Tag Archives: Affiliates

Email Marketing Tips for Affiliates and Entrepreneurs

Email Marketing Tips That Work

Email marketing is an excellent way to let people know who you are and what you have to offer them that will enable them to move closer to the goals they wish to achieve. When I am sending out emails to promote affiliate products I craft them in a way that will enhance the credibility of the product creator, share a story about the product and how it will be helpful, and also explain the bonus I am offering and why it is relevant to what I am promoting. Here are some email marketing tips for affiliates as well as online entrepreneurs.

Recently I took part in an affiliate contest where I was promoting a package that included twenty-five coaching lessons on getting started with internet marketing. It was originally written and created by Sean Mize, who had then sold a package of this and many other products to Dennis Becker and Barb Ling. I know all three of these people quite well and have for many years, so it made perfect sense to me to offer this to my community. I knew it would be confusing to explain, so I set about the process of sharing a little about Sean and how I had already gone through all twenty-five lessons when he first released them a few months earlier.

Over the course of three days I sent five very detailed emails. I decided to come from the perspective of someone wanting to teach internet marketing to others and shared how they could repurpose each of the lessons into their own coaching program. I referred to this as an “earn while you learn” strategy that could serve them very well.

When questions began coming in about this product and how it could be used it became clear to me that my audience wanted and needed training on how to use PLR in their businesses. So my bonus package included a training webinar the following week on exactly that – using PLR to build an online business. This is an example of how the situation dictates what you could offer that would be the most beneficial to those who will be receiving it.

Each day during the three day promotion I shared more information on how this product could solve the problem of not knowing how to get started as an online entrepreneur and the importance and value of being able to offer a coaching program that you owned the rights to. I included examples from some of the lessons and shared even more about how well they were prepared. I could vouch for the quality and validity of this program because I had gone through it myself, so credibility was not to be an issue.

As the sales kept rolling in I became more excited about the bonus webinar training I was going to be delivering the following week. I added more details of that in my final emails and even more people came aboard and purchased. I hope these email marketing tips in relation to affiliate marketing have been helpful.

And yes, I won Dennis and Barb’s affiliate contest!

Be sure to take a look at Affiliate Contest Secrets, a training I created to share with you how I have been able to consistently win affiliate contests since coming online over a decade ago.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I work with new online entrepreneurs to help them get into profit as quickly as possible with information products, affiliate marketing, marketing for small businesses, blogging, authorship, and more. Download your Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and get started right away.

Finding Affiliates for Your Products

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I started out as an affiliate marketer and the most effective recommendations I shared were those for the products, courses, and services I had purchased, was already using and benefiting from in my business, and was anxious to tell other new entrepreneurs about for their businesses. So if you are looking for affiliates to promote and recommend your products, begin by contacting those whom have already purchased from you and who have become raving fans.

If you step back and think about this objectively you will find this to be an excellent strategy. Yet so many people are willing to promote products they have never purchased or used, simply to earn the income as an affiliate. This will not bring long-term success in most cases, unless you are purchasing traffic in various niches. For the majority of us this is a relationship business that is based on people doing business with other people they know, like, and trust.

When I was just getting started I had no affiliate program whatsoever. Instead, I attempted to sell my products on my own. This was somewhat effective, but definitely not scalable over time. Eventually I set up an affiliate program, but only opened it to those who had purchased something from me. My thinking here was that the people who had gone through my products and courses would make better affiliates because they had experienced what it was like to learn from me and would share that enthusiasm with others. Finally I opened up my affiliate program to everyone. I was curious as to what would happen once I did this. It turned out that those who did not know me at all were ineffective at selling my products and courses as an affiliate.

These days my affiliate program is still open to anyone who applies, but I do reach out to those who already know me and encourage them to actively promote and recommend my products and courses to others. Taking this extra step ensures that I am top of mind when a marketer is thinking about recommending something to their audience. And I always offer to create a discount coupon for them if they think this will be helpful.

If you are new to affiliate marketing these are the strategies I would suggest. Write a blog post about what you are doing online. Mention one or two products, courses, or services you have benefitted from in your business. Include your affiliate link and ask readers to click on the link to get further information. When others know that you are using a product or service and getting the results promised by the product creator or vendor they are much more likely to give it a try themselves.

Over time you will connect with more people who can be helpful to you when it comes to having affiliates promote for you. Just two or three well connected affiliates can increase your income substantially over time. And remember that the best affiliates are those who are familiar with you and your products.

