Using affiliate marketing to grow your business can have many huge benefits, as I’ve discussed in
previous articles.
1. Affiliate marketing is more affordable because you only pay for leads or sales.
2. Affiliate marketing allows you to leverage established trust of affiliates for your brand.
3. Affiliate marketing expands your reach exponentially through your network of affiliates.
Affiliate marketing is big business, and it is only growing. Younger generations love influencers, and more importantly, they want to BE influencers. That is exactly what an affiliate is: An influencer working for your business.
You get the benefits. You see the advantages for your business. And you took the steps to adopt an affiliate program for your business.
Now what?
Once you’ve gotten started with your affiliate marketing business, how do you attract affiliates?
Traditional advertising, like Google Ads or encouraging organic traffic through SEO and social media are a good starting point. But in today’s highly competitive digital landscape, you need more to break through the noise and bring more top affiliates to your opportunity.
10 Ways to Attract more Top Affiliates
1. Use a conversion optimized affiliate sign up page
Getting more affiliate leads starts by targeting them specifically. Rather than just having a page on your ecommerce website, dedicate an entire targeted landing towards encouraging affiliates to signup.
Our client Newborn Feathers has a beautifully designed signup page just for reps, with its own URL, NewboardFeatherReps.com.
Notice how this landing page uses imagery that appeals to their target demographic, has clear and contrasting buttons to draw the eye immediately, and gives a quick summary of the unique benefits of working as a rep for their business.
The tabs along the top address the barriers to purchase, such as providing FAQs to alleviate concerns, and the links to social media accounts gives social proof, or legitimacy, to the business.
The only thing I would add? Some affiliate testimonials to build trust.
2. Encourage affiliates to talk about their great experiences.
Word-of-mouth or referral marketing is the key to the success of affiliate programs. People are more likely to trust the opinion of an individual over the marketing copy of a brand. In fact, according to one study, 86% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust their friends.
Leveraging the established trust that affiliates have built with their contacts is how affiliate marketing companies succeed. In the same way, you need to use that same concept to attract more affiliates.
Our client Agora Advantage does a great job at encouraging their affiliates to create video testimonials that they prominently post on their website. These videos are authentic and go a long way at building trust in potential affiliates.
Create a two-way street and perhaps dedicate a page on your website to highlighting affiliate experiences. Create a little article once a week or once a month that is all about one affiliate’s experience. Share images, and links to their personal blog or website. Show potential affiliates how important your affiliates are to your business, and how much you support them.
3. Offer training and marketing tools.
One way to get affiliates talking about how much they love working with your business is by providing the training and marketing tools they need to be successful.
As part of our TitanAFFILIATE package, affiliates get access to a personal website that is a replication of the corporate site, a blog, and a back office with a CRM, email marketing, reports, and other tools.
And, like our client Agora Advantage, the back office can also include a complete virtual training program that will encourage and educate affiliates on your business, and how to succeed as affiliates.
These tools help affiliates feel empowered and make them more successful.
4. Offer an exemplary product or service.
Affiliates want to sell things they are passionate about. Nothing can replace genuine enthusiasm when it comes to making more sales.
How can you get affiliates excited about your products or services?
Clearly communicate the unique value of what you offer, and take the extra time to perfect that product. Affiliates are not going to be excited about promoting a product that their followers are going to complain about. Give them a product they can stand behind and be proud of promoting.
5. Offer great customer service.
In the same way, you need to stand behind your product or service. Affiliates will feel more confident about promoting something they know their followers will be happy with.
By leveraging a customer-first policy for your business, you can increase customer loyalty. This in turn will turn more customers into fans, and fans into affiliates.
Which leads us to…
6. Turn frequent customers into affiliates.
Your best affiliates are going to be your brand’s loyal fans.
Would you buy a skin care product from someone who didn’t use it themselves? Probably not.
Encourage your customers to become affiliates:
Leverage your mailing list.
Use your customer mailing list to tell them about your opportunity. They’ve already given you’re their personal information, such as email, so they are more likely to take the next step to sign up as a rep. Make the process as painless as possible by offering a link in the email, and even using known variables like name and email to pre-fill out fields in the sign up form.
Use the thank you page in your shopping cart.
Once a customer has made a purchase, you can encourage them to take the next step and join the opportunity to tell others about the great products they already love.
Offer rewards or incentives.
You can offer affiliates rewards for joining your program, such as coupons or even free items that they love so much.
LiliClarke encourages customers, salons, influencers, and "hair enthusiasts" to take part in building their community and being rewarded for taking part.
7. Pay commissions regularly and on time.
We’ve been working with clients in this industry long enough to know that accurate and timely commission payouts can make or break a business.
Affiliates join your business to make money. You’d better be certain that your payments are going out on or before the date you commit to every time, or you risk losing affiliates, or at the very least, leaving them unmotivated.
8. Offer bonuses.
Have high performing affiliates? Reward them with extra bonuses or higher percentages to keep them motivated.
Some software, like TitanAFFILIATE, allows you to set different affiliate payout levels. Take care of your affiliates, and they will become your most valuable resource.
9. Create a community.
Affiliates like to get paid on time and feel appreciated. They also like to feel like they are part of a community.
Foster a sense of community to encourage your affiliates to support one another (and a little friendly competition). You can do this by holding events or conferences and recognizing top performers, holding training seminars (either virtually or in person), and creating a community on social media.
Our client LiliClarke does a great job on their website highlighting their community by showing events, and having a strong social presence.
Let your affiliates have access to exclusive deals or even merchandise. Share information with them before it is announced publicly, and make them feel part of your business. In the same way employees are more productive when they enjoy their job and feel appreciated, your affiliates will want to perform better for your business if they feel it is a place they are recognized, understood, and appreciated.
10. Use the Right Software
From our years of experience in the affiliate world, we’ve found the success of an Affiliate Program comes down to 3 basic things: A passionate corporate team, great products, and the right software.
Choosing great software that enhances each of the 9 things listed above will take your affiliate program to success.
What do I mean by the right software?
- I mean a beautiful front end design that is mobile optimized.
- Replication of the corporate site for affiliates.
- Marketing tools and automation for the corporate team, as well as marketing tools for affiliates.
- Access to training and support for both the corporate team and affiliates.
- Accurate, manual or automatic commission payments.
- A great, integrated shopping cart experience for customers.
- A CRM for excellent customer service and affiliate management.
- Automatic onboarding of affiliates.
These are the must-have basics for affiliate marketing companies that are serious about succeeding. TitanAFFILIATE includes that and more.
If you’re interested in learning more about attracting affiliates to your business, request a consultation with our experienced affiliate marketing team.
