Affiliate marketing is an amazing digital strategy. It provides a safe yet rewarding win-win situation for companies and their affiliates. Having a solid affiliate program could be the key that brings exponential growth to your business.
Word of mouth remains to be one of today’s most powerful marketing tools. It’s much easier to establish trust and loyalty when you have other people talking about your brand. Affiliate marketing taps into the authority of word of mouth while also creating opportunities for affiliates to earn.
An affiliate is basically someone who will commit to talk about your brand. He or she receives a unique marker- usually an affiliate link- that will track how many people that affiliate refers to you. Your affiliate then gets paid a commission based on the number of deals closed.
We believe in affiliate marketing and we’ve deployed our own affiliate program that anyone can join. When affiliates refer clients who need virtual teams to us, we give them a recurring commission that goes on as long as the client is active.
Affiliate marketing is great if we get it right. Here are five tips to create a successful affiliate partnerships.
1. Be generous
There is little to no fixed cost involved in running an affiliate program. So don’t hold back on your commissions. You have a lot of room to be generous. Some affiliate programs are known to provide commissions as much as 40-50% per sale made. Especially when the product is electronic or if its a service.
2. Automate as much as you can
Your goal should be to automate as much as you can so that you don’t have to micromanage the process. There are great ways to automate parts of processes such as payments, affiliate tracking, affiliate registration and so on.
3. Teach your affiliates strategies
Your affiliates will be your front liners, so it’s best that you equip them with as much knowledge as you possibly can. Provide your affiliates with access to online trainings, webinars and materials that can help them increase their sales and marketing skills.
4. Induct your partners in the brand
Because your affiliates are your representatives, they need to represent you well. In many cases, an affiliate might carry his or her own brand, but it would be great if you could integrate both brands into one singular message. In Outsourcing Angel, we try to work with people who believe in the same values that we have and share our mission to help companies grow through outsourcing.
5. Grow your group
The wonderful thing about affiliate marketing is that there is no limit to how many people you can work with. Try to get as many as you possibly can! Anyone can be an affiliate as long as they match your brand and they have a certain level of influence. Our affiliate marketing campaign is open to getting more people to come on board. Even you can join if you’d like!
Grow Your Business Through Great Processes and Amazing People
At our company, we truly believe in the importance of having great processes and amazing people. If you have a company, you should make a dream so big that you can’t fulfill it on your own. Then get people to buy in to your vision and run the race with you. Having an affiliate program is one awesome way to translate your big scary dream into reality by working with others to champion your cause.
