Sales Driving Partnerships… with Affiliate Marketing (episode 108)
by April Buencamino-dyJosh is the CEO of Chronos Agency and host of the eCommerce Profits Podcast. He’s all about scaling DTC brands with lifecycle marketing – across the email, SMS, and push marketing channels. Using lifecycle marketing Josh and his team drive an average revenue lift for their clients of 23%, and are generating 8-figures in monthly trackable revenue across email, SMS, and push marketing. With performance like that – who better to talk about exactly how to make your lifecycle marketing work for you.
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About Partnership Discovery
In his years managing affiliate programs, Rick has built a significant database of affiliates and partners for brands in different verticals.
With this, Rick hopes to address the most time-consuming piece of setting up an affiliate program, which is looking for affiliates. At his new agency Partnership Discovery, Rick and his team have done the work by vetting the partners and validating the information.
Brands can then contact Partnership Discovery to purchase a list of these affiliates they can reach out to.
Defining Affiliates
Rick simply defines affiliates as people or other brands that are marketing another brand’s product for a commission.
Today, the terms affiliate and partner are being used interchangeably, but Rick says affiliates are mostly commission-based, while partners cover commissions plus upfront payments for posts and other content.
With the rising cost of Facebook and Instagram ads and privacy laws, it makes sense to get into affiliate marketing because it’s cost-effective and the ROI is there.
Affiliate Marketing for Your Business
When asked what type of business will benefit most from affiliate marketing, Rick says it can work for anybody in general. However, he would not recommend it for businesses that are just starting out.
You need to have conversion data first because your affiliates will want to see that you’re performing well in terms of sales.
Get your brand going for at least six months before establishing your affiliate program. Once you do, make sure you nurture and maintain a good relationship with your affiliates.
Getting Started
The first thing you need to do is choose your affiliate marketing platform. Rick recommends going with smaller platforms when you’re just starting out because they’re inexpensive.
What you do next is research and look for your affiliates, onboard them, and build your relationship with them. This will take up a lot of your time, but this is where you are going to make your profit.
Commission Schemes and Incentives
There is no set standard when it comes to commissions, but Rick suggests that you look at your margins first before deciding what you can pay your affiliates.
You can do a fixed percentage, or set up a tiered scheme. Providing incentives such as a first sale bonus or top sales prize will also work. Also, make sure to have collaterals your affiliates can readily use for marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Today
The channel is putting more focus on content producers, and other types of affiliates such as technology partners and mass media publications.
Think outside the box and be creative with your program, and you’ll be way ahead of your competition.
Insider Tips
If we’ve inspired someone to take their first step with partnership marketing – what do they need to know to give themselves the best chance of success?
Take your time in setting up your affiliate program. Do it properly and depending on how you set it up, you’ll see good results.
Also, set realistic expectations with your program.
Once you’ve started of course you’ve got to ‘keep optimising’! So what’s your favourite way to improve partnership marketing performance?
Rick’s first tip is to always test. Whether it’s incentives or bonuses, or how you present them to your affiliates, test what you have to see how they resonate.
Second, look at your competition and see what’s working for them. There’s always that possibility that what they have going will work for you, too if done properly.
If someone listening wants to learn more about partnership marketing is there one cheap/free resource you’d recommend?
Get in touch with Rick for a free chat and discuss all things affiliate marketing with him.
Crystal ball time – what’s coming up in the next 6-12 months that we should be getting ready for in partnership marketing?
Q4 is coming up in just a few months so now is the best time to set up and launch your affiliate program.
Don’t wait until October and November to get started if you want to see results.
Interview Links
- Email Rick for a free chat
- Buy a list of active affiliates in your vertical at Partnership Discovery
- Have Rick manage or launch your affiliate program
- Gain more insights on affiliate marketing from episode 41 and episode 74, both with Rick
Rick on Social media:
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