My startup, Yala, just launched an affiliate program. What advice or resources are there to run a successful program AND get more signups?
Thanks in advance.
Pay cash.
By limiting a program to credits on your service, you're limiting the affiliate pool to just your existing users. By having a monetary incentive, you open the doors for a larger pool of affiliates which could lead to a larger audience being marketed to.
If you aren't able to part with that cash money right now (totally understandable with being bootstrapped), I'd just drop a line to your existing users and say "hey, if you write a blog post about our service, we'll give you X months for free" to test the waters before even venturing into a more formal affiliate offering.
Not ever product benefits from referral / affiliate programs, so better to find out early if it's going to be a good fit.
Hi Josh, thanks so much for your advice! Thankfully, we're offering money for our affiliates per signup/conversion so that's good news! I love your idea about writing a blog post in exchange for X months free - I'll definitely need to work with that! Thank you again!
Can't take credit for that one, was something I picked up from HitTail back in the day. In fact, cashed in on a year of service for free because I did a review post!