The ultimate guide to attracting affiliates

Affiliate marketing seems to be popular now, so you might think you won’t have the slightest problem finding people to promote your products. Just advertise the affiliate program on your website or social media profiles and hire people who reply.

However, if you take that approach, the people you hire will likely know little to nothing about affiliate marketing. They may have no idea what they need to do to earn their commission. Perhaps they hoped for easy money with little effort and will abandon you when they realize affiliate marketing isn’t what they expected.

To keep growing your SaaS affiliate program, you need to reach out to skilled and talented affiliates who match your product and niche. Fortunately, there are a few clever methods through which you can find and encourage great affiliates to join your team. Let’s have a look at some of them.

Give your new affiliates an inventory with promotional materials

Every affiliate will appreciate receiving a set of promotional materials ready for them to use on their blog or social media because it can save them time and effort.

Creating content takes a lot of time, and incorporating your SaaS product into it naturally is even more difficult. This is especially true if they have to spend time researching and designing various creatives themselves and then spend more time waiting for you to approve them.

On the other hand, when affiliates are given pre-made banners, landing pages, promotional videos, or graphics for their blogs or social media profiles, they can promote your products straight away and help bring sales faster.

A great example of a valuable creative is a personalized website for each of your affiliates, especially if they don’t have a website of their own.

Don’t worry. You don’t have to create 10 or 15 websites from scratch – who would have time for that? Through the Site Replicator feature in Post Affiliate Pro, you can create as many personalized websites for your program as needed. All you have to do is make one version of your affiliate website and then make separate copies with the names or details of each affiliate. Of course, you must create more than one template if you are promoting several products. Plus, the content on the copied sites can be altered using a web interface similar to WordPress without having to write any code.

Create a remarkable landing page for your new affiliates

The primary purpose of a landing page is to encourage people to take action – whether that’s to purchase a product or subscribe to your newsletter. You can also use landing pages to convince people to become your new affiliates. The page doesn’t need to be anything elaborate. You simply need to show potential affiliates what your program is all about and what they can gain from joining it.

How? First, clearly state how your affiliate program works, what the terms and conditions are, and what’s in it for them. A landing page is also an excellent place for you to share testimonials from your other affiliates. For example, you could showcase quotes from “happy customers turned successful affiliates” on your website to encourage other customers to join your program.

Look for affiliates among loyal customers

There’s a good chance that you might find your best affiliates among people who regularly use your products and already know almost everything about them. Loyal customers can use this knowledge to persuade others to try out your products. So why not reach out to your most loyal customers or those who have posted positive reviews and ask them to join your affiliate team? You could send them personalized emails informing them about your affiliate program and its benefits.

Reaching out to people who are active on your social media profiles is worth a try as well. Many of these people will be happy to share a good word about your product without extra incentives, so letting them know they can earn some money or receive free products by doing the same thing will surely get them interested.

Promote your program through success stories in your newsletter or on social media

Your brand’s social media channels or customer newsletters are also good places for you to mention that you are looking for new affiliates to join your program. You might want to plan a series of posts or single out a newsletter section presenting your affiliate program and describing how customers can join it.

However, that could be a bit boring. Instead, how about promoting your program by highlighting the success stories of your affiliates by having a special section dedicated to them? Besides being an incredible way to reward and motivate your current affiliates, this is also a simple yet effective way to advertise your program.

Partner with other brands or companies from your niche

Finding a partner for your program will require a bit more work (and patience), but the results can be more than worthwhile. By partnering with other brands whose audience overlaps with yours, you may find many new customers among your partner’s audience. There’s also a good chance you’ll find new affiliates there as well.

When joining forces with another brand or company and facilitating the commencement of team collaboration, you promote your products and benefit from sharing ideas, skills, resources, and best practices with your partner.

Building a mutually beneficial partnership takes time, though. The cooperation will only be successful if your goals and ideas align. If they don’t, regular teamwork and creating joint campaigns may cause more tension and frustration than it is worth. Your audiences might not support the cooperation either, resulting in fewer sales and more churn.

Treat your affiliates well

Almost every major Saas company has an affiliate program nowadays, meaning there are loads of companies fighting for experienced marketers or famous bloggers’ attention. So relying only on financial rewards is probably no longer enough to bring new affiliates into your SaaS program and prevent current ones from leaving.

It’s far better to focus on building a sense of community and treating your affiliates as part of the team to motivate them to keep doing their best and spread the word about your brand’s fantastic employee support. And if your current affiliates are happy working for your brand, that decreases the chances of abandoning you for a “better” program. It’s more likely that they will pass a good word about you on to their friends instead, and maybe even convince them to use then recommend your products as well.

How can you build such a positive atmosphere in your affiliate program? First, regularly discuss their ideas or problems with your affiliates and assure them they can reach out to you whenever necessary. A good idea would also be to create a unique affiliate program manual for your new affiliates. Inside, you could include frequently asked questions about the program, the requirements for earning commission, and short tutorials for the affiliate tools they will be using.

It’s also worth thinking about adding non-financial incentives for your affiliates besides commission. They could include company merchandise, limited edition products, or simply words of praise for reaching a milestone or hitting a new sales record.

Conclusion

Whether you are just starting your affiliate program or running it for a while, you will need new affiliates to help grow your business.

Finding skilled affiliates who can bring sales will take time and effort, yes. But isn’t it better in the long run to have five engaged and loyal affiliates that know how to drive traffic and sales rather than 20 “so-so” affiliates who barely produce any results? Surely it is! So it’s worth putting in that extra effort and reaching out to affiliates who are a good fit for your brand.