What is an Affiliate?
An Affiliate or Ambassador is a person who will help promote your brand through social media.
What is an Affiliate or Ambassador Program?
An Affiliate or Ambassador program is a free method to increase brand awareness and sales for your business.
Click here to learn more about the different kinds of programs.
Where does the program take place?
The program will take place mostly on Instagram.
If you haven't already, learn how to set up your Instagrams here.
What other apps do you need to run this program?
Depending on which kind of program you would like to run, you may need the capability to track commission and Affiliate sales, you are going to want to use Shopify Collabs.
What is the goal?
The goal is to get SALES.
What are the Hot Tips?
The Affiliate's purchase is the sale you are after.
Believe it or not, the Affiliates purchase is the one you want. If your Affiliate brings in sales later down the line, that is just icing on the cake!
The way to do this is to have an awesome script and an engaging offer. Be sure to always include urgency, whatever their sign-up bonus is should expire in 12-24 hours.
Learn how to create the perfect script here.
Don't assume you know your target audience.
Assumptions won't get you anywhere, follow the data.
You may think your target audience is stay-at-home moms, just to find out your target audience might actually be single college students. The way to find this out is through research.
Start with what you know. Message people in the audience you think is the right one. Then start to pay attention to the people who are saying "yes" - what do they have in common? Do they all have tattoos? Are they all in college? Do they all have sons? Do they all like the color pink?
Go to HERE to find other hashtags that are commonly used with the ones you are using. Consistently try new hashtags to find new affiliates.
Think of customer research as a family tree
Now I know you are thinking, Myles, what are you talking about?
But really, this is the simplest way to think about this.
Once you have done your base research for your hashtags, start plugging them into Instagram. Take a particular interest in who is interacting with these posts, commenting, liking, following etc.
As you notice these potential customers, start to see what they have in common, its important to remember people are dynamic, there is more than them than just one niche. This means you can find customers in tons of different niches, you just have to follow the data.
For example:
- Do they all seem like they are mothers?
- If so, you can expand your audience to things like: #motherhood, #organicmom #naturalbaby #newborn
- Do they they all seem like they work from home?
- If so, you can expand your audience to things like: #workfromhome #comfy #loungewear #homeorginization
- Do they all seem like they have dogs?
- If so, you can expand your audience to things like: #dogmom #instadog #adoptdontshop #puppygram
- Do they all seem to like to go out and party?
- If so, you can expand your audience to things like: #whiteclaw #sorority #starbucks #basic
- Do they all seem to like yoga?
- If so, you can expand your audience to things like: #wholefoods #healthyliving #essentialoils #crystals
- Do they all have their hair dyed cool colors?
- If so, you can expand your audience to things like: #hairdye #manicpanic #alternativestyle #diy
Here is a visual example:
You aren't looking for "Influencers".
Influencers are people with curated, beautiful accounts. They make money from their accounts and will expect free prod
Switch things up if they aren't working.
Doing something over and over again that clearly isn't working and expect different results. Every 3-7 days switch it up, try something new:
Send at different times of the day
Offer a different discount
Message different kinds of people
Private accounts are a waste of time.
From their bio, they might seem like a great fit, but in reality, if their account is private they won't be interested in making commission sales as they have a small following.
This method is all about speed, the more messages you send the more likely you are to get a sale.
Don't overthink who you are messaging, especially in the beginning when you don't have much data. What I focus on is this:
What is their age: If they are in high school and sometimes even college, I don't message them. I want them to make a purchase, so they need to have some kind of income
Is their profile private: A quick way to avoid wasting time on private profiles is to see if they have a story. If you are going through an account with hundreds of thousands of followers, it'll be very easy to go through and just message all the profiles with stories, those accounts are guaranteed not private.
Find an account with a huge following: These accounts make it super easy to go through very quickly and message
Have your script saved as a shortcut: Set up your script as a shortcut, this makes it super fast when messaging
Be scientific
Use different scripts or offers on different accounts, but be consistent and scientific when testing. If you make a change, only make one change so you can tell what is working and what isn't.
Message during business hours.
Try not to message at strange times, like too early in the morning or too late at night. You want people to know you are a real person, if you are sending messages at odd times they might think you are a bot and not respond.Highlight a certain product
If you are noticing that giving the affiliate full freedom to choose their item isn't working, highlight a certain item and give them a good discount on it. You can test which item works best but be sure it is unique, engaging, and relevant to your niche.
If you are in the fashion niche, don't just type in #fashion, @fashionnova, or @forever21 and expect those people to want to be an ambassador.
If you are targetting brands or hashtags like these that are so broad and popular, these people will expect free items or to be paid to be an Affiliate, this is not what you want. Get more specific with your niche and target people who do not expect to be paid or gifted items.