The basic premise behind these recurring affiliate funnels is to promote products that offer a generous recurring commission as long as the customer you referred keeps paying.
There’s a big difference in the way I approach these types of funnels though.
Here’s the process most people follow:
- Find a high paying recurring product to promote.
- Sign up as an affiliate.
- Grab an affiliate link.
- Promote it.
The problem with that method is, a hundred or maybe even a thousand other affiliates are doing the exact same thing.
They’re all using the same banners, the same images, and the same email swipes. The market is already flooded with the exact same promotional material.
Worse than that, they’re all advertising to the same people over and over again. I call these type of affiliates, lazy affiliates.
They look at what everyone else is doing, they assume it’s working, and they blatantly copy them.
What they don’t realize is, they’re missing 85% of the potential market.
They’re focusing on the 15% of people who are at the highest level of awareness in the market. Take a look at the image below from Michael Masterson and John Forde’s book Great Leads:
The text on the bottom explains what type of sales copy you need to use based on the level of awareness. More on that later. For now, let’s get back to the 15% of people that all of the affiliates focus on.
I’m talking about people who have likely already heard of the product, know what it does, and know that it’s a possible solution to their problem.
They’re the “low-hanging fruit”. They’re also the most expensive to advertise to because they’ve identified themselves as prospects already. Most ad platforms charge heavily for that knowledge.
I don’t know about you but I’d much rather go after the bigger pool of people. The 85%.
These people have the lowest level of awareness about the product you’re promoting.
YOU know they’re a potential prospect but they have no clue that what you’re promoting could possibly help them… or that it even exists.
These are the money prospects. They’re actually a way easier sell and you’ll have zero competition. All it takes is a little educating before the pitch. Very easy to do.
Let me give you an example to help you understand this strategy a little better.
I’ll use Clickfunnels as an example.
Their affiliate program pays out recurring monthly commissions of 40%.
Their lowest level is $97 per month so that’s about $40 per month in commission for just a single referral.
There’s no limit to the number of people you can refer.
In case you don’t know, Clickfunnels is a web-based software for marketers that lets you build your entire marketing funnel with ease.
The people with the highest level of awareness for this product are internet marketers.
As internet marketers, Clickfunnels’ advertising has been shoved in our faces all across the web for the past few years.
But how many internet marketers and digital marketers do you think there are just in the United States?
Facebook’s ad platform tells me there are about 2 million.
Sounds like a lot but it’s really not when you think about how many affiliates have promoted Clickfunnels already in the last few years, not to mention how much Clickfunnels themselves have promoted their own product.
So who else could benefit from the Clickfunnels software?
Who else could use a funnel… something to generate leads and sales?
Just about every business in the world, right? Yep.
More specifically, every small business in America could use an online funnel to attract more leads and generate more sales.
A quick Google search tells me there are about 27.9 million small businesses in the US. There’s your 85%.
I can guarantee the majority of them have no clue what a funnel even is, let alone what Clickfunnels is.
Remember what I said earlier… YOU know they’re prospects even though they have no clue.
Hopefully, it makes sense now why the level of awareness your prospect has makes a difference. The higher the level of awareness, the smaller the audience and vice-versa.
So showing a small business owner an ad for Clickfunnels would be a huge waste of money, right?
They don’t know what that is or why they need it.
You have to lead with the end result they’ll achieve by using Clickfunnels.
More leads. More sales. On autopilot.
Make sure you speak their language though.
To some business owners it’s leads, to others its clients, and others it’s just customers.
Once they click your ad, you know they’re a prospect.
They’ve basically raised their hand and said: “I need more leads and more sales”.
What you do with them once they’ve clicked your ad is up to you.
You could take them straight to a squeeze page to get a free report or you could just let them read the free report without opting in.
The cool thing about Facebook is, you can just retarget people who’ve landed on your page instead of making them opt-in.
Inside the report is where you educate them.
You explain the basics of a funnel and why it’s so powerful.
You explain that by leveraging the power of automation and the internet they can build their own little lead generating machine.
Next, you explain how difficult and expensive it is to hire people to put all of the pieces of an online funnel together.
How you need designers, and programmers, and analytic professionals.
To get your entire funnel created it could cost as much as $15,000.
Then you introduce the solution.
For just $97 per month you can point and click your way to funnel heaven.
What used to take $15,000 and almost 6 weeks to build… can now be done by one person for less than $100… in an afternoon.
That’s the basic approach to this recurring affiliate strategy.
Just introduce them to the solution that they had no clue existed.
An Advanced Recurring Funnel Where You Transition from Affiliate to Vendor
A more advanced approach is to pick a niche of small businesses, for example, chiropractors.
Change the language of your ads so you only attract chiropractors.
Change the language on your landing page or squeeze page so it’s all about chiropractors.
Then, build a funnel for chiropractors that they could use themselves to attract more clients.
Tell them if they sign up for Clickfunnels using your affiliate link, you’ll give them access to your funnel to use for their business.
Now THAT’S an offer not many affiliates are making.
Wanna make more than $40 per month per referral?
Charge them $97, or better yet $197, per month and “build them a custom funnel” that you “maintain” for them.
All you’re really doing is cloning your own funnel from inside Clickfunnels and changing the logo and contact info for each business.
There is no maintenance.
You could also throw in a bonus report about using this funnel with Facebook ads if they sign up for your $197 per month offer.
That’s how you transition from affiliate to vendor fast.
For $97 per month, Clickfunnels lets you have 20 active funnels running.
If all 20 of those were clients paying $197 per month, that’s $3,940 of income per month for a cost of just $97 from your single Clickfunnels account.
For $297 per month, you can have an unlimited number of funnels inside your account.
And, chiropractors are just ONE niche.
There are hundreds of potential niches that this would work for.
Just try to stay with businesses whose average transaction value is fairly large… so they can afford to pay you each month and they see the value you’re providing.