Businesses of all sizes need recurring sales to thrive. While repeat business is critical, focusing on getting an influx of new customers can help scale your revenue and ultimately grow your business. The more leads you generate, the more profit opportunities you have. This is why businesses invest in various marketing strategies. And one of the most effective ways to improve your lead generation efforts is to launch an affiliate marketing program.
But what exactly is a lead generation affiliate marketing program, and how to implement a successful one? Find out more in this article.
Understanding Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an advertising model in which a brand compensates third-party publishers or affiliates to generate leads for their website, services, and products. The commission fee incentivizes affiliate marketers to find ways to promote the company and get more leads.
Affiliates can be web content creators and bloggers, social media influencers, publishers, or well-known personalities with an established base of loyal and engaged followers. However, anyone can be an affiliate for your small business as long as they promote and drive traffic to your business.
Often, amateur affiliates take advantage of online affiliate marketing courses and resources like Legendary Marketer to become more effective in marketing a brand’s product.
Setting Up A Lead Generation Affiliate Program: 5 Steps To Follow
Now that you know what affiliate marketing is, this section shares the essential steps to launching a successful affiliate marketing program.
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Set Goals
As with any business project and initiative, setting goals is the first step to creating an effective affiliate program.
Decide which audience you want to target. What type of people do you want to attract through the affiliate program? What kind of affiliates can help you achieve your goals? For instance, if you have a physical store, you want to attract local customers. In this case, an affiliate program focused on a local lead generation business effort should be a priority.
Then, set a few key performance indicators (KPIs) for your program, which can help determine your program’s success.
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Create An Affiliate Program Policy
An affiliate program policy can serve as a guide for your affiliates and include performance requirements. With a well-written policy, you can set clear expectations for affiliates and rules for commissionable transactions. Your policy may also include recommended marketing tools, channels, and actions that affiliates can use to achieve your goals.
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Create A Competitive Commission Structure
The commission rate of your lead generation affiliate marketing program should be attractive and worthwhile for affiliates while still being reasonable for your business.
To develop a proper commission structure, you need to analyze how much of your revenue can be allocated toward affiliate commissions. Industry research, which includes checking the commission structure of your competitors’ existing programs, can help you determine the average commission rate for your affiliate program.
That said, commission rates for physical products range from 5%–15%, whereas software products tend to have higher rates.
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Choose Products To Include In The Program
No one’s stopping you from including all your products and services in your affiliate program. However, if you want a more effective start, consider adding only a few products that are most popular among your audience.
Focusing on a few products can provide your affiliates with ample resources, attention, and support to promote the products at the program’s start. Also, some products have more complex specifications that only your in-house salesperson can effectively promote.
As your affiliate program becomes more successful and you recruit more affiliates, you can add more affiliate products.
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Be Meticulous In Screening Your Affiliates
Your affiliate program is only as strong as the affiliates working to promote your products and services. So, if you want to spread the word about your business and effectively influence your audience’s buying decisions, you must be meticulous in screening your affiliates. Generally, you want to work with someone with relevant knowledge and experience in the industry.
Also, you want to look for publishers with a good number of following and communities. This ensures that your affiliate has good authority and can generate a more comprehensive reach for lead generation. Also, the best affiliates know the latest promotional and marketing trends.
When you choose the right affiliates, you can receive the best leads and conversions with the least effort.
Takeaway
Businesses have a lot of options in terms of marketing their brand and their services and products. However, affiliate marketing is one of the most effective methods to include in your overall digital marketing plan.
By partnering with publishers in your industry, you can drive targeted traffic to your online platforms, get more quality leads, and ultimately improve your bottom line.
