Create an Enticing Event to Attract Sales & Affiliates

I recently got a question from one of my customers about how to attract more affiliates.

She works for a successful online marketer who is doing all the right things with her affiliate program. She has great products, affiliates who are already successful and lots of great promotional tools.

In order to boost the program’s success and get more sales this affiliate manager was looking at adding more affiliates to her program (a common goal for most affiliate managers). So she did what many people do to find new affiliates and started emailing potential partners who would be a great fit. The response just wasn’t good.

I’m not surprised. Working as an affiliate manager myself for a few years I’ve never had great response with this method and others who I’ve talked to haven’t either.

One of the ways I recommend for attracting affiliates who are excited about your program is to produce an:
Enticing Event

What do I mean by an Enticing Event?

Think about it this way. If you were a potential affiliate which of the following ‘pitches’ would you rather hear:

1. “Hi potential super affiliate. I want you to sell my product for me. I’ll pay you a commission (after you do the promoting). My products are really good and you should partner with me.”

2. “Hi potential super affiliate. I have something of high value to offer your subscribers, it will give them a taste of my product. If you partner with me and let your people know (I’ll do all the setup of course) you can earn nice commissions for giving your list a bonus.”

When you come to the table empty handed then you are at an automatic disadvantage because you are asking for something and people automatically want to say no.

When you bring something unique and special you are now offering something and are now giving yourself a much better opportunity at being considered.

The enticing event is one way to attract new affiliates but there are many others. A recent survey completed by Shawn Collins from Affiliate Summit gives some interesting results on where affiliates find programs promote. Among the top sources were Affiliate Directories, Google, Contact from Affiliate Managers and Affiliate Managers on who are active on relevant Forums. Check out the full report for free at AffStat.com

Here’s another idea:
Before heading outside your affiliate program to find new affiliates, have you made sure you can’t re-activate some inactive affiliates already signed up? Sometimes affiliates who’ve promoted successfully before get too busy to check back in. An email reminder of what’s coming up or a phone call might just get them back on board.

Attracting new affiliates isn’t always about actively asking. Sometimes the best way to attract affiliates is to get in front of them in other ways so they can make the decision to contact you themselves.

p.s. For more tips on running an affiliate program make sure to grab the 7 Days to Affiliate Program Profits ecourse at MarketersMojo.com