Employing a manager to run affiliate systems on a retainer with bonuses is a win for product owners, a win for managers and eventually a win for affiliates. Having them content is the only way to keep them actively selling your product or service, and in turn improving business.
Russell Brunson knows how to run his affiliates after losing over two years of work, and 6,500 affiliates in one day when his system crashed. He wrote down what worked and what didn’t, then started again and in less then two months he was back. Currently 18 months later he has an affiliate list of 30,000 and draws in a six figure sum of cash per month from his affiliates.
So thriving has his been in recruiting affiliates that Russell Brunson, along with affiliate manager Stu McLaren, has developed an affiliate training program for managers. Both men believe there was a shortage of experienced managers and yet they were the principal element in an effectual affiliate marketing program.
Here is a broad look at the key three elements to be the effective manager:
1. Affiliate Research
It is principal that managers draw in the best sales individuals to sell the products. The number of affiliates is irrelevant if they don’t sell the products each month. Stu collects up to 2500-3000 websites that could be interested in selling the product, and then he looks at which ones collect a great amount of quality traffic. This can be time consuming, but it forms the bases of the effective marketing plan. In the end there may be 150 to 200 sites that could be quality affiliates.
“We would split them into either A affiliates and B affiliates. There is no difference between A affiliates and B affiliates except that A affiliates have more traffic or greater numbers in their email lists,” he said. “Those are the individuals you want to go after first because they will have the biggest impact on your business in a short period of time, and have the most influence on the most amount of individuals.’’
2. Recruiting Affiliates
As soon as managers have identified which potential affiliates they wish to follow, they must follow. Increasing quality affiliates will boost sales. The secret here is to be pro-active and go beyond what is expected.
“It is not difficult, we just pick up the phone and call all the individuals on our A list,” Stu McLaren said. “The reason that we call, was as each lazy affiliate manager out there will send an e-mail. By ringing them we are instantly separate ourselves from other affiliate systems out there. You instantly start to build a relationship.”
“Before we call we do our research; what is their web site? What are they selling? What type of individuals they are drawing to their web site? Prepare promotions for them ahead of time, the more you diminish the work for them the more likely they will say ‘yes’. That is the position you want to be in.’’
3. Training affiliates
If the affiliates have a reason to sell the product then they will stay active affiliates. Other affiliate programs will create only one program, and then expect affiliates to sell again and again each month with the same material. Russell Brunson concentrates on creating a reason for affiliates to sell each month and will concentrate on events in promotional material.
“We create new promotions each month. My advice is start with holidays or events. Imagine if you created tools around these promotions for your affiliates. You are saving them time and work and the likelihood of them selling your product is sky high,” Stu said.
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