brittni schroeder

BLOG

Brittni Schroeder Coaching

AFFILIATE PROGRAM FOR
YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

You have an amazing course or digital course. You create a buzz and excitement and do a couple big launches a year. All your die-hard, loyal fans jump all over your offers. You are feeling pretty good as you ride the euphoric high that comes with your success. Then you eventually come back down to reality. Now what? How will you continue to sell your product or service? You know you have an amazing product, so how will you continue to bring in revenue month after month? You can run ads, host webinars, & mention it on social media, but realistically, in order to scale, you need to do something more. You need an affiliate program. You need an affiliate program for your small business!

It would be awesome to hire an entire sales team to help you, but that is not in the budget. Or is it? One alternative to hiring a sales team is creating and starting an affiliate program. Let others do the selling for you! There are a lot of businesses out there that offer affiliate programs, you want to be a part of that. The beauty of affiliate programs is that you only pay your affiliates when they bring you business. It’s a risk-free form of marketing.

You need to keep reaching new audiences and using affiliates is the best way to do that. If you can find motivated, enthusiastic affiliates, you will have your personal sales force!

Creating an affiliate program might seem like another thing to add to your never ending to-do list, but it’s time to make it a priority. You want to scale and grow and expanding your reach is the way to do it.

RECRUITING AFFILIATE

Ideally, you want your affiliates to be your past students or clients who have worked with you. They will want to sign up because they got results. They will be excited to tell their friends and/or followers about their experience. However, they may not be in the perfect niche to promote you. You may get some referrals, but you will likely want a good mix of previous clients and well-aligned influencers in your niche who have the perfect audience to promote your products to.

These influences may not need to take your course and so if you want them to become an affiliate (and to promote you with authenticity) you may consider offering them free access to your course so that they can effectively review and promote it. You don’t want people to promote your product if they don’t believe in it.

To find these affiliates, look for people who have the same target audience, but are not in competition with you.

Here are few places to find the fantastic affiliates:

Instagram – search via hashtags and suggested users and take note of engagement rate.
Pinterest – take note of whose pins are ranking high on the search page for your main keywords. Look at who is ranking as suggested profiles when you search your keyword.
Facebook – look for influencers with engaged Facebook groups in your niche.
Spotify and other podcast platforms – look for recommended podcasts and those who appear in searches when you search your topic.
Google – Find people who are ranking for articles where links to your course or resources could be included.

When you reach out to potential affiliates, be very clear and concise about the benefit your service/product would offer their audience as well as the benefits they will receive as an affiliate. Keep your email or message short and sweet and follow up within a week.

WHAT TO PAY YOUR AFFILIATES

Remember keeping 100% of your profit to yourself won’t amount too much if you’re not selling your product or service. Affiliates will help you reach new audiences that you wouldn’t reach otherwise. Your affiliates will have the know, like, and trust factor with their audience and that will transfer to you if your affiliates refer you. You are not paying them for their time, you are paying them for access to their audience. Consider how much money you are saving by having your own sales team.

It can be tempting to choose a lower commission to keep as much of the profit as possible, however I wouldn’t recommend this. You need your affiliates to do well and make lots of money in order to keep them engaged and excited. The better they do, the more eager they will be to recommend your programs. I recommend aiming for commissions of 30-50% depending on the product or service.

SETTING UP YOUR AFFILIATE PROGRAM

If you are hosting your course or precut on a platform such as Kajabi, Teachable, or Thinkific, they have affiliate programs you can use. If you don’t have a digital course and don’t want to invest for another program you can use, ask your clients their referral source as part of a new client questionnaire.

CREATING AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM

First you need to decide if you are going to screen your affiliates or let them sign up directly. If you choose to auto-approve applicants, you may have lots of signs up with less than optimal results. I would recommend screening when you first start. Once you have decided to use a form application or link directly to the affiliate sign up, you need to build a page that is appealing to potential affiliates. It’s your opportunity to showcase the perks of your affiliate program.

Make sure you include a FAQ section where you can answer commonly asked questions. Such as:

What is the commission they will earn?
Do they need to have purchased one of your products to be eligible to join?
How and when will they get paid?
Do you provide any swipe copy or promotional images?

HELPING YOUR AFFILIATES GET RESULTS

It is in your best interest to give your affiliates the best possible chance to succeed in your affiliate program. The more commission they earn, the more engaged they will be in promoting your products. When you provide them with the tools, encouragement, and motivation, their chances of success increase.

As soon as someone joins your affiliate program, send them a welcome packet that includes the following:

A link to the affiliate dashboard.
An overview of what products they can promote and the key selling points of each.
The information they need about the offer such as commission rates.
Creative content ideas including types of articles they could write and other ways to promote the product (via email, Pinterest, a resource page, in emails, on social media etc).
Promotional images for pins, Instagram stories, square and landscape graphics, and also some mockup PNG files that affiliates can use to create their own graphics.
Email swipe copy for a 3-part email series and for a one-off promotional email so your affiliates can choose what works for them and their audience. Encourage your affiliates to write their own copy in their own voice but providing swipe copy is good for when they are busy or unsure what to write!
Provide social media copy both in a medium-form (e.g for Facebook or Instagram posts) and short-form.

KEEPING YOUR AFFILIATES MOTIVATED

In order to keep your affiliates engaged, set up an automated email series. This will keep the communication ongoing and encourage them to keep promoting. In the email sequence give them ideas for how to promote your products as well as invite them to ask you any questions along the way. You can also offer an opportunity to set up a call to create a strategy.

Another option is setting up a promotion once or twice a year with your affiliates to create a buzz amongst them. You can offer a giveaway to the affiliates who sell the most during a specific time. Create a leaderboard and get your affiliates excited about winning a prize or bonus.

Affiliate programs can be an amazing tool to help you scale your business and expand your reach. When you create an affiliate program, you are creating a sales team that will promote your products and your brand. If you want to scale your business and increase your sales you need a affiliate program for your small business.