Set Up Your Affiliate Program
Build Strategic Partnerships To Grow Your Digital Business
It doesn't matter what kind of digital business you've decided to build. Or what sort of product or service you offer. There's one thing common to all digital businesses...
You need people to want whatever you're selling - and be willing to pay you for it!
In earlier parts of this series, you’ve learned about other elements of how to start a digital business online.
So after you've done the market research and crafted a useful product or service to sell, your next action will be to seek those prospective customers. And then, convince them to do business with you.
HOW TO START A DIGITAL BUSINESS : TABLE OF CONTENTS
This report is part of a collection that covers all aspects of how to start a digital business online. To see others in the series, explore the links below:
How to find new customers for your business?
You can do this in two ways:
1. The HARD way
2. The EASY way
Which one would you prefer?
The hard way is by starting from scratch.
You will prospect for potential buyers.
Then go through the process of contacting them.
Educate them on your product/service.
Show them your offer.
Convince them it's a good idea to buy.
And only then get paid.
All of this takes time, effort and money. Worse, the outcome is quite uncertain. You might hit the jackpot and find plenty of clients. Or manage only a few. Or may even strike out and fail.
Hence... the hard way.
There's an easier way to grow your client base.
And that is by partnering with other businesses that already serve the kind of people who are your ideal clients.
This doesn't have to be your direct competition. It could be businesses who provide other parts of the solution than you. Or prepare the ground for what your product or service will perform. Or add extra value to the basic value your business provides.
When you become partners with these kind of businesses, both sides win.
Their clients get additional value from your offers.
And you get to build a client base quickly and with more certainty than if you tried to do it all by yourself.
Another way to partner for rapid growth of your digital business is to seek people with special skills at finding the kind of audience that needs what you're selling.
For example, a popular blogger or email marketing specialist or ezine publisher might already have put together an audience of their own... and many of them could benefit from your product or service.
By approaching them with a partnership deal, you could have them endorse your business to their viewers, listeners or readers - and deliver a surge of fresh buyers to your digital business.
Or someone might be especially talented at generating a lot of website traffic.
By making a deal where they'll place your registration form in front of those visitors, you can get a steady flow of leads - whom you can then convert into buyers if you're 'direct selling', or flip on to another business if you're 'lead generating' as your business model.
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So which would you rather do?
Choose the hard way - and try to do it all by yourself?
Or partner with the right people - and speed up your initial success?
You should make a choice early.
Because the way you'll think about your business, structure your selling process, and go about your marketing activities will depend upon this part of your strategy.
Now, at this point you should be objecting.
Because, after all as a beginner, who would care to partner with you - and why would they even bother?
That's a valid question.
And the answer is simple!
You should engineer the kind of partnership deals that will sound so appealing to people that they'll be happy to join hands with your digital business.
So it may mean giving up much of your initial profit. Or require you to do most of the heavy lifting. Or even spend cash upfront to ensure that you get the right partners to work with you.
One way is to establish your own affiliate program.
Bonus Cheatsheet: Click Here to Download "Set Up Your Affiliate Program" (PDF Version)
What is an affiliate program?
It's a kind of partner program where you offer a share of your profits to anyone who refers a sale to your business.
So if you're selling ebooks on your digital business website, then each time an affiliate partner refers a buyer, you'll split the earnings between yourself and your partner.
What makes this an appealing deal for affiliates?
They are spared the hassle and delay of creating a product or service, and building all the other parts of a digital business.
They don't have to carry out market research to identify a viable product idea.
They won't invest the time, effort and money to craft a sales website and payment processing system.
All they will do is drive targeted traffic to your website.
And if one of their referrals ends up buying from you, they get paid a portion of your profits!
If a particular offer doesn't work well with their traffic, they can move on and try another... unlike you, who will have to tweak and improve the product until it appeals to prospects - or abandon it, accept the losses you've taken, and try all over again.
But...
How to attract affiliate partners with an unproven offer?
If you're an established digital business with a record of making hot selling offers, it's easy to get affiliates willing to promote your product or service.
But it's not quite as easy when you're new.
Because the affiliate is taking a chance on you, not knowing whether your sales process will work!
You can overcome this objection by offering a higher share of the profits - or even all of the money from the first sale.
This will sound good to most affiliates, because they stand to make more money for each sale they refer to you - rather than send to another merchant.
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Another way to win many affiliates even as a new digital business owner is by offering extra incentives such as cash prizes or bonuses for every X sales.
So you might promise a bounty of $100 in addition to your regular 70% affiliate commission - if your partner refers 15 new sales to your business.
That might mean you're paying out most (or even all!) of your profits... but will gain many new clients who will buy other things from your digital business over the years to come.
There are many more creative approaches you can take.
The core idea, however, is simple.
You tap into existing goodwill and relationships that business owners have with their audience... and leverage it into a flood of new clients to your digital business.
Do this effectively, and you'll quickly build up momentum.
There are many technical issues to consider before you go ahead with launching an affiliate program.
How much will you offer affiliate partners as commission?
Which platform will run your affiliate program?
Who will you accept as partners, and how to recruit them?
Will you pay referral fees on few or all products?
And, of course, you'll have to run the numbers to make sure your business will be financially viable even after paying out affiliate commissions.
So it isn't a light-hearted decision you can take on a whim.
You have to carefully consider these variables and then design your affiliate program to effectively grow your digital business.
But the rewards are well worth taking the effort.
So go ahead and brainstorm ideas for your affiliate program - to implement early in the process.