Recruiting affiliates. Now what?

[Fryman]

Ok, I have finally opened my affiliate sign up page. Now, my question is... how do I recruit affiliates? I can't use clickbank since I sell a search engine submission service and not a downloadable product. I submitted my site to refer-it.com, and they say it will take at least 30 days to get reviewed and indexed at their database.
Where else can I go and promote my affiliate program to recruit new affiliates?

Any help would be apreciated

Thanks a lot.

[eljefe3]

Welcome Fryman,

Normally I'd advise as to directly contacting those sites who you think would sell your service, but in your case I'd say that would be difficult as most webmasters are already submitting their sites themselves. There are forums however where you can announce your program to active participating affiliates which is generally better than having a listing on websites that list affiliate programs. Just do a search for " affiliate forums" and you should be able to come up with a few places to make your announcement.

[Bradley]

10% of your affiliates will generate 90% of your revenue. Find those 10%.........where are they?

[nativenewyorker]

Bradley said:

10% of your affiliates will generate 90% of your revenue.

I think you are being awfully generous there. The conventional number in marketing has always been the 80 / 20 rule where 80% of the sales are generated by 20% of the salesforce. With the Internet and the ease of entry to become an affilate, I'd say there is much more dead wood out there. My guess is it is that 98% of sales on the Internet are generated by 2% of the affiliates.

[ascreen]

Fryman,

A good way to approach this is to consider where the people are who want to be your affiliates and are going to make you money. When someone is interested in joining an affiliate program, what do they do?

My guess is quite a few people go to a search engine and type in "affiliate program travel" or "affiliate program cooking", depending on the topic that interests them. Frequently, the first few pages of results are divided between specific companies touting their own affiliate program and directories that list multiple affiliate programs in that area.

I would suggest pursuing both avenues. Go through the same SEO routine on the affiliate program page as you would any other page of your site. Also submit your program to all the major affiliate directories. If you have the money, you can shortcut that process by paying someone a small fee to submit your program for you. Neil Durant's Affiliate Announce is a good option.

Good luck!

Clay

[Army]

Hello. I would like to take a look at your site if thats okay?