I’m Connie Ragen Green and I’ve been an online entrepreneur since 2006. If you are ready to get started on your journey to multiple streams of online income, visit my site at Online Entrepreneur Blueprint and download your complimentary training to get started today. If you would like to become an affiliate for my products and courses please visit the Connie Ragen Green Affiliate Center to get started.

Making Affiliate Offers to Prospective Affiliates

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Making Affiliate Offers That Are Worthy

If you really want to get the best affiliates then you need to make affiliate worthy offers. Make smart affiliates want to promote everything you have because they know that you provide a great product, good customer service, and amazing creatives for them to use to market your programs. Making affiliate offers is worth your time and effort.

In order to attract the right affiliates, it’s important to share certain types of stats with them so that they know what to expect with your program. Keep in mind, you will not have any stats to show, but as time progresses, you will. As soon as you have this information, start sharing it.

Important Stats, Information & Figures to Share with Making Affiliate Offers

Some statistics are more important to share than others. If you just consider what’s important to you about your affiliate program it’ll be easy to see what you need to share.

Conversion Rate: They like to know how often a visitor to the sales page converts to a buyer.
Commissions: They want to know how much they’ll make per product and whether or not there is potential to make more due to your deep funnel.
Upsell: Let them know if you offer an upsell or not and what the commission is on that as well as the conversion rate for that too.
Recurring Commissions: If any of your products offer
Incentives: Let them know what type of enticements you offer for successful sales.
Product Reviews: Do you allow affiliates to review your product free? Hint: Once you have stand out affiliates it’ll pay off to let them have a free copy.
Visitor Value: Let them know the target market for the product and the value it offers.
Training: While affiliates aren’t your employees and aren’t on your staff, you can still offer a lot of training to help them make more money promoting your products.
Collateral: Ensure that you have plenty of professional graphics, copy, and information that enable your affiliates to promote your product.
Program Description: Ensure that you’re very succinct and inclusive in the description for your program.

Anything you can let them know at a glance is important to share. You can offer more in-depth information as well but the information right up front should include what they need to know to figure out if your product is what they want to promote to their audience.

Keeping Affiliates Happy

Once you recruit affiliates, it’s also important to keep them happy. Happy affiliates will be more likely to promote your products. They may even tell other people about you too. That’s why developing relationships, communicating, and following up with your affiliates is so important.

Making Affiliate Offers that Build Relationships

In business one of the most important things you’re going to do aside from creating amazing products that your audience needs, is building mutually beneficial relationships with other people. In order to build relationships with affiliates, you need to understand them as a separate audience. They have different needs from the people that buy or get your products. To help you build your affiliate relationships, here are a few things you want to do.

Communicate – Use email, webinars, teleseminars, and other forms of communication with your affiliates. Some of them will prefer email and others will like the one-on-one feel of webinars. When you keep your affiliates abreast of new products to come, changes in old products, sales, and other information they’re going to be that much more likely to stick with you and promote you because of the trust that you develop.

Listen – Communication is a two-way street. Therefore, it’s imperative that you also open the lines of communication in reverse. Ask them questions, conduct surveys, and connect one on one with your highest sellers. For example, you can have a trigger number of sales that elevates your affiliates to your affiliate inner circle where you can help them with all kinds of things.

Ask for Feedback – When you send out new products to your affiliates, ask for feedback so you can make the product better before launch. You don’t have to send it to everyone who signs up for your program. Choose a few affiliates for feedback, based on your knowledge of them and their reputation in the business.

Show Your Personality – People do business with those that they like, know and trust. The more you can connect with your affiliates and find ways to show your character, the more you can enhance this effect. Add a little personal information in your emails, webinars, and live videos, and live events. Seeing and hearing you can make a huge impression.

Be a Helpful Resource – When you really want to have a real relationship with someone, you seek to be helpful. Even if the assistance has nothing to do with your business, being helpful and pointing people in the right direction will go far in helping you solidify your relationships. While you may not be able to pay as close attention as you’d like to each individual affiliate, you can use the information and tools at your disposal to build relationships that will stand the test of time and encourage even more sales if you’re open to it. Use email automation, set up training series, host live webinars to talk about your new products and to get ideas, and otherwise be open to new ways to connect with your affiliates. Remember that your business is about more than just making affiliate offers.

Keeping Track of People you talk To — When you are seeking to impress people, one way to do that is to remember who you’ve talked to and what you talked about. A good way to do this is to use some sort of customer relationship software or help ticket software. This is true even if you aren’t really providing customer service to your affiliates due to a product they bought. The help desk software will keep track of all your conversations so that you can easily stick to your promises.

