UNLIMITED CUSTOMER GOLDMINE BLOG POST 3

 The General Rule

Here's a general rule to go by. It doesn't apply in

all cases, but in most. The better your product is,

and the more the affiliate earns over time, or the

higher the commission for the single sale product,

the more affiliates you will attract, the more

money you'll make. This should give you a good

insight into what to do with your levels,

reoccurring level, and overall percentage.

If in doubt, pull out that calculator and start

working out how much you and your affiliates will

earn with a select number of sales over a period of

time in a theoretical situation. There's nothing

wrong with doing this to get an idea of the kind of

figures you're likely to be seeing, but I'll be

honest with you, nothing beats testing, not to

mention playing with numbers is a heck of a good

motivator.

A Brief Glance at Innovations One more thing we need to look at when we are

dealing with what kind of percentages to give your

affiliates and what levels to set these at. There

are some innovative ideas floating around out there

about getting the most out your affiliates with

regards to commissions. Look at quick start bonuses

for example. How about offering 100% commissions

for the first month, and then a smaller percentage

ongoing afterwards? Quick start bonuses seem to be

growing ever popular in the race to have affiliates

promoting your product. It's worth thinking about

what other types of ways, bonuses, and loyalty

schemes for long term affiliates you can bring to

life, too. You just might come up with the next big

thing. If you're unsure though, it's best just to

go with tried and tested methods we‟re talking

about here.

Ok now we're done with setting up the affiliate

program itself, and you know how to go about

levels, reoccurring systems and percentages

depending on your situation, it's time to look at

those all important methods of actually getting these affiliates that have signed up to promote for

you effectively. Not just once, but over and over

again, because lets face it; An army of loyal

affiliates means you can keep churning out quality

products, and you've got people there ready to

promote for you, and that's before you've sent ads

to your list, anyone else‟s or gone in search of

joint ventures for the project. Powerful stuff.

We‟ll do this after a quick summary of what we‟ve

just talked about so it‟s easier to commit to

memory. Skip the summary if you don‟t need a

refresher or believe all the information has

sufficiently sunk in up to this point.

Affiliate Program Management
Summary

● What you won't find here is technical

information. What you will find is solid marketing

information that's going to make sure that you get

the best out of your affiliates, and to demonstrate

why this should be one of your highest priorities.

● Let‟s talk first about affiliate programs and how

important they are, and what they'll do for your

business. Also how they have a correlation, or even

a direct connection to another marketing methods

that we'll talk about in a moment.

● So, why do affiliate programs make success much

easier to come by? Well, to put it as bluntly as I

can, can you imagine trying to sell a thousand

units of your product on your own? That'd be pretty

harsh on your pocket, and your time in most cases.● Now, imagine you had a hundred people standing

beside you with the same or greater promotion power

than you. Can you imagine selling a thousand units

of your product now you have a hundred helpers?

You've immediately multiplied your promotion power

by one hundred times.

● Let me put a scene to you using real monetary

terms. You‟ve just launched a brand new product,

which happens to be pretty similar to someone you

know, Mr. X. You both launch at the same time, but

the difference is you've taken affiliate marketing

seriously and have 150 affiliates in your system

already, where he has none.

● Both of your products are priced at $500, and you

both each manage to sell ten products, totally on

your own, for a profit of $5000 each. You're about

even so far, until your affiliates come in. Of

course not all your affiliates are going to be

heavy hitters or even promote anything, but lets

say for this example, just a measly 10% of them make three sales each in that same month at 60%

commissions.

● Pulling out my handy calculator, I can tell you

that those small number of sales have just made you

an additional $9000 and $13500 for your

affiliates, bringing your total profit for the

month to $14000.

● While you and your affiliates are laughing all

the way to the bank, Mr. X is devastated because he

didn't put an affiliate system into action and pull

in the type of money and success that you have.

● Now, you can see the importance of such systems.

Don't let anyone ever tell you that you're wasting

your time setting this up, or attracting

affiliates. You'll likely hear things like 'I tried

it but hardly any affiliates promoted for me'. You

can see how few it takes to really make your

earnings something special.● It's true that the rates of promotion can vary,

depending on your business, and the quality and

experience of the affiliates. Some will forget they

signed up. Some will sign up and then get

distracted, and some just haven't built up the

resources to point that they can readily make many

sales. We'll address this in a moment.

