Software product affiliate tips? Anyone?

[Rich Butterworth]

Wondering if I could pick some experienced affiliates' brains here, if you can spare a moment.

I've got a reasonable degree of experience of building/maintaining a successful affiliate program for a higher priced software product ($197) in recent years, but with my new venture I'm concerned I'm going to hit a wall because my initial two releases are only $27 and $37 respectively - not leaving a great deal of room for attractive commissions, for would-be affiliates.

A shame, because the products are super quality, and the feedback from the initial few hundred sales has been great.

Anyone got experience of how best to package/pitch less expensive software products to maximise the program's appeal to prospective partners?

I'm open to any suggestions - even ideas as radical as a share of the whole product to the right (super) affiliate.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Rich

[Robbie]

Hey Rich,

Just reading this it sounds as if you are saying you have a product which converts well at the price points $27 and $37 and you're worried this is too low to attract affiliates? go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong!
It would help if we knew what the software actually does? Is it a traffic package or something else wp plugin??

You've got a few choices here..
Have you thought about building on the fulfillment and providing more value to your product? if you do that you'll likely find that you can increase the price point somewhat although $37-$49 is a pretty good starting value for a basic buyer, so by adding training or additional software, any further relevant content that could help you close a sale, pitched effectively will help you boost those epcs.
Secondly you could go back and check the copy, test it, make sure it converts and that you're affiliates are going to see nice earnings from a promo for ya!
Lastly (and you should be doing this already) - get some top upsells in the funnel, following your $37 buyer, upsells will usually make the process of achieving whatever was promised in the initial sale easier for your buyer. I.e automating sections of it or by providing a benefit that is going to make success using your product easier to achieve!

Doing 1 or all of these things will help you get higher earnings from your product and in turn attract more affiliates to promote!

Keep testing and keep chasing those TOP epc's

Hit me up if you need anything!

goodluck

[Abbas Ravji]

HI Rich

I tend to sell software in that price range, I dont have great experience recruiting affiliates on all marketplaces but when im working with my team then we alter our prices based on the marketplace we are working on.

So really depending on where you will be listing and recruiting affiliates then it might be best to make a few separate offers geared towards maximizing the outcome for each marketplace.

Robbie has a great point on the upsells, they will all add to the overall EPC

One thing that comes to mind is using coupon codes - Offer your JV's coupons to give to their list - this way they will be able to choose to use them or not- Just a thought

Thanks

[Nick Night]

Hey Rich,

Good advice from Robbie and Abbas!

I would add an interesting strategy that I have used successfully...

I have some lower price point products as well, and I created an upsell that can transform the product into a recurring fee membership. The affiliates are then getting a check every month on the promo (for some reason, this makes them happy!)

The secret ingredient is to create an "info service" that can expand and grow over time. For example, one of my products aggregates song sheets on the web and allows them to be sorted and opened without downloading. The reason it is recurring is because I add new content to this directory all the time, so they are always getting more value. I also did this with a video directory.

Being careful not to self-promote here, but I will be releasing an automated solution to creating these kind of products in the next few weeks. Let me know if you would like a preview.

But apart from my own solution, there are many ways to do this - as easily as creating a private forum that lets other "niche-minded" customers network, etc.

Hope this gets ya thinking!
Break a leg with the new launch,
Nick