If you're selling a product, you need to offer an affiliate program. Your affiliates can drive an enormous amount of motivated traffic to your website. Because you're only paying them when they generate a sale (or 100 sales!), there's no cost of producing the increased revenue. The problem is that most affiliates do not generate many sales. For example, you may have 500 affiliates, but only 10 of them are actively promoting your product. Today, I'm going to give you 4 secrets to motivating your affiliates to increase their sales efforts.

#1 - Offer Tiered Commissions

Give your productive affiliates a larger commission than those who have yet to generate a give level of sales. Not only does this build loyalty among your affiliate base, but it motivates unproductive affiliates to promote your product more actively. For example, imagine that you sell a DVD training course for $197. You might offer a 35% commission on your affiliates' first 5 sales, 45% commission on the next 5 sales, and 60% on every sale they generate after that.

#2 - Hold Performance-Based Contests

Your affiliates are primarily motivated by money. You can spur them to immediate action by organizing a contest with cash prizes awarded based upon their sales. Here's how it can work: Imagine that you're selling a product for $47. You normally give your affiliates a 50% commission. However, for the next 10 days, you'll offer a 60% commission. Plus, the affiliate who generates the highest number of sales during those 10 days will receive an additional $200 check.

Depending upon the size of your affiliate base, the jolt in activity can drive hundreds of extra sales for your product.

#3 - Give Them A Toolbox

The easier you can make your affiliates' job, the more active they'll be in promoting your product. This goes far beyond giving them e-book covers and banners. Provide a toolbox with promotional emails, pay-per-click keywords, and ads. Give them small PDF reports with their affiliate links embedded within that they can give freely to their audience. For affiliates using search engine optimization strategies, provide articles that are focused on your main keywords. The more tools you can provide them, the more likely they'll send their audience to your website.

#4 - Organize A Launch

Entire training courses have been created to teach people how to effectively organize a product launch. It is one of the most powerful marketing strategies you can use. And the success of your launch is largely upon the shoulders of your affiliates. It begins with building a buzz about your product. At the same time, you need to be in constant contact with your affiliate base, letting them know about the date you're planning to launch.

As the buzz around your product builds, so does the excitement in your affiliates. When you finally release your product, you give your affiliates the green light. I've seen such launches generate over 1,000 sales in the first 24 hours.

Free, Motivated Traffic

Your affiliates hold a potent key to generating large waves of free traffic that is motivated to make a buying decision. If you're selling your own product and have yet to offer an affiliate program, you're not harnessing your product's sales potential. If you already offer a program, use the 4 tips above to jump start your affiliates' sales efforts.

In the near future, I'll explain how you can create ongoing momentum in your affiliates' promotional activity. Stay tuned.