How Not to Promote Affiliate Partners

4 Ways Health & Fitness Pros Can Create Income Right Now

If you like passive income, you probably want to promote affiliate partners. But there are a few things you want to know as you get started, or get more serious about generating affiliate revenue. These 4 mistakes could prevent you from supporting your partners – and your audience from support you can provide.

Using UGLY URLS to Promote Affiliate Partners

Ugly URLs in social media posts or your emails. I’d like to say this is a rookie mistake but I see a lot of experienced entrepreneurs doing it too. Either their VA doesn’t know to ask, or the entrepreneur isn’t aware there’s a better way.

Back in the day people used Bitly for things like this. But with Pretty Links on word press it’s easier than ever. And then once you set it, you’re not vulnerable to say a platform change that your affiliate partner makes, deeming every single blog post where you put that link broken. It won’t go anywhere. SO not only won’t it make you sales, it will make you frustrated visitors to your site.

Save yourself the trouble. A Pretty Link not only makes an ugly url pretty, it is the one link you’ll use all the time when mentioning that product or service you’re promoting. Then if you need to, you can go in and change the URL there – in one single place and it updates all the places you’ve used the pretty link.

Include All Your Affiliate Partners in a Single Email

I’ll admit I come close to doing this once a year every year. That’s when we share the Flipping 50 Gift Guide at the holidays. In our Gift Guide we’re selective about what we’ll include and choose different categories like “stocking stuffers” or “budget-friendly” or “the Victoria’s Secret Diamond Bra” equivalent. But there’s no denying that any other time of year when your customer ISN’T buying not just for themselves but for a wide variety of people they want to spend a wide variety of money on, this would be a mistake.

Now, I DO have a resources page. It’s where I share things I’m asked about over and over again. It’s where I share things I use and affiliate for and things I use and don’t affiliate for, I just am answering the same question so frequently that it’s become easier to refer them to one URL, and you guessed it, it’s a memorable pretty link: flippingfifty.com/resources.

Not Really Investing Time and Energy in Promoting

This one is going to tie right into the last so I’m going to lump them together for explanation’s sake.

If you agree or ask – to promote someone and then all you do is write a blog post and leave the promotion sit there… without actively sharing the post regularly, or driving traffic to it, or including the affiliate promotion in an email, you don’t really have your heart in it. If you have hundreds of thousands of visitors to your site regularly, that’s one thing.

But if you’re struggling to hit 5000 visitors to your website a month, chances are that hidden blog post isn’t going to attract visitors frequently enough or at the time they need to be there to make any difference at all.

If you ask to promote or are invited and agree, do your best. Make a plan in your promotional calendar. With summits for instance, some of you fitness pros listening promoted for the What, When & Why to Exercise for Women 40+ event. And you earned 50% of the sale when people bought the course and or the recordings which was about $34-$60 depending on which they did.

If you told people (busy people) about it once on social… 5% if you’re lucky, saw it. And they’re not, scrolling back through old posts to find your information.

So usually a quality promotion is 2 or 3 emails, social media posts, maybe hosting the event host on your social media live. That’s really making an effort to make the most sales and support the affiliate and your audience with something they need.

Spreading Your Affiliates too Thin

One of the reasons you may not have promoted with a consorted effort is because you said yes when it should have been no. You were in the middle of your own promotion and you couldn’t promote something else too. Or you were trying to promote several things at once which means no one really gets the attention they deserve.

A couple guidelines for affiliates for me. I would rather promote really really well partners who I really believe in. And sometimes it doesn’t work. RIght now for instance, I can’t be promoting for a great affiliate partner I promoted for last year, because I’m hosting my own summit.

I hated to say no, but of course she also couldn’t say yes to me, it’s just timing. I happen to have 3 other affiliate partners I love, one I’m working into this

1. Make an offer right now: Stop Procrastinating

In this example, you float out an email and say “Still interested?“

Make a spontaneous offer that requires an urgent response. In my case, I did this because I realized I was creating an entire challenge for one of my private clients who needed to boost her metabolic flexibility. She was doing all the things and not losing weight.

I realized it was a problem others in our community probably also had but weren’t necessarily going to buy another program because they were potentially already doing HIIT, and Weight Training. But they would do this… a specific challenge designed to target the specific problem.

I presented it as a “beta group” and said…” I know it’s last minute but we’re starting this Monday. So if you want in… I need you to let me know tomorrow. I’ll send you the order form, then the pdf, and the WhatsApp group once you’re enrolled.”

Other times when this is a big offer, like a retreat and we’re at $2000 or higher, it’s beneficial to do an email to a phone call if you have time. I wouldn’t have had time in this case and it’s only a $500 product sent to about 25 people that know me well. Their risk was low – they already know and trust me – and most have been VIP clients with me in the past.

2. Make an upsell for anything you’re already selling.

This way you optimize the services you already have. Just like, “Do you want fries with that?” or hotel room service that asks, “Would you like a piece of chocolate lava cake with that?”

The 20% of those customers who say yes, just increased their sales by 20%. You should do that all day long. Take the chocolate cake for an example though. They don’t just ask:

Do you want anything else with that?

Do you want dessert with that?

No, they get very specific and use descriptive words.

So should you.

Do you want the success coaching with that?

Do you want the 20 One-Pan meal recipes with that?

Do you want…

3. Take whatever you’re already selling well and increase the rate.

Based on consumer psychology, there’s no difference between $49 and $59 or $69.

Take a $69 product and make it $99.

You can take a currently $99 and make it $129 or $139.

The conversion rate doesn’t change but the profit margin goes up.

4. Package all of These Income Generators together.

Send an email today, suggesting a new group starting that’s focused on a problem you know a lot of your community have, offer it at 20% higher rate than normal – it’s specialized afterall – (or suggest you are going to raise the rate after this beta group and they want to get in now to take advantage of it. Offer an upsell for more private time with you, or simply an add-on that you know they’ll need to have to be successful.

Think like … You HAVE to. Sometimes you just have to imagine.. That you do in order to get out of your way and do what was always possible anyway.

Your email list should provide you that kind of cushion. You have the ability to send an email and make money every single day. Are you using it?

Which one will you use first?