People often assume that once their product is up on the Clickbank marketplace that their job is done. Sit back and wait for the affiliates to do all the heavy lifting for you.
And while that may be the case if you’ve been in the game for long enough to build up a reputation with consumers and rapport with affiliates, for the majority of new vendors it isn’t that easy.
With the thousands upon thousands of products available for promotion on any platform, the chances that an army of affiliates will pick up on yours is slim to none. And that’s being optimistic.
While you should look into paid traffic and building your own list, affiliates remain an excellent way to generate sales and market your awesome whatever.
So here’s a little secret on how to find qualified affiliates to market for you.
Connect with niche bloggers who aren’t doing it just for the sake of passion.
These are bloggers who are really into their topic, hobby, interest, call it what you want. They update their sites religiously and actually enjoy doing it.
But their ultimate dream would be to get paid doing it. They want to make money and don’t know how.
In most cases, they’re hoping to eventually make a living out of their blog.
Imagine having these dedicated bloggers who likely have a solid following, as well as the passion and drive to monetize their passion, promoting for you.
An ideal affiliate.
Now all you have to do is connect with them.
Tracking down bloggers
The first step is to find these passionate money-driven bloggers. It’s actually much easier than you’d think.
From experience I’ve discovered that these bloggers can be found in the comments section of popular blogs in their niche. Particularly the ones that are already making money.
Go to Google. Type in “your niche” + “blogging” + “money”
For example:
Now I got over 7 million results for this. Clicking through the top 5 search results I found that although these blogs are dedicated to recipes and cooking tips, these MMO posts received generally received 30-50 comments.
That tells me that there are a bunch of people interested in making money from blogging about cooking. They likely have blogs of their own and are looking at these for articles for advice on how to do it themselves.
So start off with being really specific to your niche. And if you can’t find any good results, then broaden your niche. Let’s say I’m selling a Paleo recipe book. I would scout for Paleo recipe blogs. That’s super specific. If there’s nothing there, I could broaden by looking into recipe blogs, Paleo blogs, CrossFit, fitness, health, weight loss, cooking etc.
You know your niche, so this should be easy.
When you find your target affiliates, you can introduce your affiliate program to them. No hard selling please. You’ll look like spam.
Simply leave a comment on pages that talk about making money through blogging and be honest in your recommendation of affiliate marketing as a way to make money. You can add a link to your affiliate tools page in your author name and allow them to click it themselves.
You should also follow up by returning to the blog and leaving good relevant comments on posts. Or by going to the blogs of your prospective affiliates and contacting them directly.
Another tip is to attend niche blogger conferences where you can network with bloggers within your niche who may not even know about affiliate marketing yet. Depending on your niche, these events are often held several times a year.
You can even encourage your current affiliates to promote your affiliate program to peers.
Do this by helping them make sales. Send them regular newsletters with tips on promotion and traffic generation. Go out of your way to see them succeed. And in turn they’re likely to blog about your program and recommend it to other bloggers looking to make money online. And of course you can start an affiliate contest to push them into action.
There are tons of potential affiliates out there who are actively looking for ways to make money from their blogs but don’t know where to start. You could be the person who introduces them to affiliate marketing. And once they’re on board, look after them, help them and build a rapport with them.
That way they’ll stick around for the long run, give you good press through their blogs and recommend you to their peers. Win-win all round.
