Hey Everyone,

Hope you are well, in this weeks module, the second to last one of the Learn with Sally Coaching Program, (boo oho… and I was just finally starting to really get the hang of things) Sally delivered an unprecedented amount of content on the whole concept about affiliate marketing, in particular about enlisting affiliates to help promote one’s own product.

Now you may be wondering erm… did I miss something there i.e. last week I was only discussing about creating a product and now I’m jumping straight in about getting affiliates???

Well first things first, creating a product is inevitable, because as Sally explained, with our training and the knowledge that we have acquired over the past 12 weeks (it only felt like I just begun yesterday- lo), we now know enough to create a product that would help someone who is a couple of steps behind us… whether it will be a paid or free product is an entirely different matter, but the key is that once we have created a product, we will need to seek out those who are searching for the information that your created product is offering.

Now Sally did also mention that even though we may not have a product, one can still prepare for that day. So in the meantime, just keep building them relationships until the day comes.

 

So…fast forward a few days, weeks, months later, you have now created a product, you’ll feeling ecstatic, however there is one major issue of concern and that is, there are some things you need to consider before you can start attracting affiliates and get them to promote your product.

 

Well at this point Sally shared with us her story about how she got to be an Alex Jeffreys’ affiliate, student and now a success story of his. The story started off back in 2007 when Alex Jeffreys’ wife Katie Jeffreys was affiliate hunting and one day sent an email to Sally, because she saw Sally was selling ebooks on eBay. Sally was then given access to Alex’s Easy Profit Auctions product of which Sally later became the top affiliate due to she had created an review page. The rest of it is history as Sally then became an AJ Student, then his Affiliate Manager for 2010 and of course Sally now runs her own LWS coaching program, and should Sally need to promote anything, then Alex would help.

The moral of the story…well the point is that everybody tells everybody about getting leverage, but the truth is that no one actually starts of with leverage. It is in fact earned over time, blood, sweat and tears, through dedications, but above going the extra mile, So okay that maybe of an exaggeration there, but what Sally demonstrated is that she didn’t have any leverage when she first started off, but despite that setback, she has still become very successful, of which many people will probably be envy of.

Now how does one attract affiliates??? Well in order to attract affiliates, one needs to offer some incentives and tools to get them aboard and encourage them to promote your product. In fact we want to make it as easy as possible for them.

The next part is deciding on what amount of commission to pay your affiliate, i.e. 50%, 75% or even 100%. Obviously if you are using your product to build a list or you have an back end sales /email marketing sequence, then you’ll probably most likely to offer 100% commission.

How much you decide to offer is entirely up to you, and it’s a fine balance of strategy in terms of … do you want to offer less commission, higher profit margin per copy thus less affiliates promoting and less sales? Or do you want to offer higher commission, lower profit margins per copy but more affiliates and more sales?

It’s just like with any other business, do you chose to go for a high price, less volume, strategy or do you opt for a low price, high volume tactic?

Then there is the tier issue, by that I mean, if you offer a 2nd tier commission structure, i.e. the original top affiliate refers another affiliate, then the original top affiliate will get a slice of the commission that the referred affiliate makes. This may sound complex, but it isn’t and and is a great way t”win-win-win” situation.

Additionally, affiliates are much enticed by something called lifetime cookies i.e. that an affiliate refers a visitor one time and then reap the rewards over and over again from any sales made from that visitor.

So where do you find affiliates?

Well firstly you could upload your product to various digital marketplace i.e. places such as Clickbank.com, Paydotcom, Commission Junction, these places are where most people/marketers go to look for product to promote, obviously for a seasoned internet marketer there is always the Warrior Special Offers which one can become an affiliate of too.

By the way, just simply uploading product to these sites and then expecting affiliates to miraculously appear and make you money instantly is definitely a no no. What I mean by that is affiliates are separated into two types: the lazy ones and the one that take massive action. Regardless which affiliate you have on board, you want to go above and beyond the call of duty in providing affiliate tools. After all, these are your salespeople for you, they are the ones who will go round making the money for you, but rather than knocking door to door, they will be doing electronically instead with various methods, thus give them as much as possible. Tools include:

  • Ecovers,
  • Banners of various sizes
  • Exit and Entrance Pop Up Adds
  • Keywords
  • Articles
  • Promo Emails
  • Pre Written Adverts
  • Brandable Reports
  • Blog Posts
  • Videos
  • Offline Advertising Flyers (you’ll be amazed at what offline commission direct mailing agents and the results they get)

If you are stuck for ideas, sign up for other marketers affiliate programs and see what they are offering, you will sometimes pick up a lot of hints and tips from them, and it’s always good to research.

 

So why do you want affiliates?

