc.).
You can also use these emails to showcase successful affiliates in the form of a case study or even a motivational story. E.G., “John Doe had never made a penny promoting affiliate offers before. But today he’s making $3500 a month selling [Products/Brand Name]. Read on to find out how John does it, and how you can too!”
Distribute Coupons
Affiliates love promoting your offers using coupon codes, because a good coupon tends to boost the conversion rate. For best results, be sure to offer coupon codes with a quickly approaching expiration date. This might be a short-lived 12-hour flash sale, a three-day sale, or perhaps a one-week sale.
TIP: Be sure to give your affiliates an early heads up that you’ll be offering coupon codes so that they can plan their promotions well in advance.
Here’s another way to motivate affiliates…
Hold an Affiliate Contest
A good way to motivate affiliates to all promote at once is by holding an affiliate contest. For example, you might offer a five-day contest where the top five or so affiliates who make the most sales are rewarded with generous cash prizes.
TIP: Generally, affiliates who know they have no chance of winning the contest are unlikely to promote heavily during a contest. You can further boost sales by offering random-draw prizes that are available to anyone who makes at least one or two sales.
Want an even bigger surge of sales? Then offer an affiliate contest alongside a coupon promotion. This not only encourages your affiliates to promote like crazy, you’ll also see more sales simply because consumers are taking advantage of the discounts.
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Conclusion
The bottom line here is that you want to keep things fresh by sending updated content and specials (such as coupons) to your affiliates. Keep them motivated and promoting for you on a regular basis, and everyone will walk away happy with a pocketful of cash. J
Now let’s change gears and take a look at a key to creating profitable offers…
Keep Reading: How To Find Out What’s Selling Like Crazy In Your Niche (So That You Can Sell It Too)
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