Hosting Contests – A good way to kick off some relationship building is to plan and host a contest for your affiliates. Give away some iPads, cash, and depending upon your price range, perhaps a free trip. The more outrageous you can be with your contest the more attention it’ll get.

Do What Needs to Be Done – Affiliate’s needs depend on their audience too. Suppose an affiliate contacts you and asks you to do a live webinar with them. It is to be played “live” multiple times. This is a good promotional item to offer your top affiliates. It will help you develop relationships as you get to know each other as you work together on the webinar and get other people involved.

Finally, the most important thing of all is to follow up. Even if affiliates contact you infrequently, make sure that you do contact them. Connect, encourage, and connect more. Always deliver top-notch services, products, and tools while making affiliate offers.

I’m Connie Ragen Green, online marketing strategist, bestselling author, and international speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and inner game mind shifts. Let’s connect to see how I may best serve you in the near future. And please be sure to check out my popular training on affiliate marketing.

How to Find Affiliates to Grow Your Business

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How to Find Affiliates for Your Products and Services

Once you know you want an affiliate program, you need to find affiliates. Finding affiliates is a combination of simply asking people and letting interested parties know about your program. In addition, you can encourage people to be an affiliate by offering excellent products, top-notch customer service, and a by offering generous commission. Learning how to find affiliates for your business will change everything you do from now on. Here are the very best strategies to do this today…

Direct Contact – Find competitors and others who market to your audience who do not offer exact products or services as you and approach them directly. Work first to build relationships with these people in online groups, via joint ventures, events, and more and you’ll be certain to get a percentage of these people to sign up for your affiliate program and promote your products and services.

Clients – Your best affiliates can come from people who have purchased from you. Definitely, run an email series for your customers to encourage them to earn money by recommending your products to their friends and family. This is a great way to end up with a true fan as an affiliate.

Colleagues – Even if you work from home, you are likely part of a group of like-minded individuals online and / or offline. Ensure that you let these people know that you have an affiliate program so that they can choose to join if they want to. You can also if you’ve used the right type of software, give special commission amounts to people you know.

Movers & Shakers – You’ve seen them on Twitter, Facebook groups, and probably on numerous webinars and other places. These big earners shake things up. Work toward building a relationship with them, then make it super simple for them to promote by giving them a free copy, graphics, and more. Offer to set it all up for them so that all they have to do is collect the money when they make sales. As a fellow “mover and shaker” you can bet I always know how to find affiliates.

Conferences – You can also meet potential affiliates at live events and conferences. Whether you’re a speaker or an attendee, you may meet people who need to offer your products to their audience. Make it worth their while to promote you, by also promoting them.

Print Publications – You can place ads in relevant print publicans such as work at home magazines and other magazines devoted to people who are interested in this type of income opportunity.

Social Media – If you join groups and friend people online, ensure that you also connect with potential affiliates. Take the time to get to know them. When it’s appropriate, let them know about your affiliate program. You can use social media also to talk about how excited you are about your affiliate program. The more enthusiastic you are about the program, the more they will want to join to earn money.

Blogging – Use your blog part of the time, to speak to potential affiliates. Your blog provides your audience with solutions to their problems. But, once you have an affiliate program, you can also mention how you want to help as many people as possible and your readers can help by becoming an affiliate.

Forums/Groups – Any groups you’re part of, online or offline, can be great places to find affiliates. The best thing to do is to build relationships with people you think would like and promote your products. Offer to do things for them, make your program so inviting that they can’t resist.

Online Ads – Another way to attract affiliates is to advertise the program and its benefits. You can use Facebook, Twitter, or even Ad Words to market the program. This works very well, if you have a good product funnel, offer excellent commissions, and a wide range of products for your niche.

Your Website – Don’t forget that your website is the hub of your business. Keep reminder info and an affiliate program link in a prominent place on your site. This can be short and link to further information about the program details.

Word-of-Mouth – People like to talk, so if you do a good job taking care of your affiliates plus offering really great products then super affiliates will notice you and talk about you. Plus, when they start promoting your products, other people in their circle will notice and join too.

Cold Calls – If you know people already that promote other people’s products and you’re sure that your product fits in with their niche, go ahead and drop them an email, or even get them on the phone. Be ready to explain what is so great about your product and how it benefits their audience. Plus, explain how you’re going to make it super easy for them to be part of your program.

Hire an Affiliate Manager – Even if you’re just starting your program, hiring an affiliate manager can help you grow your affiliate program faster. Hire someone who is familiar with your niche, who has connections to promote to super affiliates and who understands the software you use. A good affiliate manager will know exactly how to find affiliates for you.

