Do you want to build powerful affiliate partnerships? If so, you’re in the right place.
The idea behind affiliate marketing is relatively simple. The business owner (that’s you) partners with content creators and other brands. These partners then promote your product or service to their audience. When one of their subscribers makes it to your site through their affiliate link and completes an order, the partner and the business owner share the profit.
But it’s not as simple as finding partners and watching the money roll in. You have to work closely with your affiliates if you want to see a substantial return on investment. For context, business owners who adopt this strategy say that around 30% of their overall revenue comes from affiliate sales.
Today, I’ll share several powerful ways to build powerful affiliate partnerships. The following tips will help you plan for new partners while creating a streamlined experience for existing affiliates.
Let’s dive in!
Ensure Potential Partners Have a Similar Audience and Values
First, let’s talk about finding affiliate partners. Many business leaders entering the affiliate marketing space are tempted to partner with the first people who agree to promote their product.
I’m here to tell you that this one mistake could cost you unnecessary time and resources.
Instead of immediately accepting the first applicants, take a little time to research their content and brand reputation. Ideally, your partners should have a similar target audience and shared values.
This rule also applies to you when seeking out potential affiliate partners.
For example, if you sell shoes on your website, you wouldn’t partner with a popular tech YouTuber that shows how to repair and maintain computers. The two audiences may overlap, but you likely won’t see the same impact as you would if you partnered with a beauty and fitness influencer who actively promotes shoes on their YouTube channel.
If you’re ever unsure of a partner, schedule a video call so both parties can establish their goals and work through lingering questions.
Invest in an Onboarding Program
Traditionally, onboarding is for new customers and paid employees. But creating an onboarding program for your new partners can have a tremendous impact on their performance and your overall ROI.
A shocking number of businesses rarely do anything more than send an initial welcome email to affiliates. This practice can leave your partners with a bad impression. Their thought process is, “they can’t be bothered to stay in touch, so why should I bother to promote their products?”
You never want to put your affiliates in this position.
I suggest creating an on-site portal for affiliates where they can log in, learn how to set up their links, read the latest relevant news, and reach out to your team if they have any questions. You may also want to create an email series that goes out to partners over a predetermined time. Use this opportunity to teach your partners new ways to promote your products and build rapport.
Create Eye-Catching, Informative Landing Pages
Landing pages play a pivotal role in the success of affiliate programs. Users expect to land on a related page after clicking a link to your website. If a user is interested in a product promoted by a partner but finds that their link leads to your homepage, many people will leave before finalizing their order.
The solution is to create relevant landing pages around your affiliate products and partnerships. Let’s go back to the online shoe store I mentioned earlier.
Imagine if a fitness influencer promoted a new shoe release from your website. Instead of directing users to a product catalog, you may benefit from creating a standalone page that goes over the various features and benefits of the shoes.
Now, users can explore the product’s benefits that initially caught their eye. This situation may lead to visitors making a purchase. Even if visitors don’t place an order on the spot, they may decide to subscribe to your email list until they are comfortable with your brand.
Publicly Engage with Your Brand Partners
Next, let’s talk about the importance of engaging with your affiliate partners. Consumers are generally more responsive to affiliate content when they see the business in question has an active, positive relationship with their partners.
Social media is, by far, the best place to engage with your affiliates. Over 4.62 billion people use social sites like Twitter and Instagram. So you can rest assured that your target audience will get the opportunity to see you engage with their favorite content creators.
The benefits of publicly interacting with your affiliates become apparent when you consider that 59% of shoppers turn to social media when they want shopping inspiration.
When users see helpful, fun, and interactive conversations between brands and affiliates, they are more likely to take action. If you add existing customers to the mix, you can quickly build your brand reputation and social proof.
Give Affiliates Exclusive Discounts for Their Audience
Most brands give affiliate partners a discount code for their audience. The mistake many leaders make is they don’t create exclusive coupons for their influencers. As a result, it’s hard to find out where each sale originates.
The solution to this problem is to create discounts for each of your influencers. You can give each person a unique code ID, which you can use to track the progress of each creator.
Not only will strategy help you improve your campaigns and partnerships (more on that soon), but it can also make your coupon codes more memorable. Consequently, users may return to your site and place future orders with the same discount code.
In this sense, providing unique discount codes can help you build a powerful affiliate partnership while retaining existing customers.
Review and Revise Affiliate Partnershipst
The last topic I want to discuss today is reviewing and revising your campaigns. Much like your traditional marketing, some tactics will work, and others will fail. If you don’t actively revise your affiliate marketing strategy and partners, you’ll likely use unnecessary resources and waste time.
I recommend looking at your affiliate partnerships at least twice a month. Track where most of your sales are coming from, and note where you would like to see improvement. At this point, you can experiment with different affiliate marketing strategies until you correct the issue.
For instance, if you have a highly personable influencer with a relevant audience but they haven’t secured a sale, you’ll want to meet with them and develop a plan. In many cases, minor tweaks to verbiage, feature overviews, and social sharing can turn a lackluster affiliate partner into a superstar.
Back to You
Affiliate marketing is here to stay. More leaders are using this strategy than ever before, and that isn’t going to change any time soon. If you’re interested in improving your affiliate relationships and boosting sales and engagement, try some of the strategies I outlined above. If you’re persistent and work to improve rapport with your partners, you have an excellent chance to improve sales and engagement through affiliate marketing.
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Syed Balkhi is an award-winning entrepreneur and online marketing expert. He is the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, MonsterInsights, and WPForms.