Should You Have an Affiliate Program for Your Joint Venture Project?

You have affiliates for your business; why not put them to business for your joint venture project, too?

Affiliates are already enthusiastic and skilled at selling your products.  They’re familiar with your target market and they already have systems in place to drive business and sales.  When you incorporate your affiliates into the promotion of your JV project, you’re expanding the reach of your project and increasing the potential profits.

Additionally, if your partner has affiliates for their business, then you’re potentially increasing your reach and opportunities exponentially.

So what materials do you give your affiliates to motivate them to sell your JV project?

  o  A link back to your site and some form of advertising, such as a banner or side bar. 

  o  Detailed information about your product, including its selling points, what makes it different from other products, and its value.  If possible, provide them with testimonials from your customers.

  o  Ad copy, free reprint articles, email promos, free brandable reports, which affiliates can brand with their own link, and even a free e-book. 

  o  Make sure to let your affiliates know the strengths and selling points of your partner, too.  That way they can use the information in their own marketing tools and methods.

  o  A special website where they can send customers to help differentiate your JV product from your other products.

  o  Consider giving them an extra incentive to really promote your JV project.  Potential incentives could be a contest.  Give the affiliate with the most sales a cash incentive and you’ll really boost sales.

The more tools you give your affiliates the better.  Make sure to keep in touch with your affiliates for the duration of the promotion and give them tips on how they can improve their sales conversions.

Some business owners go as far as to provide their affiliates with a separate joint venture website template and full sales copy for their product on a warm-up page.  This may be worth the extra effort if you believe it will boost sales. 

The more excitement you build around a joint venture partnership, the more potential profits there are.  Your affiliate team can be one of the best tools you have to create this high level of excitement and anticipation for your joint venture project, and they can be the key to real profits.  Don’t forget them!

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Profiting from Joint Ventures:

Easy Partnerships

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How Affiliates Can Help Generate Quality Leads for Your Business

Affiliate marketing is one way to build high-volume leads with no upfront cost and a significant return on investment.  Simply put, the business owner (called the merchant) partners with webmasters (called affiliates).  Affiliates publish a link to the merchant’s website.  Leads are generated for the merchant, and affiliates earn a predetermined amount for each lead.

Affiliates will sign up to promote a merchant’s business because they think the merchant’s products or services will be helpful to their visitors.  Affiliates generally reach a similar market as the one sought by the merchant.  The program works well because affiliates are, in effect, sharing their existing traffic flow with the merchant.  Leads developed through affiliates will therefore be pre-qualified.  Further, since leads come through action on the potential buyer’s part, an interest in the merchant’s product already exists, making the likelihood of conversion high.

Establishing an affiliate program can also help improve a merchant’s rankings with search engines.  The more people who click on the merchant’s link from affiliate websites, the higher that merchant will be ranked.  This gives the merchant a better position in search engine listings, which leads to even greater traffic.

The cost of running an affiliate marketing program makes it a highly favorable option.  There are several ways that affiliates are paid, and these are pre-determined by the merchant at the outset of the program.  Pay-per-click (PPC) means the affiliate is entitled to compensation for each visitor that clicks on the link to the merchants website.  Pay-per-Action (PPA) means the affiliate is paid each time visitors take specific steps, such as providing their name and email address to receive a newsletter or more information.  Pay-per-Sale (PPS) means the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate when a sale is generated through the affiliate’s website.  Pay-per-Impression (PPM) means the affiliate is paid simply for displaying the merchant’s ad or link.  PPA and PPS arrangements are more favorable to the merchant, who pays only for leads with high potential for conversion or only when a sale is actually made.

For best results, merchants can determine the criteria for affiliate partners in advance of establishing an affiliate program.  The best affiliate partners will be those with content-rich websites in a field related to that of the merchant.  This will ensure that any leads generated through the partnership will come from the merchant’s desired market. 

Another factor in how successful an affiliate partnership will be, is the ease of use that visitors enjoy when navigating the affiliate’s website.  A site that is difficult to use will not hold visitors long enough for them to take action.  Ease of use leads to higher conversion rates.

Through affiliate marketing, merchants stand to gain a massive amount of exposure, increased traffic, an ongoing supply of leads, and ultimately, more sales.

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Learn how to manage your affiliates — Make their profits soar as well as yours!

Affiliate Manager Course

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Tips to Creating an  Affiliate Center for Your Affiliates

Many affiliate managers wonder what they can do to make their affiliate program stronger, increase sales, and have happy, motivated, and hardworking affiliates.  The answer is simple.  One of the best things you can do for your affiliate program is to create an affiliate center. 

Think of an affiliate center as the heart of an affiliate program…  

Offering an affiliate handbook is advisable.  This can include a background on what affiliate marketing is, some examples of the methods they can use to market your products and services, as well as some additional resources you feel will be of help to them.

An affiliate center should also include affiliate tools.   These tools should help affiliates to promote your products, such as articles, brandable special reports, sample emails, as well as both graphic and text link ads.

If possible, affiliate statistics should be included in their affiliate area.  If the affiliate center is located outside of the affiliate management system, simply include a link to the URL affiliates can use to log in and view their stats.

Having all your affiliates’ tips, tools and articles in one location makes it very convenient.  Your affiliates can log in and check their stats, pick up some new ads to use on their sites or an article to post on their blog.  They can also take a few minutes to look through the affiliate handbook and pick up some new marketing techniques…all in one central location.

It does take time to create these training materials and resources, but it will be beneficial down the road.  Providing these things to  affiliates makes their job easier, therefore making them more willing to do the work necessary to earn commissions.  They can simply grab the ads you created and post them on their site or take the sample email and send it to their mailing lists. 

A quick guideline and step-by-step guide is very beneficial.  A new affiliate can join a program and start receiving sales the same day.  This is a win-win situation for both you and the affiliate.

Communicate with your affiliates.  You can send an email to your affiliates and ask them how you can make their job easier, what tools they would like to see provided, and what aspects of affiliate marketing they need training on.

Offer contests, incentives and heads-up on sales coming up, etc.  Current affiliates will have a new drive and will become more motivated and new affiliates will be able to get a running start.

You will benefit from having such an amazing affiliate program, as well and will see extra profits for years to come as long as the affiliate center is maintained well.

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Recommended Resources to Create Your Own Affiliate Program:

Ultimate Marketing Center

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