So, you’ve done the work to establish a new partnership with an influencer for your affiliate marketing program. Now what? It’s a passive revenue stream, so the ball is in the influencer’s court, right?
Not necessarily. An affiliate partnership requires work on both sides. However, using the right tooling, providing brand resources, and checking in regularly make it easy. And revenue growth for both parties follows shortly after.
If you haven’t quite reached the step of confirming the affiliate, you need to start at square one with outreach. Finding the right influencer for your brand can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Define your branding, choose the right social media platforms to advertise on, and consider the criteria of what you need to look for in an affiliate partnership.
The following outreach strategies are commonly used and are effective for finding your first affiliates.
Congrats! You have your new affiliate ready to start creating content for you. To foster the best (and most lucrative) partnership, it’s important to ensure you’re putting care into four major areas.
Before any content is created, it is the responsibility of the business to onboard the affiliate onto the affiliate marketing software. There are many affiliate program platforms available, but a good one should have:
The influencers you work with have a good handle on what they routinely produce for their audiences. But that doesn’t mean they know everything about your brand from day one.
Provide your audience with a brand guide so they know your mission statement and key messaging and better understand your ICP. This way, they can craft the most effective content for conversion. Remember, they have every incentive to put in the effort as they make a commission. Any help with branding you can give them along the way makes all the difference.
Like with any type of partnership, communication is key. Set up biweekly check-ins with your affiliates to discuss their performance and how you can help.
These meetings shouldn’t be about pressuring them to sell sell sell; it should be an open feedback loop so they can identify any rough patches with the content creation, discuss how you can help each other, and celebrate wins.
Content creation is an influencer’s lifeline, and they should be compensated well for their hard work for your brand. A generous commission structure, whether flat rate or tiered, will make your affiliates feel equally valued and motivated.
Fair compensation motivates your affiliates to work hard and grow their brand loyalty. The more loyal they feel to your brand, the better the content they produce. The cycle seems simple, because it is. And compensation keeps it moving along.
Kicking off a successful affiliate partnership begins with outreach but thrives thanks to the right tooling, brand resources, feedback, and pay.
Then, you can scale your affiliate program with the right influencers and grow both your brand awareness and revenue.
Book a demo with Simple Affiliate today to get started with an easy-to-use, comprehensive affiliate marketing tool.
