

If you are reading this post, I am going to assume that you already have a product to sell or you are very close to finishing it up. The next step, most obviously, is generating traffic and making sales.
Now, there are two ways to generate traffic. You can go down the traditional route, and or content marketing or some other kind of free marketing. Alternatively, you can do pay traffic. With this method, you rely on your time and effort to generate traffic.
The paid traffic method is excellent, because as they say, “It is a tap that you can turn off and on whenever you want, and drive traffic and sales on demand.”
However, for many people, paying for traffic upfront is not possible. If you are one of these people, I strongly recommend doing a product launch – either starting out with your current audience list or working with affiliates to build your new audience as well as generate sales.
If you are selling a product between the price of, say, $7 to even $2,000, you need to have a target market.
When it comes to doing a product launch, you can, of course, start with your list as a base, but it helps to have affiliates because then you can rely on other people to recommend your product to their followers and their tribe. In return, you usually give them a commission. This commission can be either a flat fee for every sale that they make or a percentage based on the price point at which you are selling.
Quite often when we work with affiliates, we provide as much information as we can to help them promote the product. We share review access. We give email swipes, banner ads, and sometimes, targeting information as well. Essentially, anything that will help someone recommend your product with confidence to the right target market.
Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “If I am going to give all this information to someone else, why don’t I do this myself?”
Well, you are welcome to do this yourself once you have a big enough list or once you have enough money to invest, but it does not hurt to have other people talking about your product as well.
Of course, in this case, instead of them doing it just for goodwill, they are getting paid in return. So if you are comfortable with this idea, and if you see the power in using this to build your business, then I would recommend working with affiliates.
Now, “recruiting affiliates,” as we call it, is not an easy thing to do. Networking is a painful thing that most people would like to avoid. Networking requires talking to other people, convincing them that your product is, in fact, perfect for their audience, even if you have never spoken to them before. However, there are a few simple ways in which you can recruit more affiliates.
#1 The first method is finding websites where your potential affiliates frequent. For example, depending on the kind of markets you are in, there must be some forums where many affiliates hang out and discuss business practices. If I think about the internet marketing community, there’s Warrior Forum; there’s Digital Point Forum, and some other forums as well. For the “meeting women” niche, there are many forums where potential affiliates hang out. These people are gaining new knowledge as well as selling their training and courses to potential customers.
#2 The second method involves reaching out to affiliates via blogs or Facebook groups and fan pages. Now, if you are in a new market, or if you have not worked with affiliates before, you might struggle to find them easily on different websites. A way to be more precise is to find blogs in your market. Find blogs that are reviewing products that are similar to yours. Find Facebook groups where your target audience hangs out. Moreover, contact these blog owners. Contact the Facebook group and fan page owners, and build up a relationship with them. Show an opportunity or a way in which you can deliver more value to their prospects, to their customers. In return, they could recommend your product to them. Now, do understand that reaching out to someone cold like this might not result in a relationship immediately. However, if you work at it for a few weeks, I am confident that you will be able to develop a relationship with a potential affiliate, and they will be confidently able to recommend your product to their audience.
#3 The third way to recruit more affiliates is finding people who have sold a complementary product in the past. For example, if I am selling an email marketing platform, then it would be in my best interest to work with other people who have sold training courses on how to build an email list or how to write perfect emails. I can reach out to these people because they have customers and audience who want to send out emails. They could use my platform to do exactly that.
#4 The fourth method is using networks such as JVZoo or ClickBank. If you go to ClickBank, they have an extensive marketplace where you can find other product creators in your market. This ties in with the last point about finding people who have sold complimentary products in the past. If you reach out to these people via their websites, I am sure that will be able to, over time, foster a working relationship with them as potential affiliates.
#5 Finally, the fifth method is simply asking for referrals. If you ask them, “Is there anyone else you think who might find this useful to recommend to their audience?” they might say no, but that is ok. Moreover, who knows – they might say yes! Now some affiliates might expect some payment for this. This payment usually comes in the form of, say, five to 10 percent referral income. For example, if I recommend another affiliate to promote your product, out of whatever sales they make, I would like to get paid five to 10 percent. This process is called offering Tier 2 commissions. It is completely optional. It is up to you if you want to give that away or not, but doing so would mean that your products are exposed to a broader set of affiliates.
Now, you can efficiently use these methods to recruit affiliates and make additional sales. You can effectively work with affiliates to add five figures or more to your business every single month. Even if you are selling software as a service, or if you are selling coaching service, or information products, or training, you can use these methods to network and work with other people in your market to make more sales.
Neil Napier helps businesses innovate and create funnels that convert. You can find more about him and how he can help you by clicking on this link. https://kvsocial.com
