Attracting the best affiliates for your business

First let’s start with differentiating between a good affiliate and a great one. It simply comes to cashflow. There are thousands of good affiliates operating out there, however most simply do not have the cash to scale.
However, it only takes one great affiliate to MAKE your business.
This is not news if you already own or manage an affiliate network. However, if you are a company on the hunt for affiliates this couldn’t be more true. If you attract one great affiliate, and the relationship works for them, they will provide you with more sales than you can imagine.

Gain an understanding of the basics

If you operate business in any vertical that scales then it’s competitive. You are in competition with other businesses that in many cases have gained years of experience in dealing with affiliates and with whom they have already built great relationships.

So you face a battle from the outset.

Your product quality does not matter

Your bodybuilding supplements are better quality than others? Your offer complies better with FTC rules and guidelines than others? Newsflash. Affiliates DON’T CARE about your product or offer….at all.

Affiliates make huge profits by promoting offers they wouldn’t entertain having themselves. The sketchier the offer, typically the more money there is to be made.

Great affiliates don’t take the time to investigate offers to check they are moral and ethical.

Affiliate managers can become as complacent as affiliates. Simply because you have signed an exclusive agreement and prepaid $10,000 does not mean affiliate managers will push the offer with their affiliates.

You have to start somewhere, so if you are part of an affiliate network, find out the price you need to set to be competitive. Then pay out a lucrative bonus to the affiliate manager that makes the most sales.

As we have already mentioned, affiliate managers and affiliates can become complacent. However, if you roll out a five-figure bonus contest you can bet they work harder to get affiliates to take up your offer. That may seem strange, but we’ll explain below.

If you are not working through an affiliate network and you are doing it yourself, then you, as is the case with networks, are going to everything it takes to get affiliates. One of the best ways to gain affiliates is to offer a CPC. Whether you are working through affiliate managers or with affiliates directly. All of the risk lies with them to try your offer. So, you can understand why they may express some reluctance.

The conclusion to draw from this is affiliates are a golden cow to companies. ALL the risk remains with the affiliate so what really motivates them to try it?

Affiliates follow affiliates

Believe us when we say affiliates pay a lot of attention to what other affiliates promote.

Demonstrate you are legitimate

Get a booth at a tradeshow. Will you get affiliates from it? Probably not, however you will get brand recognition. If you want to get affiliates you should look to have a booth at an affiliate summit, no matter how small it is, this signals you are legitimate.

Find the influencers and become their best friends. Don’t settle for just buying an ad on their blog, have them complete an in depth review of your product, your network, or whatever it is you happen to be promoting.

Even better yet, send them something nice and send it with any company merchandise you might have. The reason this is important is it would cost much less than what they would charge you for producing a review post and also shows you care about your affiliates.

Work on your relationships

Why is this important? Because like any relationship it needs to be nurtured. If you treat affiliates with a personal touch, they will be far more likely to promote your stuff.

The value in this is you will become known to the influencers in the industry and that can quickly improve things for you.

So, in summary

Build on your brand recognition with a good website and regularly attend trade shows, make an impression with influencers and connect with affiliates that matter through those influencers, provide them offers they can’t refuse, watch other affiliates and follow their lead when testing your offers.