● Looking at this type of sales figure always gets

me excited. Have you ever seen people making 40,

50, 60 even a hundred thousand dollars plus per

month, and wondered how they pull in this amount?

Well, let me tell you, affiliates are a big part of

it in most cases. Don't miss out, or you might

find yourself just getting by instead of extremely

comfortable where income is concerned.

● The second reason that you may be told affiliate

promotion isn't worth it is the notion that

affiliates are hard to find. This goes in the same box as list building. It's not hard to do if you

know how.

● We're going to jump ahead now, and start to build

up a picture of the ideal affiliate program, with a

view to getting your affiliates promoting. The rest

of this report contains some fundamentals, so keep

reading even if you don't have a system set up yet

because it will provide a solid knowledge base and

assist you in understanding what your software

needs to be capable of.

● First and foremost, a big aspect in getting

affiliates in the first place and getting them to

promote for you is the front line, the commission

per sale that you're offering them. Think high.

● I want you to put it out of your mind that giving

affiliates more per sale than you make yourself is

a bad thing and you're losing money, because you're

definitely not. ● Lets look at some examples to show you that high

commissions on paper looks like less profit for

you, but in practice actually means more profit for

you. A short term single sale and a long term

recurring membership commission example.

● Lets start with the membership site. Let‟s

imagine that you're running a membership site with

a price tag of $15 per month. Within a single

month, if you managed to refer 200 members on your

own, that's $3000 per month. Not bad, a handy

little earner. The problem comes when you start

talking 60% commissions for affiliates. That leaves

you with $6 per month profit per sale. Doesn't

sound a lot does it?

● That looks like a massive cut in profits, but

lets say again that you have 150 affiliates, and

this time, due to the lower price, and it being

slightly easier to get people to part with their

cash compared to a $500 product, 15 of your

affiliates refer 15 members each that just happen

to stay with you for a year. That's a miniscule $300 extra per week. Now some might see that as not

worth it, but let‟s add that up, $16,200 per year.

It looks a better now. I could buy myself a juicy

64" plasma screen or 6 brand new top of the range

computers. What would you spend an extra $16k on?

Not a bad little earner for something that

originally took your profit per sale down to a

measly $6, especially when you take these very

modest figures and spread them over several

products.

● I think this is where the whole affiliate program

is a bad thing and cut profits state of mind comes

in, but that‟s not the case. A sale by an affiliate

earning 60% doesn't cut your profits by 60%,

instead it's a gain of 40% on a sale you may not

have made in the first place. This is my personal

reasoning for not being worried about setting

higher than average commissions (60% and upwards).

The potential for this is huge.

● The one thing that I do want to show you right

away, before we start talking about response rates and the like, is that building affiliates is not an

overnight thing. It's like list building, the more

products you launch, and promote, the more Jv‟s

will come your way, and in turn the more people

will join your list and your affiliate program.

Don't fret though, just because it won't happen

overnight, you'll see later, that it can take just

a few weeks.

● Let‟s look at some of the nuances an specifics of

actually running your affiliate program now,

beginning with the forefront of your affiliate

system, your commissions.

● Your first option when setting up your system,

will likely be how much do I grant in commissions

and on how many levels? The answer in itself really

isn't all as complex as it might seem.

● The first thing you need to do is look at things

from an affiliate‟s point of view. We've been

spoiled lately with commissions as high as 80/90 even a hundred percent for single month in quick

start bonuses.

● Taking this into account, your commissions on the

first level should be at the absolute bare minimum

40%. Anything less and you won't attract the

numbers or the quality in your affiliates. You

should think of 50-55%% as an average nowadays with

anything above that, above average.

● Next up, level two. The all important second

level, an important aspect from your affiliates

point of view, due to this providing them with a

reoccurring passive income, where the people they

refer, refer others, and they earn on this.

● I know people who won't even promote affiliate

programs unless they have a second level up there

(very important to keep this in mind), so a second

level commissions is a must. Use your discretion,

and remember whilst you're selecting your levels

and commissions to look at things as if you were promoting your stuff as an affiliate. If it doesn't

look like an attractive deal to you, it probably

won't to anyone else either, and you need to

improve that before launching.

