Affiliate marketing is a great way to create an additional revenue stream in your business. However, many people struggle to get this income stream up and running effectively.
We’ve helped our clients build affiliate programs with big players and established brands. We’ve seen the hurdles and we know how to jump over them.
Here are the top 3 things that hold thought leaders back from generating a solid revenue stream from affiliate marketing.
1. Own Your Brand
Case Study: Just Glowing With Health
Christine Roseberry came to us with a huge opportunity on her plate. She had attracted the attention of a well-known A player in the nutrition space who was interested in promoting one of Christine’s programs.
There was just one problem.
Christine’s site was outdated and a little clunky. Her potential affiliate connection told her they couldn’t promote her because the look and feel of her website did not align with the type of professionally polished influencers they typically worked with.
She didn’t have a brand. She had a website with some really great content and a program that people loved, but she was getting lost in the sea of other bloggers.
Using Christine’s amazing photos and existing content, we turned her site into a brand that not only helped her Get Noticed even more, but also helped her Get Paid through affiliate marketing.
Your branding matters. Own it.
2. Create A System
Case Study: Private Client (We don’t make these up… we honor NDAs!)
One of our private clients decided to venture into the affiliate marketing space. He had zero experience, but enough influence that connecting with high-level marketers should be pretty easy.
Our client had everything going for him… a proven product, tons of followers on social media… You’d think that would be enough, right?
Wrong.
While our client had everything right on the outside, his internal systems were not set up to support affiliate marketing.
Experienced affiliate marketers are happy to do the sales for you, but they aren’t going to build your internal systems. They kind of expect you to come up with that.
Our client leaned heavily on our background in building affiliate systems and together we added the systems and processes needed to execute the landing pages, tracking, and payout systems.
Adding a new affiliate now takes his team less than an hour to set up and launch.
Systems make money.
3. Know Your Numbers (And Improve Them)
Case Study: Primal Derma
Shortly after launching a huge landing page, our client, Matt, was approached by a top-tier affiliate marketer wanting to promote his products. It wasn’t a done deal. The marketer had a series of questions he needed to be answered before he would commit.
Matt had no idea how to respond, so he booked a strategy session with us to discuss. Since we hadn’t built the original landing page, we added a heat map to the page to gather some data as quickly as possible.
While gathering the numbers from the heat map, we discovered a HUGE hole in his sales page. The original development team hadn’t added any buttons on the page until the very bottom. His visitors were having to scroll over 30 times on a mobile device before ever seeing a call-to-action button.
We immediately pointed out where additional CTAs were needed on the page and had them in place within a day. Watching the heatmap over the next two weeks showed us a large number of people clicking on the VERY FIRST CTA button on the page which showed up after only one scroll on their mobile device. This resulted in higher conversions on the page and better statistics to send to his affiliate connection.
“Below you can see (minus a few) the outcome of the first affiliate sale program Primal Derma has ever done. It was nerve-wracking, exciting, hard, gratifying, and very moving to be on the receiving end of. I now have a bit of a new vision of what this little venture could be and how it might stand under its own strength. I could not have done it without all of your help! Thank you for helping me and believing in me. All the blessings at your door,
Matt S., Founder of Primal Derma
Bottom line: Know your affiliate numbers, and work to improve them! It benefits you as much as it does your affiliates.
Kick That Revenue Stream Into Overdrive
The amount of revenue you make from affiliate marketing is ultimately determined by you:
- Your brand must align.
- Your systems need to shine.
- You need to consistently be watching and improving your numbers.
Tick those three boxes and you’re golden.
Don’t make it hard. Make it rain.