Directories – There are directories, such as affiliatesseeking.com, where you can list your affiliate program. They do require a link back, but it’s free. More than likely, you won’t find as many affiliates this way since building relationships is very important. However, it does help direct potential affiliates to your opportunity.

Affiliate Networks – Another great way to find affiliates is to list your products in affiliate networks such as Clickbank.com or JVZOO.com. Marketers who are looking for a product to promote often go there to search for products. Make sure you offer a great program, and a lucrative commission. Include tools to make promoting easy. These could articles, graphics, emails, etc.

Finding and recruiting affiliates is only part of starting an affiliate program. Now you need to make your affiliate offer worthy, appealing and timely. Plus, the more unique your offer is, the more affiliates you’ll recruit. Now that you know how to find affiliates, what other questions may I answer for you to help you grow your business?

Recruiting Affiliates to Help Sell Your Products

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Recruiting Affiliates to Promote Your Products

When you sell products online, a great way to get the word out about your offerings is to have an army of people behind you. These people will represent your brand, refer your brand, and encourage people to buy your brand. You can end up with loyal customers, who will eventually do that for free. But, if you want to hurry it along, incentivizing people by recruiting affiliates who will make a percentage of sales to help you promote is the best way to accomplish that. I’ve been a part of this world from both sides since coming online in 2006 and can attest to the importance of this piece of your marketing.

What Are Affiliates?

An affiliate is someone who is a sales person for you. The great thing about an affiliate is that you do not have to pay them unless they make a sale. The way it works is that by using specialized software, that keeps track of sales for each individual affiliate, the affiliate posts links to your sales pages, and when a sale is made via their link they get the percentage promised for that individual sale.

For example, if you’re selling a two hundred fifty dollar product such as an information product, the seller (affiliate) will make commissions, which you’ve set up in your affiliate software to pay. Percentages range from 5 percent to even 100 percent depending on the goals of the campaign and the type of product you’re selling. If you are selling something that causes you to use personal time, you may want to lower the percentage. If you’re selling something that is a digital product that has already used time, you can give a larger percentage. Fifty percent is the standard for digital information products.

So in short, an affiliate is a salesperson who earns a percentage of the price from every single sale that they make using their special link. Recruiting affiliates on a regular basis can significantly increase your bottom line.

Why You Need Affiliates

The best way to make a profit on anything is to sell a lot of it and being that you’re only one person you can only tell so many people about your offerings. But, imagine if you could double, triple, or quadruple yourself by getting other people to spread the word about your offerings? Wouldn’t you do it? The cost of having an affiliate program is minimal. It’s also less expensive than other types of marketing such as placing ads, and what’s most important, if you plan it right, it really works.

Increase Your Reach – If you know there are other audience members out there who have not heard of your products and services finding affiliates to help promote your products to their audience will definitely increase your reach and enable you to help more people.

Make More Money with Less Effort – While it may seem expensive to pay for a sale when you’re dealing with digital products, remember that your costs do not go up with each additional sale, as they do with physical products. You can give a larger percentage of the price and still end up making more money, with less effort on your part.

Grow Your List – Encouraging affiliates to promote you not only increases sales but once someone buys from you, they’re now part of your audience and are on your list. Now that they’re on your list, you can market directly to them the rest of the items in your funnel.

Build Relationships – Once your affiliate program gets momentum you’re going to notice some true movers and shakers. These people make the most sales and the most noise about your products. When you notice that, reach out to that affiliate and offer them a special deal such doing a joint webinar, or offering them a larger percentage of sales to encourage them to do even better. You can become quite close to your affiliate people and even get ideas for new products from them if you’re open to it.

Grow Bigger Than You – You’re only one person, working from your home office, or your kitchen table. But with affiliates, you can grow a literal army of sales people to promote your products and services making your job one of management and creation rather than just sales. Eventually, you can grow a business that earns multiple six figures for yourself and others.

These reasons are great ones to find affiliates to promote your products. The main point to take away is that you can sell more products with other people doing the work for you than you can sell on your own. While giving out a percentage of profits might seem painful at first, it’s really one of the least expensive options to improve sales. Focus on recruiting affiliates and your online business will prosper. I have been a “super affiliate” for almost a decade, meaning that product creators depend on me to help launch and sell their information products.

Be sure to check out my exclusive training at Really Simple Affiliate Marketing and learn how to both earn income as an affiliate and to get involved with recruiting affiliates for your own products and services.