Affiliate Program Will Catapult Your Sales

Creation of an Affiliate Program Will Catapult Your Sales Into Orbit

In the publishing world, your goal as a writer who has published a book would be to get as many stores carrying your book as possible – and promoting it at the same time! In the online world, you have a similar way to sell more eBooks, courses, and other products… an affiliate program. Your affiliate program will catapult your sales in an amazing and magical way!

An affiliate is a person who signs up to promote your product for a percentage of the sale. By promote, I mean drive targeted traffic to it. Their responsibility is not to sell for you – that’s what your sales copy does.

The percentage usually paid to affiliates is 50% and up. Some programs even pay a whopping 75% of the sale. Sometimes it depends on the price of the product. If my product is $1,000, then I might be able to offer a 20% ($200) commission to my affiliates, but if it ’s only $19.95, then I’d better be offering a big cut to make it worthwhile to an affiliate.

Some affiliate marketers earn a huge paycheck marketing other people’s products. Some don’t even have their own products – they live solely off of driving traffic to other sites. These people, who make an amazing income, are known as Super Affiliates – and they’re the ones you want out there pushing your product for you.

Why Even Have Affiliates?

“I Thought the Idea Was to Keep 100% of My Profits to Myself?” Well you will – for the sales you drive to your site. You don’t have to create an affiliate program, but let me show you a scenario of the difference in your potential income…

Let’s say I launch this eBook and I have no affiliate program. I also don’t have a big budget so I start driving traffic to my site using a link in my signature file in forums and in emails.

I also write a few viral articles with links to my site and submit them to Medium and LinkedIn Articles. I start to see a couple of sales – maybe 2 a day – so I’m making $47 x 2 = $94 a day. Not bad. I know a ton of people who’d love to see $94 a day in passive, residual profits (meaning once it’s set up, your system is automated).

I send out a press release and I gain another 2 sales per day, so now I’m making $188 a day. I blog about my product and the fans and followers of my blog generate another 2 sales per day. Now I’m making 6 sales per day and earning $282 a day. That’s $8,460 a month and I haven’t even used pay per click search engines yet!

Now let’s look at what I’m going to do. I launch the Connie Ragen Green Affiliate Program, which gives affiliates 50% of the sales. That means for every customer they send, I keep $23.50 and they get $23.50 – give or take a small fee by the payment processing company.

I have 10 affiliate signs up to promote my products. If they have the same success I do, then look what happens:

• 10 Affiliates Make 6 Sales Per Day
• 6 Sales x $23.50 (my profit) for 1 Affiliate = $141 per day, per affiliate
• Each affiliate is earning me $4,230 per month with their 6 sales a day
• Since I have 10 affiliates, I’m now making an additional $42,300 per month

How does that grab you?! Make your daily affirmation something like “My affiliate program will catapult me sales” and keep that top of mind throughout your work day.

You see, many marketers miss the boat because they get stingy and don’t want to share with anyone. Which is better – $8,460 per month or over $42,000?

As a marketer, you can be on both sides of the coin. There are products that I recommend to other people through my affiliate links – things such as software tools that can help them organize their marketing efforts. Then there are my own products that I have affiliates sign up for. Be sure to put your own affiliate program inside your eBook, product, course, or program!

I’ll be honest – it’s a little weird sharing the secrets I’ve learned from gurus. But I think it’s important to learn and then share with others. Not everyone has a direct line to dozens of the top marketers like I do, and if they do, it doesn’t mean they’ll share their secrets.

What You Need for Your Affiliate Program

When you launch an affiliate program, you have to recruit affiliates. They won’t just promote your product because you say so. Your customers are your very best prospects.

For instance, you’re marketers and as marketers, you probably know a lot of fellow marketers and participate in forums on the internet where you could put an affiliate link to this product in your signature file. Make sure your sales copy provides them with not only the features, but the benefits of becoming your affiliate.

What if every time you posted, like you usually do, another marketer clicked through on your link and earned you $23.50 when they bought this eBook? Makes participation more fun, doesn’t it?

You’ll want to let your affiliate know your conversion rate and explain that you’ll always be testing sales copy to get an even higher conversion rate. If you have a low refund rate, let them know that as well.

Explain the market or target audience to them. What makes this a good product to affiliate with? Does it constantly have a new influx of customers to the marketplace (like parents having babies or people following their dream to become writers)?

You may also want to have an Affiliate Toolbox ready for them to use for their promotions. You’ll give them items like this:

· Viral articles they can alter and use to promote your product in article directories and ezines using their own hyperlink.

· Sample Pay Per Click ads they can use to drive traffic to your site (making sure they fit the rules and character length restrictions).

· Email announcements they can send to their own lists to introduce your product.

· Reviews of your product that they can use on their sites.

· Graphics like banner ads and buttons they can use on their site or in paid advertising.

Once your toolbox is ready, recruit them by listing your program in affiliate directories. You can also get recruits in other ways, such as:

· Putting your affiliate program link at the end of your product

· Find owners of websites who have lists of people who might want to become affiliates for you and earn extra money.

· Using a service like Affiliate Announcement, which does the announcing for you.

Guru Tip: Instead of using pay per click search engine marketing like Google AdWords to promote your sales page, why not use it to promote your affiliate page? Especially if you can target “work at home” or “earn money” searchers, promoting your affiliate page means not one sale per click, but as many sales as that affiliate can bring in!

You should treat your affiliates the same way I said you need to treat your customers – like gold! Remember that they can mean the difference between an okay performance of your product and one that blows your socks off when you wake up in the morning and see the sales pouring in.

Another Guru Tip: I just got an email from a guru friend of mine talking about my affiliate program for this eBook. He told me to create social proof –  this social proof is what is known as the bandwagon. Affiliates see a high gravity or conversion rate and then assume everyone else is making money with that product, so they sign up to be an affiliate, too.

As you can see, your affiliate program will catapult your sales and make a huge difference in your bottom line.

I’m bestselling Wall Street Journal and USA Today author, marketing strategist, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and I would love to connect further with you to help you to achieve your goals. If you are interested in learning how to optimize the syndication of your content, please take a look at my popular Syndication Optimization Training Course and consider coming aboard to increase your visibility, credibility, and profitability.