If your Shopify store is looking for a marketing strategy that brings in passive revenue, look no further than the affiliate marketing program. Affiliate marketing has boomed in recent years and shows no signs of slowing. Partnering with influencers to promote your brand means you gain brand awareness and conversions, while they receive a commission for their efforts.
Sounds pretty easy, right? Once you get going, it can be. But first, you need to work on recruiting. Here are the top strategies for recruiting new affiliates and reaching affiliate marketing payoff sooner.
Yes, there are communities already built for the purpose of recruiting affiliates. Search LinkedIn, Reddit, and Facebook, and you should find groups for your niche. Once you’re in, start posting (based on the community rules and guidelines), stating what your brand is about, and which types of influencers might make the best fit.
From there, you should see interested influencers reaching out to you, ready to learn more about what partnering entails. You can also comment on public affiliate posts if you think they’d be a fit for your program.
Influencers don’t just want to do business; they also want to be a part of a community. Make a separate social media account specifically to champion the influencers you work with. While you will want to post your affiliates on your main feed, having a separate space where you can cheer on affiliates more often, encourage them to talk to each other, and provide posting tips and positive feedback is encouraging!
Not only could a community account be a valuable resource, but it could also create a lasting sense of loyalty between your brand and the affiliates you sign on. Affiliates who feel valued and loyal are more likely to make better posts and refer new influencers to your program.
Speaking of referrals, incentivizing your current affiliates to bring on new talent is a great way to scale your program! Take a look at your top-performing affiliates or which ones have the biggest audiences. The bigger the network, the more referral opportunities.
Give your affiliates a bonus commission, free product, or something else that makes them feel well-rewarded for their referrals.
Another shortcut to starting or scaling your affiliate program is to look at what your competition is doing. Which types of influencers are they working with? Are they having them do try-ons, product reviews, or giveaways? Which posts made by their affiliates seem to get the most engagement?
Experimenting with marketing strategies and seeing what sticks is a common tactic, but it can be more effective to see what’s already out there and working.
Go big or go home, right? You might be surprised by which big-name influencers are open to partnering with you. With popular Instagram stars and YouTubers, you’ll likely have to inquire through their manager or business contact, but you might find their terms in line with yours when you receive your response.
Worst case scenario, you could also just offer to send them free product for a one-off story. It’s still big-time brand awareness, and it could bring in some longtime customers.
You might be surprised to learn that blogging influencers make effective affiliates. As much as it might seem “old school,” bloggers tend to have the most loyal following, with viewers hanging onto every glowing recommendation they make.
Plus, instead of working with influencers who make temporary posts or vanishing stories, bloggers produce evergreen content, meaning new eyes could come across their promotion for years to come.
Lastly, don’t forget about the smaller influencers. Through all of the strategies outlined above, you’ll come across big-name creators and dozens of newer influencers just getting started.
These small influencers, called micro influencers, also have an air of authenticity about them that their audience appreciates. That trustworthiness often means more traffic to your site, and potentially more sales. Plus, if you partner with a smaller influencer now and work to keep the relationship strong as they grow, the payoff once they have a larger audience could be substantial.
Whether you’re just getting started with affiliate marketing or you’re looking to scale your program, having comprehensive software to host your program will make things significantly easier.
At Simple Affiliate, we offer all the KPIs, affiliate tracking, dashboards, payment methods, and everything else you could need in one simple platform. We even automate your affiliates’ tax forms. Outreach to influencers can be tiresome enough, so our mission is to make programs of any size, well, simple.
Book a demo with our team today, and we’ll show you how you can get your program up and running in a breeze.
