Why You Must Have Your Own Affiliate Program

As suggested in my last article, if you want to sell your own product on the internet, you need two things. Firstly, you need a responsive mailing list, for reasons highlighted in my previous article here.

Then you need to create and promote your own affiliate program, to get other people promoting your product for you. In this article, we are going to talk about some considerations that need to be borne in mind when doing this.

Now, the first thing to understand is that promoting your affiliate program is completely different from advertising and selling your product.

We are talking here about finding associates who are in a position to be able to make sales of your product for you.

You cannot just sit back and hope that people who visit your site or even people whose names are on your responsive mailing list will automatically join your program.

If you simply sit back and relax hoping it will take care of itself – that is just never going to work, period.

It is entirely up to you to get the ball rolling by going out there and gathering your own network of affiliates. Such affiliates that you recruit personally will be what are sometimes known as your "first level" of affiliates – in other words, they are directly underneath you, the program owner.

Now, it is possible that you might want multiple levels of associates in your program, thereby encouraging those on this first level to create what is effectively an affiliate network of their own, all working at promoting your product.

In this way, you can pass some of the responsibility for populating your affiliate network along the line, thus reducing your own workload, and widening your potential virtual "catchment area".

But, in the first place, you have to start things off by recruiting your own affiliates.

Before doing so, you may want to do a little advertising for the actual program itself, but it is not really necessary.

Now, as I see it, there are basically two types of affiliate programs that you might consider setting up:

1. An affiliate program that is open to anyone, that anyone can join, or
2. The kind of affiliate program that only people who have bought the product can join.

Simply put, neither of these is necessarily right or wrong, and, in my experience, it is generally the nature and price of you product that will determine which is most appropriate.

Look at it this way.

If your product is an e-book with a low price, say$15, it shouldn’t be too difficult to sell, and so you will probably want to let anyone and everyone sell it. The bottom line is that if anyone can join you may get a lot more affiliates, but they won’t be as motivated to get up and do anything to help your business.

If, on the other hand, you are selling a $1500 product, then almost certainly, you should only allow previous buyers to join your program because with a price tag that high, you are going to need the most motivated affiliate network that you can get. These people already have an interest in your product and presumable have a great belief in it (otherwise they would have asked for a refund)

If anyone can join it is easy to recruit new affiliates by putting a link on your site or in your email (use a "signature" in every mail that you send) to advertise for free your opportunity. In fact, anywhere that you can put a free link is an opportunity to plug your program.

On the other had, if only buyers can join, then you must take a more personal approach, by, for example, emailing them personally inviting them to share in the program.

In my own experience of running my own affiliate program, I feel that this is often a much more effective approach, because these people are already your customers (remember trust?) and they will feel like they know you already.

In fact - this can be a very effective sales tool in itself.

If you tell people they are automatically entered into your associate program simply by buying your product they may get very motivated to buy, especially if you could use a sales message along the lines of "Sell Only Two And Yours Is Free!" (assuming a 50% commission rate).

Whichever way you choose to go when you set up your program, always make sure that you mention it as often and as widely as you can, whether everyone can join or not.

This will always spark interest in people and make them want to check out what you have to offer.