How to Do Affiliate Marketing: As a Vendor and as a Marketer

Let's start with a little joke: Two salespeople meet at the bar in the evening, after a long day at work. One says, "I've had a great day; I've made dozens of phone calls, I've made customer appointments, I've submitted offers." His colleague replies, "Well, I didn't sell anything today either." 

The moral of the story: the only thing that really matters is the sale. And that's what this article is all about. You'll learn how to use affiliate marketing in order to increase your sales exponentially and how to become a high volume affiliate marketer.

Affiliate Marketing for Explosive Sales

Your sales are the most important metric by which you should measure the success of your strategies and your business. Likes and subscribers, a standing ovation after a lecture or talk: all this may feel good, but ultimately it only helps your ego and not your business.

But how do you make sure you can consistently sell your products and services, be they digital or offline? There are numerous sales strategies; affiliate marketing is one of the most efficient. It’s easier to let others handle sales than to have to do it yourself.

Sales through affiliate marketing usually run on a commission basis. An affiliate marketer recommends a certain product and receives a certain percentage of the sales generated by people buying that product.

As a Vendor

Do you have your own product or service? As a vendor - whether at Copecart or elsewhere - you need to build an affiliate army. It doesn't matter what industry you're in, whether your products are high-priced or not, whether you already have employees or are still a lone wolf. You will need as many affiliate marketers on your side as possible.

How to Build an Affiliate Army as a Vendor

Bloggers: Bloggers are the most successful and affiliate partners, meaning that they generate the most value. They have a loyal audience and are highly trusted. Find bloggers who appeal to your target audience and offer them a collaboration. They'll find this win-win situation hard to turn down.

Press collaborations: Think bigger. Print and online media offer unprecedented opportunities to reach a large number of people at once. The goal should be to have people from your target audience follow the link you or your affiliate marketers place and this land on your website.

Direct approaches: Identify strong affiliate marketers and approach them directly, preferably by phone. Find out under which conditions they are willing to recommend your products. Since you are directly approaching successful affiliate marketers, you can expect good results from this strategy: The success of your affiliate partners will automatically also become your own success.

How to Manage your Affiliate Army 

You now have several affiliate marketers promoting your product or service. So far, so good. But how do you make sure your affiliate army always knows what to do? After all, every army needs a leader and every attack needs a battle plan.

Video courses: Create video courses that teach your affiliates exactly what to do. The advantage is that once these videos are created, you can use them over and over again. Your business is easily scalable and ready for exponential growth.

Affiliate Page: You should create a website that exists specifically for your affiliates. There you provide content that makes their lives as easy as possible. For example: text templates, graphics, links to contacts, and a detailed set of rules.

Email list: Provide your affiliate partners with regular information. Are you launching a product soon or running a promotional campaign just in time for the holiday season? Let your affiliate marketers know four to six weeks in advance, so that they can prepare in the best way possible.

Seminars: Whether online or offline: Seminars are the perfect way to train your affiliate partners. In addition, offline seminars in particular serve as an excellent networking opportunity - which is extremely important, especially in this industry.

But the most important thing is that you never forget the guiding principle: money talks. It doesn't matter how many affiliates you have, if they don't bring you profits. So always and most importantly look at the sales.

As an Affiliate Marketer

The advantage you have as an affiliate marketer: You need no previous experience, no start-up capital; the risk is minimal. In fact, you can only win. 

Your task is simple: find products that can help people and recommend these products to them.

Initially, this may be people in your family or circle of friends. Sign up with Copecart, generate an affiliate link for the products you want to promote, write a short but interesting text about them and send the link and text to your contacts. In this way, you are recommending a product that you think can help those around you. You would have done this even without the cash incentive.

And there are no disadvantages for the buyer: The price remains the same, despite the commission you receive.

This is how the beginning looks like. Later, you go bigger: Build a blog and an email list, ramp up your social media channels. Run ads, hire staff, and become a true affiliate professional.

Whether you're still at the beginning of your career as an affiliate marketer or you're already a pro, don't put commission at the center of your attention. Conversion is more important than commission. A 70% commission is useless for you if no or very few deals are generated. 

An old sales rule goes as follows: It's better to have a 10% share in something that works well than a 90% share in something that doesn't work.

But how do you get there? How do you reach that final level, how do you become an affiliate professional? Here are some tips that will serve as your guide.

How to Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer

Many affiliate marketers spend years trying to become successful. But they commit avoidable mistakes that automatically lead to stagnation and frustration. Do better and take a hard look at the following points. They serve as food for thought and show you some of the opportunities you have as an affiliate marketer.

Retargeting: Two-thirds of your advertising budget should go to retargeting, the rest to initial targeting. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing potential customers - simply because you haven't targeted them. This must not happen. 

Lead before sale: Collect customer data such as name and email address before the sale, e.g. based on content that is interesting for the target group. This way, you can add the potential customers to an email list and provide them with information on a regular basis - until they buy from you. 

Build your own platform: Think of YouTube, Facebook and the like as a piece of land on which you want to build a house - but the land is not your own. Nobody can know if or when the landowner will evict you from it. That's why it's important to build your own platform: an email list.

Piggyback marketing: There's a person who targets the exact same audience as you, but sells a different product that doesn't compete with yours? Do business with that person. They will give you access to your target audience. You benefit from the new reach and give away a percentage of your commission as a thank you.

Webinars: Webinars are still extremely successful and one of the best ways to attract quality leads. Promote your webinar a maximum of six days in advance with direct PPC advertising. You should have contacted all leads by the day after the webinar at the latest. After all, the longer you ignore a lead who is ready to buy, the less likely they are to buy from you.

Interviews: You don't have a large enough reach, nor the resources to build it? Find a YouTuber or podcaster who targets the same audience as you and give an informative interview. At the end, don't forget to include a call-to-action. 

Online conferences: You don't always have to create and publish content yourself. Instead, organize an online conference to which you invite other speakers. Thanks to their reach, the congress will be a success - and suddenly you'll have a high-quality and up-to-date email list.

Affiliate Marketing with Copecart

Now you know how to use affiliate marketing in order to become a successful vendor or marketer.

The big advantage of Copecart: We offer you a platform where we bring together vendors and affiliate marketers. You benefit from the visibility of our platform and become part of the constantly growing Copecart community. Exchange ideas, find business partners and watch your sales increase constantly with Copecart!