Recruiting Top-Performing "Super Affiliates"

Starting an affiliate program is a great way to generate extra sales and increase your visibility online... but did you know some affiliates are more valuable than others?  It's true, they are called “Super Affiliates”!

When you're promoting your affiliate program, you should focus on recruiting highly targeted "super" affiliates who have direct access to your target market. Your goal should be to recruit quality, not quantity...

... Because it's the super affiliates with the marketing expertise and know-how who will generate most of your sales.

Super affiliates aren't called "super" for nothing. These are the web sites that cater to your target audience, have high levels of traffic, and whose owners possess very well-developed Internet marketing skills.

And this powerful cocktail of attributes can make super affiliates some of the best and most profitable business partners you ever make!

Here's how you can find out where they're hiding online...

Search the Web to identify potential super affiliates

Before you even begin your search for super affiliates, you need to know your target market inside out. This way, you'll be able to identify web sites that cater to the same audience.

You should start off with search engines and online directories to find sites that are aimed at a similar target market to yours.

But when you look for super affiliates, you need to focus on the sites that appear right at, or near, the top of your search results. These sites are the ones most likely to be run by people with the right combination of Web savvy and business experience that mark them out as potential super affiliates.

And their web sites are the ones most likely to attract the high levels of qualified traffic necessary to generate BIG sales.

When you're searching for super affiliates, you need to be looking for quality --NOT quantity. So you need to do some serious detective work to make sure they are suitable candidates.

Dig deeper to find the affiliates who will be your top performers

Once you've located some good prospects, you need to build up as full a picture as possible of their business, the level of traffic their web site gets, and who their target audience is. Basically, you have to make sure that they are targeting the same people as you, and that they have enough traffic to be able to generate good sales.

Of course you can ask them these things, but it's better to do some investigating of your own. You can dig a bit deeper into these web sites using the following tools:

• The Google Toolbar (www.google.com/toolbar) lets you find out a potential super affiliate site's Google PageRank, its relevance to your web site, as well as see who else is linking to their web site.
  
  The PageRank of a web site indicates how relevant it is to your site. So the higher the PageRank, the more likely it is to contain content and subject matter of interest to your target audience... and the better super affiliate material it is.
  
  A web site's PageRank is calculated according to the number of similar sites linking to it. The more relevant web sites that link to a particular site, the higher its PageRank.
  
  Now, this is important in your search for super affiliates as you're aiming to identify sites that have a high level of qualified traffic flowing through them... and lots of relevant links is one indicator of this.
  
  The great thing about the Google Toolbar is that it lets you see what sites are linking to your potential super affiliate. This allows you to assess how relevant they are to your web site, and enables you to build up a picture of the kinds of people who are likely to be visiting your potential affiliate's site.
  
  And some of these visitors might also turn out to be potential super affiliates!
  
  For example, if you sell surfboards, a potential affiliate web site with tons of links to it from surfing-related web sites will attract visitors who are likely to be interested in your products.
  
  
• The Alexa Toolbar (www.alexa.com/toolbar) is a great resource that allows you access to a goldmine of information about a site you're interested in, including its traffic history, its Alexa ranking, and its linking sites. The toolbar is free to download and very easy to use.
  
  A site's Alexa ranking is determined by the level of traffic it gets. Amazon.com, for example, was ranked 15 when we last looked. Anything under 500,000 is good super affiliate material.
  
  You can also see the number of sites linking to a web site and what they are. And you can even use it to easily find the contact details of the web site owner, so you can approach potential super affiliates yourself.
  
  
• LinkPopularity.com (www.linkpopularity.com) lets you see how many web sites are linking to a particular site. Again, this is a great way to assess how much traffic a potential super affiliate gets and how relevant that traffic is to your web site.
  
  
• Ranking.com (www.ranking.com) is another resource for finding out how much traffic a site gets. It ranks sites according to the amount of traffic they get. It also allows you to view sites that are similar to the one you're investigating... and identify even more super affiliate candidates!

These four resources combined will enable you to build up a profile of your potential super affiliate's web site, and provide you with enough information to make the decision on whether to approach them or not.

But how do you identify web sites that could start selling your product or service immediately?
Read on...

Learn to identify super affiliates

Super affiliates share certain characteristics that make them stand out from the herd. To save you time wading through the tons of information you'll dig up using the above tools, you need to know EXACTLY how to pinpoint these characteristics and go after people who exhibit them.
Here's how...

• Do they have a good web site? Super affiliates must have a good web site. If you visit a site and find it difficult to find your way around or are unsure of the site's purpose, then it's likely that other visitors to the site are just as confused as you are! This means that repeat traffic and clickthrough rates are likely to be poor.
  
  
• Does their product or service relate to the theme of your web site? A potential super affiliate's web site should relate to your products or services and be targeted to people who want what YOU have to offer.
  
  Ideally, you want to partner with a business that already has a foothold in your target market and already reaches the same people you want to reach.
• Do they focus on just one product (or group of products)? Instead of running a kind of online "flea market" selling stacks of unrelated products, super affiliates focus on selling higher volumes of fewer products.
  