Well lets just say that you can sell a product yourself and make some money, and then there is where you have affiliates who will write articles, blogs posts, post your links here and there, left right and centre, create review sites, hub pages, squidoo lens etc.. the point is that you stand to make much more money by having others to help promote your product.

Of course like Sally demonstrated, you need to make sure your product is good, in fact sometimes if it so good, you will get customers who want to promote your product for you.

From my personal experience in the offline business world, this absolutely true. The reason why I can make such a confident comment is that I also personally run a home business opportunity mail order as well as the ebay and also doing this internet marketing.

In my home business opportunity mail order side of things, I have lots of commission agents promoting my various guides that I have written myself, they do all the promotion and mailing out and I make a nice little income from them, and I don’t even have to spend money to promote it. The only thing I do is… when they deduct their 50% commission, they send me the remaining 50% and the referred customer order and I simply process it for them. The best part though is that most of my customers who have bought my guide thought it was so good they wanted to promote it themselves and become an affiliate of my other guides as well. Talk about a win-win situation.

So yes, affiliates regardless they be offline or online are just amazing.

Okay now where were we before I got distracted, oh yes..

Sally then showed how we could have our own hosted affiliate and it was called DAP  and the reason she chose this was because if suite her needs of cooking an affiliate referall for future product sales. Plus DAP was offering a 7 day trial and so DAP fitted Sally’s requirements.

There were also other affiliate that Sally mentioned including Nanacast, Keith Purkiss’s Fast Affiliate Pages and many more to name. If having a self hosted affiliate program sound daunting, or if you are starting off at first, then you could always use the solutions of clickbank, paydotcom intially and because there are so many affiliates already there on these looking for product to promote then, it would be a great place to start building your own network of affiliates for future.

The key points to remember is that whichever solution you choose to use, you need:

  • You want to choose an affiliate program that suits your needs
  • You need some form of method or opt in page to collect you affiliates name , and contact email
  • You also need an affiliates tool page.

 

Now that have the basic set up, it’s time to find your affiliates?

But first thing first – what about Joint Venture Partners? Well joint venture partners unlike affiliates as Sally explained will most likely have large list and use email marketing, hence a lot of leverage. However they can be very very beneficial as some recent new marketers have found and have since catapulted to stardom and guru status due to of success by association.

The next part is crucial as it time to roll up your sleeves and start getting out there and find affiliates. Of course you could do the smart thing like Alex did when he hired Sally to be his affiliate manager.

 

How do you find Affiliates and Joint Venture partners?

Well there are numerous ways and below are a few that Sally mentioned and these include:

  • The Warrior Forum especially if you are in the internet marketing niche
  • jvnotifypro.com or jvgenie.com
  • Search Engines
  • Paid Ads
  • Social Media Sites
  • Blogs
  • Squiddo/Hub Pages
  • Article Directories
  • JV Blogs/ Leaderboards
  • Youtube
  • Testimonials on other marketers product sales pages
  • Giveaway Events
  • Forums
  • and much much more.

 

The next part after finding them, you will need to contact them, so ideally you will need to find out their contact details so places like contact page, support desk, social media message, or email them.

Now when you contacting your potential affiliate/jv partner you need to be really organised so make sure you set up some form of record system be that a spreadsheet or database. Details that you will need to include:

  • Who you contacted
  • When you contacted themselves
  • If they replied
  • Did they promote
  • Will they promote again etc…

 

Despite all the hard work, sometime some affiliates will say “Yes” and some will say “No”, so like Sally said, “Just dust yourself down and move on.

Now if you wish to increase the chance of a yes, then you could try to offer more value and incentives by giving them more commission on the 2nd tier, have some sort of special exclusive bonus unique for their subscribers only, a special discount offer, and if you want more ideas, Sally recommend Lee, and I personally have bought a product by Lee MacIntyre (I think it’s called Instant Internet Marketer, it was a while back that when I bought it) of which one of the module covers on how to get a guru to promote for you.

And finally but not least, just

“Get out there and Find them”

 

Well that’s was all for this weeks webinar, and I’m sure you can now see and probably understand why Alex chose Sally to become his affiliate manager, before decided set up her own coaching.

Anyway as always, I enjoy a good conversation, so any comments, feedback are greatly appreciated.

Until next week, take care and all the best

Nigel
ps: If you think Sally would be a great mentoring coach for you, then you can find out more details at:

www.learnwithsally.com

And if you are unsure whether you think Sally would be a great coach for you, then why not take a look at Triple Blog Traffic Blueprint, it’s product that Sally has created of she gave to us students of LWS as out instant profit machine, which there is link inside to her coaching program of which I am an affiliate of.

 

PPS: Now I don’t wish to sell you anything, but I think if you take a look at the free video training about increasing your blog traffic, then you can then see whether Sally’s teaching style suits you.

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