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💬 Affiliate marketing can be a really strong acquisition source for SaaS brands and startups - and a key component is recruiting the right, high-quality affiliates that can turn this into a strong revenue-generating channel.
However, a major component that is often overlooked (and in many cases under-resourced), is that whilst recruiting is important, to really turn this channel into becoming a top-performing user acquisition source, it requires affiliates to be properly activated, onboarded, and to be genuinely motivated and engaged to drive performance.
Today, I'll share some of the key tactics I've seen work effectively across each of these areas that can help improve the overall performance of your affiliate program.
💬 The good news is that numerous of these tactics and initiatives are potentially low-hanging fruit areas of opportunity, and there are naturally some that require more food for thought around strategy and internal resources - either way, hopefully each of these checklist points can help spark conversation and thoughts for optimisations. :)
A key asset area that's important to develop for SaaS companies wanting to recruit great affiliates, is to have an awesome landing page (where they can sign up), and also which displays important info.
It's a good opportunity to highlight to them why they should work with your brand, especially around the likes of incentives - and even highlighting social proof elements like reviews/quotes and even potentially case studies.
One of the best investments you can make when it comes to affiliates is investing in good software that has good UX and important capabilities you need to manage from end-to-end - and the good news is that there are numerous vendors that are fairly cost-effective to implement.
Having a good UX is important here for both parties (the affiliate themselves, and who manages it from the business).
An important strategy consideration in this area for your brand is around having competitive rates - because the reality is, if you want to work with the best (and ideal) promoters that you want representing the brand to market, then you have to give them solid incentives for them to be interested in the first place, as well as to help keep motivating them to share/distribute content (and being a recommendation) to their audience.
In conjunction with the above in relation to incentives and commissions, it's worth considering higher commission offers during key sales/revenue periods - like EOFY, or even the likes of Black Friday (Cyber weekend) and Christmas.
Just like you would users, you also want to keep affiliates updated via email comms, where you can share tips, resources, new asset updates, and even the likes of success stories where creators/influencers have done well (and been rewarded via commissions).
It's worth segmenting based on performance, and highlight certain areas to those who are performing, and not performing as well - tailor tips, messaging, etc to them.
Aligned with the above point for those who aren't performing, share examples/references of top promoters and highlight strategies that have worked for them.
It's a great way to ignite promotional and distribution ideas that some may have not considered yet.
In many ways related to the above two points with personalised email comms and resources, illuminate that there is support available to help/assist where needed.
This is critical to have this support in place to ensure they feel they are supported to the best they can - plus, it's a great way to show you care and want to activate them to become successful.
Just like how you'd approach users/customers, you need to do similarly with the likes of promoters and affiliates.
Share new assets and promotion ideas often, in relation to case studies (to show potential) - just like what I mentioned a few checklist points above.
If you're a SaaS startup who are earlier in the journey when it comes to affiliate marketing, one of my recommendations is to focus on quality > quantity.
Quality being those who produce great content, have worked with brands before, and actually love your product that they're motivated to do well with content creation and distribution.
Key takeaway: when you find these people, work with them and create a custom plan for success, with special incentives when they hit goals/milestones that both parties agree on.
Personally, the best type of promoters are the ones who are creators/influencers, and can produce great video content (whether short-form or long-form). Video can be really effective as a format for communicating value of products.
Free resource: If you're looking for methods/strategies to recruit awesome affiliates and influencers/creators, then check out the checklist I put together.
