Wouldn’t it be great if you could get other people to market your infoproducts or programs free of charge (with you only paying them a commission if and only if someone actually makes a purchase)?
That’s the power of affiliate programs and affiliate marketing in general.
Not having an affiliate program is an area where lots of mavens fall down, followed by the percentage they offer the affiliate for each sale. The absolute minimum you should pay is 50% but it can and should often be higher. These are extra bonus sales that it’s likely you would never have made.
A real business is about repeat clients/customers as well as being far easier to sell to an existing customer than to a brand new one.
It’s also likely that you will have a higher percentage of sales from your affiliate’s visitors because (hopefully) the affiliate has already pre-sold his list on your fantastic product. More than likely the affiliate has built up a solid reputation from his or her customers (who more than likely have purchased from them in the past), so because they have recommended your product, they come to your website already pre-sold.
Now this list is by no means exhaustive, but here are some affiliate program options for you to consider:
Affiliate Program Software Options
This is what I use and it’s highly customisable. Affiliates can login and track all stats. But it’s not cheap!
Plus affiliates must trust you to pay them. This can take time and an overall positive reputation online.
If you’re selling a product, Clickbank make it easy, because they completely manage the affiliate payments (the payments get taken out at the time of sale). Affiliates know they will get paid!
They can be a bit costly though (7.5% of the sale price + 1$ per sale from memory), but are a good solution if you’re starting out.
One disadvantage with Clickbank is that many people have Clickbank accounts and will use them to buy your product at a discount, where this is a lot harder (but still possible) with the other solutions because you are in control of the payments, and can set relevant terms such as requiring two sales to payout an affiliate, etc.
Butterfly Marketing or Paydotcom
Are you using another piece of software? Please share in the comments below.
It’s not for my benefit. As I said I have Memberspeed, but it’s helpful in recommending what’s best for clients.
Thanks!
Noel Lyons.
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Hi Noel,
I’ll be using good old 1Shopping cart for affiliate payments as it works for everything else and it’s been highly recommended! Yes, of course there’s a cost, but it inspires confidence in would-be JVs and saves writing out all the cheques by hand!
Let me know if you don’t agree!
Kate
Hi Kate, there are question marks about their email delivery rates versus Aweber, but they are an all-in-one solution. Price aside, go for it. We both know there are more important issues to focus our time and attention on. Best, Noel.
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