Create Your Affiliate Program

I have to confess: I’m excited to get back into a routine this week after taking time off over the holidays.  While I spent a lot of time the past few weeks resting and recovering from being sick, as well as enjoying the Christmas holidays, I also spent time getting clear on what my goals are for this year.  

One of those goals is to share more valuable content with you, and I’m excited to kick off with today’s post, and to share an invitation with you at the end to a free training I’m hosting this month! Let’s dive in!

3 Reasons You Need to Make Working with Affiliates a Priority in 2023

Reason #1:  It’s a SIMPLE and FAST Way to Grow Your Audience!

When it comes to selling your products or launching your course, what do you need?  An audience to sell to!  But trying to grow that audience on your own can be super daunting… Reels, IG posts, FB ads, daily pinning, trying to figure out TikTok.  It can start to feel like… a lot.

When you work with affiliate partners, it doesn’t have to be that complicated to grow your audience. You provide your affiliate partners with a link to your free or paid offer to promote, as well as the promo materials, and then they do the actual work of promoting you and your business and sending new leads and customers your way.  [More on this here.]

Reason #2: It’s Cost-Effective {Especially if You’re Just Getting Started!}

When you work with affiliate partners, you aren’t having to pay them until after they’ve made a sale for you.  So, you don’t need a big budget like you would need if you were running paid ads, and this is especially good if you are just getting started with selling your courses or products in the online space.

Here’s an example to show you what I mean: 

If you spend $500 on Facebook ads, and your course costs $500, you have to make at least 1 sale to just break even.

But say you offer your affiliates a 20% commission for promoting your $500 course. You only need to make 1 sale in order to make a profit.  1 sales = $400 in profit for you, and $100 paid to your affiliates. 

Not that long ago, I read on Shopify’s website that one in four shoppers who were new to brands bought through affiliate links. And while I am not surprised by this fact, I am surprised by how many product sellers I know who aren’t currently working with affiliates to sell more!

If you sell digital or physical products, this blog post is for you.  Below, I’m sharing 3 tips for product sellers to sell more products by working with affiliates!

Tip #1: Turn Your Existing Customers into Your Affiliates

Once you’ve set up your affiliate program, I encourage you to invite all of your existing customers/clients to become your affiliates.  

Why is this a good idea?  Because they are the people who can authentically share about your product with others who may need or want it!

Another way to think about it:

If you have 20 customers, and they each referred just 1 person to your product who purchased… BOOM! 20 new customers. Your sales essentially doubled! 🙂  

So, before you pitch others to be your affiliates, make sure you start with your existing customers!

Tip #2: Make It Personal When Choosing Others Affiliate Partners

In my upcoming workshop I mentioned above, I’ll be sharing in-depth about who else, besides your past customers, make the best affiliate partners {you’ll even leave knowing exactly who you want to pitch!}.  But here’s a little tip if you are thinking about who to partner with now:  Make it personal… and be choosy!

When you are researching who would make dream affiliate partners, choose people who you genuinely like, and who you support their business and would be proud to have promote your products.  

One of the questions I get asked the most in my work here at Create Your Affiliate Program is this:

What affiliate tracking software do you recommend?

My first response is always: Check the tools you are already using!

If you are a course creator or membership creator, you might be using a course platform (like Teachable, Kajabi or Membervault) that already has affiliate tracking capabilities.

You can also check your payment processors, such as ThriveCart or SendOwl, which also have affiliate tracking capabilities.

No need to spend additional money on an affiliate tracking software when you might already have access to one.

But, if you don’t have an affiliate tracking software and are looking for a recommendation, I’ve got one to share with you today:

Tapfiliate

Tapfiliate is a tool I’ve been using with clients more and more over the past year as part of my VIP Days, and I am really liking how seamless it is as a tracking platform.

Start your 14 day Free Trial Today!

Here’s what I love about it:

You can very easily onboard your affiliates, and give them everything they need to promote your business, by using their branded affiliate dashboard.

“How can I get more people to join my online membership?“

If you have a membership, you might have asked yourself this question… many times in facts.

As online business owners, I think a lot of us think we need to be running fb ads in order to be ‘successful’.

But running fb ads in 2019 is a lotttt different than running fb ads in 2022 – they aren’t as reliable as they used to be.

I want to share with you a very powerful example of why I recommend starting with Affiliates to promote your membership *before* you run facebook ads to it!

Scenario A: Promoting Your Membership with Facebook Ads 

Let’s say you have an ads budget of $500 that you want to use to grow your membership.

You create ads that send sign ups to your opt in, then send those people through your sales funnel to enroll them into your membership.

Let’s say your ads are converting at $2 per opt in. 

Based on this math, it’s likely you will get 250 people to sign up through your ad and go through your sales funnel.

Let’s be generous and say your sales funnel is converting 5% of the people who go through your sales funnel.

250 people x .05 conversion rate = 12.5 sign ups  

$1,212.50 in income

Facebook Ads Budget = $500.

Profit you are left with: $712.50

If your membership is $97 a month, you need roughly 5 sign ups to enroll in your membership just to break even on your ads budget.

The other 7 sign ups account for actual revenue.  #yay

Is this doable? Absolutely! 

But when you are first starting your membership, you might not have $500+ to invest in Facebook ads {or it might feel super risky to do that when the results aren’t guaranteed!}

Or you might have a membership that can’t be marketed with ads for whatever reason (such as weight loss memberships or s_x love and relationship coaching memberships) and so FB ads aren’t even something you can set up if you wanted to.

So I also want to show you what the data looks like if you work with affiliates to send people through your funnel instead of running Facebook ads.

Scenario B: Promoting Your Membership by Working with Affiliates

Let’s say you have 3 people who want to be affiliates for you, and you’ve offered them a 20% one-time commission as your affiliate.

Let’s also say those 3 affiliates send your funnel 250 new opt ins.

And if your sales funnel is converting at 5%, so 12.50 new people sign up for your $97 membership. 

Here at Create Your Affiliate Program, I’m always sharing with course creators and membership site creators the benefits of creating an affiliate program:

Did you know that this same information applies to coaches, too?

It’s true… Coaches can also grow their coaching practices by working with affiliates!

• You can gain more visibility quickly as a leading coach in your industry without having to constantly post on social media.
• You can grow your email list with new leads who could be ideal potential clients without spending money on ads
• And you can make more sales of your group programs or 1:on:1 coaching services by partnering with affiliates.

As a coach, you can work with affiliates…

… Even if you only work with clients 1:on:1.

… Even if you work with clients in small group programs.

… Even if you haven’t had your first coaching client, yet!

Here are a few common questions I get from coaches who are considering working with affiliates:

Q: It feels out of integrity for someone to sell my coaching containers if they haven’t been through them.  So, who would be my affiliate partners?

I always say that your best affiliates are your current or past clients. So, start there. If they are working with you and you have provided them with great results, chances are they are already sharing your work with their communities or friends. By setting them up as an affiliate, you are giving them an extra incentive {usually monetary!} to promote your work.