Attracting Affiliates And Helping Them Sell Your Site

No doubt about it, how you promote your affiliate program and who you get to sell your site is the key to your program’s success.

So who makes a good affiliate marketer? Who do you want selling your website?

There is no one better than your own members. Who knows your website better? Who knows the ins and outs and the total benefit of membership? Okay, so your own members are a great place to start but who else?

How about?

Business owners with related but not competitive businesses.

Join affiliate marketing or related forums.

Promote your membership and affiliate program through article marketing.

Seek joint venture partners and contact them individually.

Get current affiliates to recruit new ones by offering a two tier affiliate recruitment incentive.

Here’s what to expect from a great affiliate partner:

Affiliate marketing partners use affiliate programs to make additional revenue from their websites, and each site will likely feature a number of affiliate programs. They use the basic tools you provide for them, but may not put a lot of work into promoting your product.

Super affiliates build a website around your affiliate program and really promote your product. They use all the marketing material you provide them to pre-sell your membership site to their customers before they follow the link to your site. They may even have a customer list to promote your product to. Using this type of affiliate results in more sales, but may also require paying them a higher commission.

JV partners provide targeted marketing to their own customer list. You may work with your JV partner to come up with specific offers that will appeal to their particular audience. This customized marketing results in a higher conversion rate often requiring a higher commission.

What tools do you need to provide for your affiliates to succeed beyond your wildest dreams?

A link back to your site and some form of advertising such as banner or side bar.

Detailed information about your product, including selling points, what makes it different from other products, and its value.

Ad copy, free reprint articles, email promos, free brandable reports (which affiliates will brand with their own link), and even a free ebook.

The more tools you give your affiliates the better. Stay in touch with your affiliates and give them tips on how they can improve their sales conversions.

How to keep your affiliates selling and selling and selling…

Let’s face it, interest wanes. The initial enthusiasm an affiliate may feel about promoting your product is likely to decline as they find new affiliate programs to join and new exciting products to sell. They may not want to keep on repetitively pushing your membership site to their customers and so their sales performance will inevitably drop.

One way to keep your affiliates selling is to regularly send them new material. Different advertisements, articles to reprint, and new graphics will all add valuable content to an affiliate’s website, or give them a reason to promote your product again in their newsletters.

Another way to motivate your affiliates is to:

Run contests.

Pay them well.

Provide them with an abundance of marketing and promotional material.

Get them involved in the community.