Affiliate Programs Can Increase Your Sales Dramatically

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Friday, 30 of March , 2007 at 10:56 am

Affiliate programs are highly misunderstood. To successfully manage an affiliate program you’ve got to have a top-notch product and offer a level of support for your affiliates that they can’t get anywhere else.

Affiliates are your sales force. Most affiliate programs can succeed with just one or two affiliate members actively pursuing a strong marketing plan. Remember, the 80/20 rule applies to affiliate programs as it does anything else. This means that if you have 10 affiliates, 2 of them will likely account for 80% of your affiliate sales. But what do you care? You won’t have to pay any of them a commission until they bring you sales.

Here are a few tips for running a successful affiliate program:

• Make sure your product fills a niche in the marketplace
• Deliver quality in every aspect of your business
• Pay your affiliates well
• Provide affiliates with banner and marketing support
• Make your plan a two-tier plan if possible

If your product or service doesn’t fill a specific niche, no one will want it. Too many Internet entrepreneurs try to sell products that have been in the marketplace for too long. Instead of selling what everyone else selling, try selling something that no one else has. Fill a niche and people will seek you out.

Don’t just deliver a quality product, deliver quality service. People will never turn down quality.

Affiliate programs that succeed pay their affiliates well. You’ve got to make it lucrative for your affiliates or they won’t spend one minute trying to promote your product. Money talks. I recommend at least 30% for most products. Services can get by on less, but if you sell a product then you should offer a hefty commission for your sales associates. If your product is digital you’ll get 100% of the profits, which means you can likely afford 50% commissions for your affiliates. Ask yourself this question: Would you rather have 50% of 100 sales or 100% of 1?

Support your affiliates like you would your customers. Don’t expect them to come up with their own advertising and marketing collateral. Do it for them. The more you give them to succeed with, the more time and energy they will put into promoting your products.

Two-tier affiliate programs are awesome. History shows that they do much better than single tier programs. A two-tier affiliate program pays your affiliates commissions for sales made of affiliates recruited by them. In other words, if I recruit my brother Bob to be an affiliate of your product and he sells 100 more widgets than I do, I still get a commission based on Bob’s performance. This benefits you because you make more sales. It benefits Bob because he makes money. And it benefit me because I get a little scrape off the top as well. Your second tier affiliates shouldn’t make as much as your first tier affiliates. Make the commission somewhere in the 2-5% range. Some affiliates are actually better at recruiting good sales people than selling themselves so a good recruiter can make a decent income just by recruiting a handful of top-notch sales people for you. Pay them a little something to show your appreciation.

Affiliate programs are a great way to expand your business. In fact, many entrepreneurs say they make more sales through their affiliate program than they do through any other method of marketing.

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