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Chapter 13 - How to Use Affiliate Programs

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You can sign up to be an affiliate of my company and sell this book online. You can also sell my online training courses if you want. As a vendor I use an associate or affiliate program so more people find out about my products and services. Affiliates sign up for my program because they have customers who need what I sell. Affiliate software binds this arrangement together because it tracks what is sold and where the buyer came from. If the buyer is directed to my websites by an affiliate and purchases something online, the affiliate automatically receives a commission. (I pay a 40% commission on all sales)

An affiliate program is sometimes called an associate program: They were pioneered by such companies as Amazon.com and Ebay. The seller processes all orders, handles shipment and collections and provides a commission to the referring website owner. The affiliate or associate promotes the seller s business through banners and or text links at their site and through advertising via e-zines and other channels.

So you want to start a virtual sales team like Amazon.com and eBay? Should you use affiliates?

No, if work and money are put into establishing an affiliate program that is going to be ignored. An affiliate program requires a consistent effort and some resources. Yes, if you take the time to design it and work at it. Whatever you decide, make sure that YOU can sell your product online before you ask someone else to do it too.

Done correctly, affiliate programs create an army of virtual salespeople and big sales in a short period of time. Like any sales team, you will have affiliates who are serious and those who are not.

A quality affiliate is someone who is serious about building their business with your products and their traffic. It is not free traffic for you; it is a professional business person who you should treat as a partner.

Key Point!
You Can Create A Virtual Sales
Team Quickly With the Right
Affiliate Program!

So which type of affiliate program is right for your site?

First off, make sure that if you start an affiliate program or enter one you choose a program that complements your site and appeals to the market that would visit your pages.

After deciding on the type of programs you wish to offer consider the following before signing up for a specific program:

How are you going to explain the program clearly to the seller/affiliate? What are all of the terms and conditions you need in place before someone signs up?

Are the commission rate and the commission payment process acceptable? They have to make sense to you and the affiliate financially. Ensure that an adequate commission percentage is offered and if there is a minimum payment amount that it is achievable. Some programs only pay out commissions when a minimum amount is reached. This may mean months could pass before you receive a check.

How are you being notified when a sale is made? How integrated are the payment processing and affiliate tracking system? Are you notified of new sales and are online statistics available? Most successful programs will e-mail you upon a new sale or application. This is very important for tracking your progress within the program. Online statistics allow instant access to your stats and help you to gauge advertising efforts in real time.

Are you prepared to provide the sales collateral and support materials? Do you provide a turn key system that a serious affiliate can plug their traffic into or are you expecting them to just sell for you?

Is an Associate Program right for you?

The answer to this valid question is totally dependent upon a variety of factors including:

Traffic at your site - Without an adequate number of visitors to your site, you will not be able to attract the number and quality of affiliates that you need to make your program successful. If you are serious about affiliates, you will create a website designed specifically to sell affiliates. In fact, this whole book can be applied as an Internet marketing program to attract, engage and enroll affiliates.

What level of commitment do you have and how much real effort can you actually put into the creation and maintenance of the affiliate network? Your affiliates become another form of a customer and have to be treated as one.

Your Own Affiliates

Choosing to include a network of affiliates as a means to distribute your products and services can directly affect your business model. Deciding to use affiliates as a primary source of revenue for your company requires dedicated resources and adds a new type of customer to the target market.

You cannot follow affiliates, you have to lead. This means that you must learn and apply all you can about promoting your online business first. If you do not know how or what the affiliates program should be doing, how could you possibly control them? There are a lot of excellent resource materials and learning programs available to those wanting to learn about this alternate distribution channel.

(I will assume you are selling an EXCELLENT product and have a compelling mini-site that converts traffic into customers. Without those, your program is dead.) Your job now is to provide real life practical, helpful affiliate marketing advice and create valid revenue opportunities for your loyal affiliates.

Sell and Educate

The reason that you have to educate yourself first is that you will lose the affiliates that you attract to your program if they cannot sell your product or service quickly. They will lose interest and give you a bad rap as a program/service that does not work. Give them a detailed blueprint so they can get up to speed quickly and generate revenues fast and you will turn your affiliates into dedicated sales professionals.

Many of the things we take as a given with real customers can be applied to your affiliates.

1. Give them a step-by-step roadmap with concrete examples of how they do business with you. Always provide discounts so that they can really understand what they are selling.
2. Show them step-by-step, with all the precise details they need to learn how your top affiliates earn a good living. Make it as easy as possible for them. Build loyalty to your program by paying bonuses or special commissions to top affiliates.
3. Create a deep loyalty to you and your product. Give special recognition to your high-earning affiliates and publicly recognize them.
4. Use traditional offline communication and events to leverage your online existing business. A simple phone call can turn business relationships into lasting friendships. Remember, you do not just want a collection of affiliates. You want business partners.
5. Solicit feedback from your affiliates, good and bad. As a direct link to your end users, you can learn what they and the customers really think about your products and services. Learn from your mistakes and constantly improve on your programs. You can also visit their sites to see how they market products. Subscribe to their newsletters and read sales collateral. IMAGINE you are an affiliate.
6. See things from the affiliates' point of view. Visit industry message boards and newsgroups. Read what affiliates complain about. They are business people just like you and worry about slow responses to e-mails, late payments, and low payouts. Learn from the mistakes of others.
7. Affiliates are another form of customers. Do not spam them. Affiliates want valuable information about their business opportunity with you. If you are going to send them something, make it something useful such as tested copy and link ideas. They want to earn more money with you. Show them how.
8. Do you have the right contractual agreement made up? Is it fair? If you were the affiliate, would it make sense?
9. Use software that automates everything: Real time statistics, sales notification, reporting, and commission payments should be done professionally. When you treat them like business associates, you will be treated with respect.

An affiliate program can be very successful for you and the affiliates if it makes business sense for both parties. If you are not sure about using this type of distribution channel, experimenting can be costly. Word of mouth travels quickly and poor treatment of an affiliate network will quickly hurt your bottom line.

Leverage Existing Programs and Services

Look to see if you can leverage existing affiliate networks when you just start out. Search for products and services that complement what you are offering and that are already distributed through an affiliate network such as clickbank.com. Not only can you leverage their network of contacts, you can help educate your affiliates through other existing programs. Other examples are: Ken Evoy s 5 pillar affiliate program and www.ActiveMarketplace.com

To find out more about my affiliate program, visit www.jamesmaduk.com/affiliates.htm