  In fact, the Internet Marketing Center's top affiliates focus on one product and promote it really well, earning them commissions of up to $8,000 a month!
• Do they understand Internet marketing? If a site is ranked well in the search engines and contains content relevant to its target market, it's likely that the person behind it knows how to market on the Internet.
  
  If their web site is clear and focused on selling one or two related products to a well-defined target market, then they definitely have what it takes to become your super affiliate.
• Do they drive tons of targeted traffic to their web site? Average clickthrough rates range from 1% up to to 20%, so more traffic means more sales!
  
  Make sure to research the traffic stats of potential super affiliates by using the tools listed above and checking out their Alexa ranking (remember, anything below 500,000 is good).
• Do they have an opt-in email list? Their web sites must have a section inviting people to opt-in to receive emails. Ideally, there should be a small section on every page inviting visitors to sign up. By building a subscriber list, super affiliates can use email to promote your products to their target audience on a regular basis.
  
  If they have an opt-in list, they have a ready audience of people with whom they have already established a relationship, and so who already trust them. So that audience will be far more receptive to recommendations about your products or services as they'll come from a business they know and trust.
• Do they send out a regular newsletter? Having a targeted newsletter means that the potential super affiliate can market your product to a LOT more people. If a site has high traffic then it's likely it will also have a decent number of subscribers... and more subscribers means more chances to sell your products or services.

After identifying suitable candidates for your affiliate program, the next step is to make contact and convince them it's in their financial interest to promote your products on their web sites.

Contacting potential Super Affiliates

We actually have an employee who surfs the Web full-time, looking for sites that are related to our products. She looks for sites that would be really good potential affiliates, and then writes down the site owner's name, their email address, the URL, a quick description of the site, and any other details she thinks might be important.

We then take her list and send out a personalized email to each of these sites, inviting them to join our Affiliate Program.

Here's how it works...

1. We send an email introducing ourselves, explaining exactly who we are and what we do. We then direct them to our <a href="http:// www.MarketingTips.com/assoc/"> Internet Marketing Affiliate Program Page</a> where they go to learn more about it.
   
   
2. About 10 days later, if they don't respond to our first email, we send them a reminder email.
   
   
3. We follow up with each potential affiliate two more times, reminding them that we have already contacted them and letting them know that we're really interested in doing business with them. We ask them to please respond with a "yes" or "no," so we know where they stand.

This might seem like a really aggressive process, but the truth is, it works! People often don't see the first email we send, they accidentally delete it, or they get busy and forget about it. That's why it pays to be persistent.

We've found that we've increased the response we receive by anywhere from 100% to 300% by doing these follow-up "reminder emails." It's a very powerful technique that shouldn't be taken lightly.

Selling potential super affiliates on your affiliate program

When a potential affiliate approaches you, the first question on their mind is, "What's in it for me?" You have to answer this question as quickly as you can. Tell them that your product is of high quality and is in demand. Tell them how much money they can make and how easy is it for them to get involved. And make sure you are offering high enough commissions to make it worth their while.

When you approach people and ask them to become your affiliate, they will have a lot of questions such as...

• Will it cost me anything to be involved?
  
  
• How long does it take to get set up?
  
  
• How long will it take for my application to be processed?
  
  
• When do I get paid (i.e., are the checks sent each month or quarterly)?
  
  
• Are graphics or banners provided? How do I get them?
  
  
• Can I see samples of the graphics now?
  
  
• How and when am I going to find out if something is sold?
  
  
• Can I get information on visitors and sales?
  
  
• How often can I access my sales statistics?
  
  
• Is there a minimum check amount that is sent out (i.e., must the affiliate's total sales exceed $25 or $50 or $100 in order to get paid)?

... and the list goes on!

These are the kinds of things you want to go over with new affiliates. "What's in it for them" is probably the most important thing you can reveal, so it should be emphasized in all of your information.

You also want to make it clear that you take care of all the credit card charges, shipping the product, handling customer service, and all the administration. Explain that all they need to do is post a link to your site and collect their commission checks.

Remember that your affiliate program information page is a sales document. You are selling involvement in your program, so fill it with the benefits of doing business with you.

You have to make them understand that it's really easy to get involved in your affiliate program, and that they have nothing to lose. Take a look to see how we're doing this for our own Internet Marketing Affiliate Program Page

Final thoughts on Recruiting Top Affiliates to help Increase your Online Profit

Starting and developing your own successful affiliate program is no small undertaking. There are a lot of important steps and decisions that need to be considered if you truly want to take full advantage of this powerful marketing strategy...

... but the best way to maximize your affiliate program is through super affiliates, who will do everything in their power to promote your products as if they were their own.

Once you’ve identified good candidates through the search engines and then confirmed their potential by digging deeper into their web sites using tools like the Google Toolbar and the Alexa Toolbar, these super affiliates could become the best — and most profitable — business partnerships you’ll ever make!

... And I'll send you 100s of tips and tricks for growing your Internet business!"

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