How to Pitch Your Software Product to Power Affiliates

Every affiliate has its specific needs when it comes to promoting products online. The best performing affiliates will not waste their time with every merchant that approaches them. This is why it is very important to pitch your software products to the affiliates in a way that will make power affiliates really consider your offer and get the things moving in the right direction.

Here are 7 steps on how to approach software affiliates to promote your products or services; this assumes that you’ve already identified the affiliates you want to work with:

1. Find out their promotion channels – check their website, see if they have any newsletters that they send, see if they’re using PPC advertising to promote products (you can use SEMrush for that). This will allow you to knowledgeably discuss every opportunity to promote your product depending on your goals, strategy and expectations. For example, a featured emailer sent to an affiliate’s database of 10 million customers should be more productive on a short term than a website listing.
2. Check if they promote your competitors – if so, see how they do that: apart from listing them see if they’re running any special campaigns on the website or in the newsletters, etc. Also, check out the pricing of your competitor’s products and the default affiliate commission they offer – you will get an idea of what the software affiliate is responsive to and what you could request.
3. Determine their specific needs – see what the power affiliate uses to promote software products online. A discount website needs exclusive coupons to promote your products. A download portal may need your products feed in order to automate your product listings. A reviews website may need  some tutorial videos for your product (or if they will make it themselves, they would need a free license), test licenses, custom builds for trial files, banners.
4. Outline your unique features and benefits – let the power affiliate know what he has to gain if they promote your products. Seeing the competitors they promote will surely help you with this. Your unique features and benefits can do the trick here – just don’t forget to add them to the pitch mix.
5. Be sure you approach the right affiliate – if you spot a content affiliate promoting exclusively antiviruses on their website, don’t pitch them a video converter, because you have little chance to get it through, even as a complementary product. In such cases, it’s better to search whether the affiliate has websites on other niches also and try to match those. Also, if you have a policy of not giving away discounts for affiliates, then unless you can make some exceptions, coupon affiliates will not be a valid choice for you.
6. Contact the decision maker directly – try to find out exactly who is behind the contact form on the power affiliate website. You may use a simple Google / LinkedIn search or a whois lookup. This will help you establish a more familiar connection to the affiliate by addressing them by their name and proving that you are really interested in working with them. Plus, by speaking with decision makers, you won’t have to wait for confirmations from others.
7. Follow-up on idle affiliate conversations – most of the affiliates are very busy. This is why you shouldn’t be discouraged when you see that they haven’t replied in a couple of days. We recommend following-up on them after 3 days and again after one week. Do use the phone, if available – if they list it on their website, this means that they don’t have any problems in getting calls.

In a nutshell – it is very important to present your offer to power affiliates from their own perspective, so they can understand how much will they earn from promoting your products.