As you move through the Product Launch Formula process by running your Seed Launch, then your Internal Launch, and you prepare to hold your big JV Launch, if you haven’t already done so, you are going to need to set up your own robust affiliate program.
Pretty simple right?
Yes.
Is that all there is to it? Kinda like “If you build it, they will come?” Unfortunately no.
First, here’s a brief statement that sums up the plan you’ll get in the rest of this post…
Compel a group of people who have access to your target audience to take an initial, small, easy step to send you traffic and then graduate to bigger, ongoing steps that send you even more traffic later on.
There are three important components to this plan…
1. Send You Traffic
We’ll begin with the end result – getting other people to send people who are likely to want to buy your stuff to your website. Naturally the primary reason why other people will send you traffic is because there is something in it for them. In the affiliate or JV partner context, that reason is to earn a commission on any sales generated through their referral.
Those people tell their audience about your product. Some of the people from their audience come to your site and buy your product. You pay the affiliate 50% or more commission.
The customer gets to own a product or service that makes their lives better in some way. You make money. Your affiliate make money. Everybody is happy!
So, there are a couple of things you need to do to get the ball rolling.
First, you need to set up your affiliate program. This will be the system you use to track your affiliate referrals, pay your affiliates, fulfill the orders and so forth.
There are MANY options, in fact there are too many for me to explain “how to” set up the technical aspects of in this module.
Every affiliate program and service provider has a different way of setting things up. And, fortunately, each of them have training materials to walk you through setting up the program.
Some of the most popular options are: Clickbank.com, JVzoo.com, and Amember.com.
Amember works with your own Paypal account, while the other two are complete processing systems that handle everything on your behalf. Whatever option you choose, you will need to set up an affiliate program where you offer at least 40%, and some digital product promoters offer 90% or even 100% on certain products.
Second, you need to create an “affiliate attack plan”. This is a game plan that outlines specific action steps for your new partners to take in order to send you traffic. Your attack plan is THE key to getting other people to actively and repeatedly promote your launch and your ongoing offers.
2. Compel Others To Take An Initial, Small, Easy Step
There are basically two types of affiliates you are going to interact with: those who are “new” who know very little about what they are doing, and those who are experienced or “seasoned” who know what they are doing and are busy getting on with the job.
Both of these are going to need some small steps to complete in order to get them actively promoting you.
Those who are “new” will need small steps because of their limited experience. These are “baby steps” that should be easy to complete.
Those who are “seasoned” will need small steps because they probably won’t stop what they are already doing just to jump all in to promote you without first testing the waters with some “quick and easy” steps.
The important thing here is to give affiliates something easy they do immediately to GET THEM ACTIVE. You want to warm them up. Get them off the bench and into the game.
The idea is to make them a part of your tribe and help them to “invest” in you and your product in a simple way so that it’s not as much of a stretch to go deeper.
Just to give you some examples, here are a few ideas…
- Like and share your Facebook page
- Post something cool about you on their Facebook wall
- Retweet something you’ve shared on Twitter
- Post some of your content to their blog
- Upload some marketing graphics (banners, buttons) to their site
- Give away one of your free reports
Each of these steps takes just a few minutes to complete – some, literally, just a second or two. Some of these steps probably won’t get you much traffic at all, while others could potentially bring you a lot of traffic (writing a blog post, or distributing a free report).
But that’s not the main point. The point is, you’re getting them to focus attention on YOU (instead of your competition or anything else they’ve got going on) and every “little” step moves them forward toward “bigger” steps (this is called Commitment and Consistency, which is one of Cialdini’s major mental triggers). Which leads us to…
3. Then Graduate To Bigger, Ongoing Steps
Ultimately, this is where you want affiliates to end up. Fully on board. Eager to endorse your products and services. Actively engaged in marketing for you. Taking more and bigger steps to repeatedly send you traffic, including participating in your product launches and even creating products with you at some stage.
That takes a bit of time and effort to pull off, but the payday of having a group of active partners is tremendous.
The first step is building a list of affiliates. Then, you regularly communicate with ALL of those people on your list. Then you refine the process by regularly and personally communicating with select affiliates and partners who show the most interest and bring the most influence.
What I want to convey to you is the importance of having a dedicated affiliate list where you regularly communicate with your team of partners to keep them active and keep them taking increasingly larger steps to send traffic to you.
Sooner or later (usually later, because it takes time to establish mutual trust), you’ll want affiliates doing things for you such as…
- Sending out large-scale promotional mailings for your launches and special promotions
- Offering their own free incentives and bonuses to get people to buy
- Sharing you with their audiences by featuring you in webinars, podcasts, and other interviews
- Buying advertising to drive even more traffic to your product page
- Permanently featuring your products and services in their autoresponders, sig files and ongoing promotions
When those kinds of things start to happen with ONE affiliate, you’ll get a lot of great free traffic. When those kinds of things start to happen with MANY affiliates, you’ll get a traffic jam of customers visiting your site!
Bottom line: you want to get and keep your affiliates active, both during and after your product launch
That happens through setting up your affiliate program, creating a systematic affiliate attack plan, and then utilising your affiliate list to keep them thinking about you.
If you’d like to learn more about how to attract, recruit and motivate affiliates and JV partners to grow your business, or when you are launching a product or service, you can do by going through Jeff Walker’s Free Product Launch Masterclass here.
Talk soon,
Rocky
P.S. Being able to create a Perfect Product is a great start, but you also need a way to generate sales in a consistent way. Running a Product launch is a proven way to not only build your list, but generate Social Proof and make a large number of sales quickly. To learn how to launch your product successfully, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.
PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:
1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. List Warrior will show you a proven way to use free software to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.
2. How To Create The Perfect Product
Creating a product that is perfect for your audience does not need to be difficult. How To Create The Perfect Product shows you how to build high value products your audience will love one after the other. Click Here.
3. How To Attract Buyers To Join Your Launch List So They Can Purchase Your Perfect Product.
Once you have created your Product Launch List and your Perfect Product is ready to go, you need to attract people into your world so they can buy from you. One Minute Free Traffic gives you a proven way to attract buyers with ‘Automated Traffic Machines’ so you can send those people to your optin page, your sales page, your Facebook Group or anywhere else you choose. To learn more Click Here.
And don’t forget to check this out 🙂
How to Earn $20 in 20 Minutes With Any Topic, Niche or Hobby