There are three types of affiliates:
• The struggling affiliate who can’t seem to bring in any consistent cash.
• The so-so affiliate who makes a few hundred dollars per month, but wants more.
• The super affiliate, who pulls down a nice commission check every month like clockwork.
If you’re either a struggling affiliate or a so-so affiliate, then you’re going to want to use this checklist to take you to super affiliate status.
Keep It Simple
Struggling affiliates tend to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
They jump from promoting one product to another, they deploy a dozen different traffic methods, and they’re always hustling but not getting anywhere very fast.
If you want to take your business to the next level, keep it simple.
Here’s how:
1. Start with one offer to promote.
2. Create one autoresponder series to promote it.
3. Create one lead magnet to attract people to your list.
4. Select one source of traffic and use it to send people to your lead magnet.
5. Then optimize until this process is creating results for you.
6. Once you have one source of traffic up and running, then and only then should you add another source.
7. Start building your sales funnel with additional offers.
Get the point? Focus on one step at a time and get that piece working for you before you move onto the next step. Keep it simple.
Set Goals
Struggling affiliates may set goals, but they’re vague goals without any basis in reality.
Super affiliates do it differently.
Not only do they set goals, they then figure out exactly how they’ll achieve those goals.
Now in order to “reverse engineer” your goals, you need to start keeping track of the data.
This includes:
• How much traffic you generate.
• What percentage of this traffic subscribes to your mailing list.
• What percentage of these new subscribers buy an offer from your initial autoresponder series.
• How much money you make per subscriber per month. You’ll need to plug in your own numbers to determine how to achieve your goals.
But here’s a good rule of thumb: a well-targeted list can make about $1 per subscriber per month. So if you’re looking to make $10,000 per month, then one of your goals should be to grow your list as quickly as possible to 10,000 subscribers.
Plan Ahead
Super affiliates don’t create promotions and emails off the cuff.
Instead, they have a plan as to exactly what they’ll be promoting for the next several months.
This plan is based around when their favorite vendors are launching products.
Knowing about product launches, sales and contests gives super affiliates plenty of time to build anticipation with “sideways sales letters” well in advance of the event
TIP: This is another reason to work closely with vendors. Let them know you’re interested in hearing about their upcoming launches and other events as soon as possible.
Build A Team
Super affiliates don’t try to do everything themselves. Instead, they outsource low value tasks to competent freelancers, which frees up their time for high value tasks. They also outsource tasks that they don’t have the skills to do.
You can outsource:
• Blog posts.
• Social media posts.
• Lead magnet creation. • Bonus product creation. • Video production.
• Copywriting.
• Graphics and design.
Reinvest Your Profits
Super affiliates don’t blow their commission checks on a new car or fancy dinners.
Instead, these affiliates know that the best investment they can make is to put all or part of the money right back into their business.
So super affiliates reinvest their profits into things like advertising and outsourcing.
Generate Sales On the Bonus Delivery Page
That’s right, you can increase your income significantly simply by embedding backend offers into your bonus delivery pages.
These can be your offers or another affiliate offer.
For example, if your bonus is a dessert cookbook, you can promote “Volume 2” of this cookbook right on your delivery page. Some affiliates have found this slick strategy actually puts more money in their pocket than the original affiliate commission!
Focus Only On One or Two Niches
You’ve seen affiliates talk about all the niches they’re covering, from gardening to golf to weight loss and everything in between. But these same affiliates probably aren’t making very much money.
If you want to reach super affiliate status, then you need to focus on building your assets in just one (or maybe two) niches.
Devote all your time, money and other resources to building your list, expanding your blog, growing your social media presence, establishing your expertise, creating partnerships, driving traffic and generating sales in that one niche.
Set Your Sights On Big Markets
Sometimes affiliates opt for small markets where there isn’t much competition. But the reason there isn’t much competition is because a small market also isn’t very profitable.
If you want to create a high six-figure or seven-figure business, then you need to go where the money is.
And that means you need to go into the big markets, such as weight loss, make money online and similar markets.
So how do you deal with competition?
You need to create a USP (unique selling proposition). This is the one thing that makes you different and better than your competitors.
For example:
• You were the first in your market to do something special.
• You specialize in something that very few others do.
• You have some special credential, experience, or expertise in this niche.
• You offer special bonuses (like apps with every purchase, while everyone else in your niche offers ebooks).
• You offer personal guarantees on products you promote.
• You provide telephone support.
And so on. What you’ll need to do is research your competition to see what USPs they’re claiming, find out what is important to your audience, and then pick an unclaimed USP that your audience truly values.
Becoming a super affiliate isn’t something that accidentally happens to you. If you want to start getting respect in your niche, get vendors approaching you, and generate large commission checks consistently, then you might consider starting to take the steps outlined above.
