Your Own Affiliate Program - Setting Up An Affiliate Program
© Doug Champigny. All Rights Reserved.
Many people realize that operating your own affiliate program is one of the most effective advanced traffic generation techniques, but they don’t get started with their own operation because they mistakenly believe that running an affiliate program is either too hard, too costly - or both. While this once was the case, nowadays anybody can start and manage an affiliate program quite easily, and affordably.
Today, you can be up and running with your own affiliate program in under an hour, for about twenty bucks per month. You do not need a great deal of technical knowledge. You don’t even need a lot of people lined up to be your affiliates. It is very simple, and here is how you do it:
1. Sign up for an account at Hosting4Marketers.com. Follow the instructions there to get your affiliate program completely set up.
2. Visit the top affiliate program directories, and get your affiliate program listed. Also include a page on your website, and your blog, that tells potential affiliates about your opportunity and invites them to join your affiliate program - provide a link to the signup page.
3. Create or order tools for your affiliates, such as access to a marketing course, banners, buttons, and ads that they can use to promote your product. Give them two or three e-mails to use as samples to create their own e-zine articles from. Make sure that you continually provide fresh promotional materials for your affiliates. Most affiliates are fairly lazy - and Super-Affiliates are always Super-Busy. Make it as easy and time-effective as you can for them to promote your products!
4. Spend as much time as you can keeping your affiliates motivated, and ALWAYS make sure that they are paid on time - No Matter What!
That’s it. That’s all there really is to running a successful affiliate program. You can keep your affiliates motivated in numerous ways, but the most popular and effective way seems to be with contests.
Some months, you run a contest for your affiliates, with a prize worth having – from a cash bonus of $100 to a flat screen television, for example. The affiliate that makes the most sales in a month wins the prize! Because your affiliates will be working so hard in order to win the prize, the profits that you realize from their efforts will more than pay for the prize you are offering.
As your sales grow, try to run affiliate contests with 3 or 4 prizes for the top few spots. In most affiliate programs, the same 2 or 3 people will always take top spot, and other affiliates may become discouraged, leaving that ‘top affiliate prize’ a non-starter as a motivating tool. By providing prizes for the top 3 affiliates or top 5 affiliates, you can keep a lot more of them motivated. And always heap public praise on the winners, both in your affiliate mailings and on your affiliate blog.
Again, setting up an affiliate program and working it effectively is an advanced traffic generation method. Expert marketers know that you not only do better with your own product, but you also do better when you have an affiliate sales force to promote that product for you. In fact, many marketers spend the majority of their time motivating and recruiting affiliates, and leave 100% of the website traffic generation up to their affiliates.
If you want to attract the best affiliates to your program, you have to make it worth their time and effort. The standard commission payout for affiliates these days is 50% of all sales that they make, unless the affiliate is a joint venture partner, or considered a super affiliate, in which case you need to pay them anywhere from 60% to 75% commissions on each sale that they make.
Affiliate Power Tip: Over time, a few of your affiliates will show themselves to be much better at promoting your products than the other affiliates in your program. Establish a relationship with them, help them be more effective pushing your products, and even help them with their other promotions too - earn their loyalty and reward them for putting the effort in on your program.
And, as soon as you’ve identified them as one of your power affiliates, be sure to bump up their commission rate. We ALL like to be rewarded for doing our best!
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Doug Champigny is a well know Internet marketer, e-zine publisher and Super-Affiliate. He has also authored several books on website traffic generation, and recommends the Massive Traffic Bootcamp for anyone seriously looking to build traffic to their sites and blogs. Read more on generating traffic at his Top Traffic Tips Blog.
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Technorati Tags: affiliate programs, setting up affiliate programs, starting an affiliate program, affiliate manager tips, affiliate management, website traffic, super-affiliates, affiliates, affiliate marketing, Doug Champigny
Posted July 24, 2008 
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