If you're a product seller, you already know that not all affiliates are created equal.
Some will never promote you. Others promote once and disappear. And a small percentage will promote your products over and over, making a lion's share of sales for you.
So how do you recruit great affiliates?
While there is no one answer, there are many ways to find and recruit those key affiliates who will take your business to the next level.
1: "Wanna Promote?"
Contacting websites, blogs and other web publishers.
Send them a well-written email to ask them in a very polite way if they would like to become your affiliate.
You'll likely have to contact a lot of people to get results, but it can be totally worth the effort.
2: Use a Service
Use a service such as Affiliate Leads to locate potential affiliates by category, keyword or advertiser.
3: Bloggers
Group High is a site that will help you find the best bloggers and influencers, as well as manage your relationships.
4: Outsource
If you have the funds, you can hire a service such as Experience Advertising to do your outreach and recruiting for you.
5: Use PPC Search Ads
Did you know that affiliates are actively looking for great programs to promote? You can find them by running PPC ads in Google AdWords and Bing Ads.
Don't forget to track to see which ads are bringing in the most effective affiliates.
6: SEO'd Affiliate Pages
Create a page just for affiliates. Then optimize that page for SEO results, so when people are searching for affiliate programs in your niche, they can find you in the organic search results.
7: Press Releases
Write press releases for online distribution. Press releases can be another way to gain traction in the organic rankings.
8: Facebook Ads
Did you know you can find affiliates on Facebook? Target people who are interested in affiliate marketing and blogging in your niche.
9: Networks
Launch your product on an affiliate network.
There are many to choose from, including ClickBank, Commissions Junction, JVZoo, Linkshare and Sharesale.
In some cases you might want to screen affiliates from these networks to be sure you're only dealing with reputable people.
10: In Person
Trade shows, summits and conferences are great places to meet new affiliates. You might even consider getting a booth at some of these events, so affiliates are coming to you instead of you hunting them down.
11: Twitter
Twitter is a good place to meet potential affiliates. Search for your keywords to find who is talking about your niche, and then follow them and start interacting.
12: LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a great place to meet affiliates and just network in general. You can post and participate in discussions and connect with people in a professional atmosphere.
13: Talk to Your Customers
This is a great way to get new affiliates who truly use and believe in your product. Reach out to your buyers and see who would like to be your affiliate, and take it from there.
14: Your Own Site
Place a link on your website. This is perhaps the most simple, yet most overlooked technique of all.
Place a link at the bottom of your website, and anywhere else you choose, pointing people to your affiliate page.
15: You Promote Mine, I'll Promote Yours
Approach other product sellers and offer to do a deal in which you promote each other's product.
A few notes about this one: Obviously you want to find product owners in your same niche.
You want to love their product enough to promote it - don't promote junk just to make some sales of your own.
And while many will tell you that you cannot be direct competitors to do this, it's simply not true. For example, let's say you have a product that teaches traffic generation techniques.
You find another product that also teaches traffic generation techniques, so naturally they seem like a direct competitor. But the actual techniques they teach are somewhat different from yours.
I can tell you right now that your customers are not buying just one product on generating traffic - they're buying several. You can be the affiliate who introduces them to a traffic course you truly believe in, and in return get your own product promoted as well.
16: It's Super Affiliate!
Look for super affiliates - the top affiliate performers who can generate significant revenue for the merchants they choose to promote.
They're going to be looking for high conversion rates and a decent percentage of the profits.
Be sure you've got everything running smoothly and converting well before asking them to promote. If they make a lot of sales, they may continue to promote you into the future.
But if there are technical glitches or low conversions, you will never hear from them again.
17: Spy
Watch to see who is promoting similar offers. If you're about to launch that traffic program, so some research to find out who the top affiliates were for previous traffic programs.
Perhaps the easiest way to do the research is proactively. Sign up as an affiliate yourself so you can see who the top promoters are, and contact them well in advance of your own launch.
18: Contests
Run an incentive contest, promote it everywhere. Running a contest with cash prizes for top performers will entice new affiliates to join your affiliate program.
19: Affiliates Recruiting Affiliates
Offer an incentive to current affiliates to bring in new affiliates. Affiliates know other affiliates. And offering a percentage of profits on their affiliate recruits is a great way to incentivize them to do your affiliate recruiting for you.
Above all else take care of your best affiliates and keep them happy. Affiliates can make or break your business. If just one affiliate has a bad experience with you, they can potentially tell dozens of others to steer clear. Once this happens, you'll find it very difficult to recruit new affiliates.
But when you treat your affiliates well, they will send you sales - often a surprising number of them.
Just think - all it takes is one really good affiliate to add 5 figures to your business.
A half dozen of these affiliates promoting you on a regular basis can move you into the 6 figure range.
All for just recruiting and taking care of your best people.
