Membership Site Marketing Tips - Create an Affiliate Army For Your Membership Site

By Tara Kachaturoff

Life is all about connecting with people, things, and ideas. Your business should be no different. So when it comes to publicizing and promoting your membership site, don't do it alone. There's no badge of honor for being a "lone ranger." Remember, two heads are better than one, three are better than two and so on.

When you work with others, you can do things faster, easier and with less effort. And everyone wants to save time, money and energy. This is where the whole concept of affiliate marketing comes into play.
If you're thinking about starting a membership site or it you already have one, then make sure you're making plans to create an affiliate program.

Why You Need an Affiliate Program

If you want to grow your site faster than you could ever do on your own, ask others for help. And in return, offer them a lucrative payout for helping you to sign up new subscribers. It's not uncommon to pay an affiliate 50% of the monthly dues for each new subscriber.

In order to keep the energy and excitement at a high level within your site, you need a lot of people. Keep in mind that not all members will be active. Many just like to sit back and observe. For this reason you're going to need a fairly large subscriber base to generate a small sampling of folks who will be the movers and shakers within the community. Not all communities are built like this, but many are. Some membership sites do not allow for member mingling so then this becomes a moot point.

Where to Find Affiliates

Find you affiliates by looking through your own Rolodexฎ. Search for complimentary sites online and learn about the founders of those sites. Make a list of several dozen potential affiliates. Contact each one of them and introduce yourself. Give them free access to your site for 30 days so they can experience your content.

If you're not yet open for business, then let them in early for a sneak peak. Present your affiliate terms and then see if they're willing to promote you. Ask for written testimonials which you can add to your sales page or other marketing material you use to promote your membership site.

Also, ask your affiliates for feedback. They may offer great insight into additional things you can add or change which will make it more attractive for them to recommend you to their constituency.

Train Your Affiliates

Offer short monthly teleseminars just for your affiliates so you can provide them with support and/or marketing tools that they might use to promote the site. Make sure you have email copy, sales copy, and a variety of banner ads which they can use on their site and within their own communications with their own email lists.

The topic of using affiliates to help grow your membership site is a vast one. To find out more about the details you need to know around starting, maintaining, sustaining, and growing a membership site, we welcome you to visit http://www.MembershipsiteEssentials.com Tara Kachaturoff is a business consultant, writer, speaker, Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and the creator, producer, and host of Michigan Entrepreneur Television. She provides business services and support through her firm http://www.VirtualLeverage.com