Launching A Successful Affiliate Marketing Program

In the ever-expanding landscape of digital entrepreneurship, establishing your own affiliate marketing program has emerged as a powerful strategy for driving sales and expanding brand reach.

Crafting a bespoke affiliate program allows businesses of all sizes to leverage the influence of partners and influencers, tapping into their networks to promote products or services.

In this article, we look at how to launch a successful affiliate marketing program.

 

Starting an affiliate marketing program can be beneficial to any business if it is planned thoroughly.

What is an Affiliate Marketing Program?

An affiliate marketing program is where you have a product or service and encourage other people (affiliate marketers) to help market it and generate sales.

Affiliate Marketers are your sales and marketing team.

They receive a commission for sales generated.

Just as you would run a sales team for a traditional business, you need to have a system to communicate with affiliates about the products and expectations.

You will be supplying the tools and resources to help your affiliates to market your program the way you want. For example, I’m a wealth coach teaching clients how to build online businesses and invest the profits through joint ventures into income-producing assets.

I don’t want wild claims about making a million dollars in the next 24 hours. I have to control the expectations and what can or can’t be marketed. That comes down to the marketing tools and resources created for affiliates.

Your affiliate marketing program includes providing guidance, unique links, landing and sales pages and managing the team of affiliates so they have the best resources to provide you with the best results.

How Much Do You Pay Your Affiliates

When setting commissions the first decision is whether there will be a multilevel payment structure. This is one where affiliates earn more the more they sell.

Or a simple structure of a flat rate for each sale.

For my business, I decided on a flat rate of 20% on products for sale over £100. This applies to one-off payment products or monthly recurring products provided the monthly payment is over £100.

From a business perspective, it reduced the time spent on lower-value goods where it cost more to process the payments than they were worth.

When deciding on commission rates look at what will suit your business model and time constraints.

Test, Test and Test

Like any aspect of a business, an affiliate marketing program should be treated like any product or service. Test it and ensure it is running before making it available to a wider audience.

At Karen Newton International, our affiliate program was tested by our clients who wanted to grow an affiliate marketing business. We tested two platforms for our products.

After running it for a year, and evaluating which was the more successful we finally decided on just the one platform which had provided the best results and simplicity for our affiliates.

The platform being the one we host our courses on.

It is a simple platform that requires more manual work but our clients were used to the platform and it provided the basics they needed and the community features to support our affiliates.

The other platform we tested was JVZOO. While we had some success with sales and it was fully automated we found it more difficult to set up products and meet the requirements of JVZOO.

So, after one year of testing we terminated this platform.

Sometimes the bells and whistles of a platform, don’t fit in with your business model and time frames.

Select something that suits you best.

Supporting Affiliates to Get a Win/Win

While our program is open for anyone to join, our most successful affiliates are clients who have used the products (courses) and liked them.

This was one reason we opted for the simple platform program where we host our courses. Clients knew their way around and found it easier to use.

When launching the program we started with monthly coaching calls to help clients create their own business and start the marketing process. The courses were run for a year so our clients had the opportunity to build and grow a business while having support.

The next step was to create an Affiliate Hub. Here we provide details of the courses available under the affiliate program together with marketing banners and sales letters.

As the courses are updated the affiliate marketing materials are also updated. Affiliates are free to create their own marketing materials.

In March 2024, we launched the community feature for even more support to our affiliates.

Some affiliates are happy to do their own thing. Some affiliates like a little more encouragement and support. It’s important to create a win/win for everyone.

Affiliate Rewards

Some companies life to offer rewards for top affiliates. For some affiliates, the challenges and the rewards are the incentives they need to make sales. For others, the incentives seem too far out of reach they get disillusioned.

If offering rewards look at what is the best way to look after, support and encourage your team to be the best they can.

Understand the Process By Being An Affiliate

While I run an affiliate program for my business, Karen Newton International, I also am an affiliate for other companies.

There are several reasons for this

• They offer complimentary products for my courses – I use products to be able to run my business and where they offer affiliate products, I become an affiliate.
• Keeps me in the loop – as a small business owner, being part of other people’s affiliate programs, keeps me in the loop for trends and strategies around affiliate marketing.

When you are an affiliate marketer, yourself, it is easier to support your own affiliates as you understand the market, the market trends and requirements.

This ensures you are providing updated information and support to your team.

What Software Should You Use for Your Affiliate Marketing Program?

There are different types of affiliate software and platforms that can be used for running an affiliate marketing program.

1. If your program is a course or digital based take a look at where your product is hosted and if they offer an affiliate program. My website Karen Newton International has a very simple affiliate program. A client simply logs in with the signup details and in their drop personal details section is the affiliate centre with the links for referrals. Other hosting platforms offer similar services.
2. Affiliate Hosting Platforms – Clickbank; JVZOO; Share-a-Sale; CJ Affiliates are some of the hosting platforms available.

Each of the affiliate hosting platforms will have their own criteria for listing affiliate marketing products to their platforms.

The requirements a unique to their platform but will also include regulatory items for compliance.

It took a lot of patience to work my way through JVZOO requirements. This included sales pages, ftc compliances and more.

Launching a Successful Affiliate Marketing Program

Creating an affiliate program offers multifaceted benefits to businesses, ranging from increased sales and brand exposure to accessing new markets and customer demographics.

However, the success of such programs hinges on the support and nurturing of affiliates. Providing them with robust resources, timely communication, and fair compensation not only fosters loyalty but also enhances their ability to drive results effectively.

By prioritizing the needs of affiliates and cultivating strong partnerships, businesses can unlock the full potential of their affiliate marketing endeavors, ultimately propelling growth and fostering long-term success in the dynamic digital landscape.