You may be a one-entrepreneur marketing machine but it always helps to have others along for the ride when you're planning a product launch. A variety of partners and affiliates helps you leverage your marketing and leads to a far more successful product launch.
What Affiliates and Partners Do
Basically, your affiliates and other business partners help you to build a buzz around your product and make actual sales. They promote your product through their own marketing for a commission from sales, and you produce marketing materials, content, and training materials for them to use, these are often called swipe files or swipe emails. Exactly how much direction you give them depends on your preferences. I've always found the easier you make it for someone to market you, the more likely it will be to happen.
The Advantages of Using Partners and Affiliates
The main advantage of doing this is that you get exposure to a larger market. With partners out there spreading the word, your product can reach a wider audience.
Your partners also help you build excitement around your product. The members of your target market will see your product advertised in multiple places. It will seem like everybody is talking about it. It also lends your product more legitimacy since it's being sold at multiple outlets.
Finally, your partners act as your online sales force. You can leverage their efforts for more sales. This creates a win-win situation where everybody prospers.
Make sure You Use An Affiliate Tracking System
Guessing who sent what sale to you is never going to be easy. There's plenty of affiliate software available to help you track sales correctly. When you use affiliate software, it's reassuring to your partners that you are doing this properly. They need to know how you track and attribute sales to them. We use ThriveCart to manage our affiliates. It has a nice dashboard area where the affiliate can get their links and swipes.
How to Attract Affiliates to Your Product Launch
There are many ways to get affiliates to sell your product. Start by reaching out to any affiliates or partners you've worked with before.
You can also reach out to others who might be interested. One way to do this is to invite members of your audience who are salespeople or influencers. You can contact them through email or social media and explain your product and system to them.
Another good source of help is bloggers or influential people in your niche. You can reach out to new people you're not already connected with but whose audience could use your product. Make a good first impression, and explain your product and its specific benefits to users.
When you contact potential affiliates, let them know what materials and training you'll provide. Make sure they understand the benefits of working with you.
You should start building relationships with affiliates and partners long before you think you need them. This should be done in the earliest stages of your product pre-launch. It may take time to communicate and develop a rapport and trust with them. If you're struggling to recruit affiliates, you might want to hire an affiliate manager to help you recruit and manage your affiliates.
Need help with any of this? book in a free call and let's have a chat. If our team can't help you, we'll know someone who can.
Sarah