Forum Moderators: skibum
My idea to market it is to setup partnerships with some of the digital photography related websites (i.e. camera review websites).
The gist of the program would be as follows:
- They (partners) send customers to signup for the trial either through tracking links, or by providing custom promotional codes for extended free trials as an incentive draw.
- Referred customers that become paying subscribers are tracked and partners are paid 25% of the recurring monthly subscription fee for as long as that person remains a customer.
The idea being that they can actually benefit from long term revenue from the customers they refer, and that rather then with one-off commissions their income would have some momentum and presumably would grow as they continue to add new customers.
I think as a website owner I would find this an appealing offer, however one difficulty I anticipate with approaching these people is that since they attract a fairly targeted and sought after market that advertising sales are already quite lucrative for them and that pitching an affiliate program will be a tough sell.
Can any successful affiliate marketers share some ideas on how to keep from being classified as someone trying to avoid paying for advertising when pitching the program?
Comments on the above described program would be much appreciated as well.
Thanks!
Tom
why don't you join CJ or similar networks? this way you'll be sure to find people who know what to expect from your program and who are used to performance incentive revenue.
just my $0.02
Basically, rather then market the affiliate program to the wide open public and have thousands of low quality affiliates (this seems to be a typical result for affiliate networks) I'd like to get a few "partners" that will be able to generate a high number of quality referrals and make the program more exclusive to them.
The difficulty of course would be keeping them from dismissing it as one of the zillions of affiliate programs they probably get pitched with daily.
As you said yourself, how can you differentiate yourself from the rest? and can you convert? once you join CJ, you'll build some earnings history and then you can use that as a bargaining chip when approaching publishers directly.
Your issue of getting selected partners out of the bat is shared by most merchants, and exceptions aside, something you'll have to go through. It's not too different than the plight of AM'ers. We have several sites and/or keywords, and a handful of them will make 90% of the money.
Anyone feel free to jump in and tell me how to separate the wheat from the chaff without going through the chaff.
the ability to share in long term revenue that their referrals generate.
simple: just figure the LTV and pay up front, as any other lead-based merchant does.
(1) How can you ensure that you have a good tracking system.
(2) How can you ensure that you will actually made the payout.
I think if you want to start your own program, there are many issues and investment invloved - tracking system, reporting system, payment systems etc.
so, my opinion is to join a current program like CJ?
Just my $0.0002