● There can, however, be times when 40% commissions

and a second level commission may not be viable for

tangible products for example, or if you have high

per product production costs.

● Still, in this case, go ahead and create yourself

an affiliate program, whether it's five, ten or

even twenty percent. It may not get you as much

interest and your affiliates might not come in as

thick and as fast, but you're still making

additional sales, albeit at a slower pace.

● The next thing we need to look at when setting

affiliate commissions is your product price and

your product structure. There are four situations

and product types that really pull in the

performing affiliates. These four conditions are: one, where you have a high ticket item, two when

you've set higher than average commissions and

three, when the commissions are reoccurring over

time, whether it's a direct reoccurrence of a

monthly membership site, or an indirect

reoccurrence of a second level, four providing a

passive income for the affiliates promoting.

● I've had people ask me why they're having trouble

attracting affiliates that actually promote

something for them, and more often than not, their

product is a $10 one off sale with no follow-up

product. $5 one off commissions isn't going to

attract anyone. Would you promote this product when

you have a choice of using your hard earned

resources and promoting for 60, 70 even eighty

percent commissions, either reoccurring or on

products from $60 up to $1500?

● So before you actually decide to shell out on

some sort of affiliate system, make sure that you

don't price yourself too high, offer commissions

that are too low, non re-occurring or don't have a second level. Put yourself in the affiliates’

shoes.

● Just to give you an example of the kind of offers

you're going to start to receive when word gets

out, the very first offer I received was from

someone promoting a $57 product that offered me $2

per sale. When I told him I don't even consider

promoting for anything less than 40% he was shocked

that he'd have to give so much away as he put it.

● So, what do you reckon he could have done to

entice me further? How about bringing the

commissions up to an even 60% for a start? It was a

JV after all, so I'd expect higher than average

commissions. I may have even been tempted to accept

50%. Hey, it's a quick burst of cash. It was

possible I may have said yes. So how else could he

have enticed me? How about some commissions over

two levels? That would have meant my one off

promotion, while not reoccurring isn't quite so one

off anymore. If he wanted to entice me further, he

could have dropped the commissions to maybe 45-50% and offered a monthly recurring commission. Taking

things a step further, what if the product he had

been selling for $57 was a low ticket item that fed

through to a high priced one off sale for $500-

$2000 per sale at 50% commissions? I definitely

would have gone ahead then if the product was

quality.

● So, you see, your product doesn't have to be the

most expensive or have the highest commissions. It

doesn't even have to be reoccurring, but you must

make it worth while from the affiliate‟s point of

view.

● Here's a general rule to go by. It doesn't apply

in all cases, but in most. The better your product

is, and the more the affiliate earns over time, or

the higher the commission for the single sale

product, the more affiliates you will attract, the

more money you'll make.● This should give you a good insight into what to

do with your levels, reoccurring level, and overall

percentage. If in doubt, pull out that calculator

and start working out how much you and your

affiliates will earn with a select number of sales,

over a period of time in a theoretical situation.

There's nothing wrong with doing this to get an

idea of the kind of figures you're likely to be

seeing, but I'll be honest with you, nothing beats

testing.

● Now, one more thing to look at when we‟re dealing

with what kind of percentage to give your

affiliates and what levels to set these at. There

are some innovative ideas floating around out there

about getting the most out your affiliates with

regards to commissions. Look at quick start bonuses

for example. How about offering 100% commissions

for the first month, and then a smaller percentage

ongoing afterwards? Quick start bonuses seem to be

growing ever popular in the race to have affiliates

promoting your product. It's worth thinking about

what other ways, bonuses, and loyalty schemes for

long term affiliates, too. You just might come up with the next big thing. If you're unsure though,

it's best just to go with tried and tested methods

being discussed here.

● Ok now we're done with setting up the affiliate

program itself, and you know how to go about

levels, reoccurring systems and percentages

depending on your situation. It's time to look at

those all important methods of actually getting

these affiliates that have signed up to promote for

you effectively. Not just once, but over and over

again. An army of loyal affiliates making both them

and you a lot of money.