Residual affiliate programs pay you later on, after your initial sale. You still make a commission on the main sale, but you also receive monies for membership fees. This is for sales you have referred. In some cases you can also receive residual income from later sales (up-sells) closed by the company. Residual affiliate programs are therefore probably the best kind of affiliate programs, because you make continual sales.
Residual Affiliate Programs
Ideally you will be paid many times. Once for the inital sale, once every month for the duration of your customers membership and each time your customer buys again (upgrades). If the affiliate program offers built in up-sells, you get paid for sales closed later on your behalf. This is great if you join such a company. However, many affiliate companies don’t offer this. They know the lifetime value of a customer and only pay affiliates to refer the customer to them for the inital sale.
The best affiliate programs offer:
1.) High Ticket sales – Sales of digital products valuing upwards of $1000 can mean you earn $500+ for each sale.
2.) Ongoing sales from memberships – residual affiliate programs offer memberships or monthly commissions based on a continuous business model. Website hosting, autoresponders or membership training websites are examples of this kinf of program.
3.) Up-Sells – which you, as the affiliate earn commissions on – By choosing an affiliate program which offers many up-sells you increase your ability to earn money later down the road after your inital sale is made.
4.) A Built In Sales Team – Choose an affiliate program which closes sales on your behalf and offers more value to existing clients should they want it.
You can access a program which offers all these here.
Why Residual Affiliate Programs Win
The affiliate model works best with residual income. By choosing a business model wisely you stand to earn money after your initial sale is made – assuming your customer maintains their membership. You can also earn money later from your customer’s other purchases, and (in some models) from sales made by people you have referred. This is similar to the network marketing concept which allows the marketer to build a team of sales people and benefit from a commission based on their sales.
Selling single item affiliate products means you only make money for a single sale. There is no after sales commission so you need to continually find new customers for your products. With residual affiliate programs you make multiple streams of income from each sale.
Membership Products
Membership products like website hosting, autoresponders and online training programs, as mentioned previously give you a residual income from sales. Each customer is worth much more than they would be in the case of a single point of sale product. The customers lifetime value can be worth thousands per year, even when the product value is only small. You earn every month for each customer so as you sell more of the memberships your monthly income grows. This is very different to selling many products for a single commission. In order to keep your income growing (with single sale products) you need to sell more and more. With residual affiliate programs this isn’t the case. You simply need to sell a certain number of products to earn a nice residual income.
Example
Let’s say you sell two different kinds of products. One of them is a single digital product which teaches the piano. You make $30 for each sale. The other product is an autoresponder membership product and you make $10 for the inital sale and then $10 per month for the membership.
You make 10 sales a month of each product.
Month 1
Piano digital course earn you 10x$30 =$300
Autoresponder software you earn $10×10= $100
So looking at this example you would think the piano course wins out. However for the autoresponder course you have referred 10 memberships. The following month you would earn $100 without making any further sales. To earn another $300 for the piano course you would need to sell the piano course again 10 times.
Now lets say we made the same amount of sales the next month.
Month 2
Piano course earns you another $300 (10x$30)
Autoresponder software you earn another $100 (10x$10) plus you also earn $100 for your 10 members who you have already referred from the last month. This means you now earn $200 this month.
Still you are earning more selling the piano course however.
Month 3
Piano course 10x$30=$300
Autoresponder software 10x$10 = $100 + 20 memberships = $200
Total =$300
So now we are in month 3 you can see the autoresponder sales have caught up. Not only that but we have referred 30 memberships. So in month 4 we will earn 30 x $10 whether or not we sell any more! In month 4 we could find we don’t make any sales of either the piano course or the autoresponder software. Lets assume this is the case and look at month 4.
Month 4
Piano course sales = none. Money earned this month = $0
Autoresponder software sales this month = $0. Memberships = 30x$10 = $300. We still make money each month for the membership we referred earlier. As time goes on you can see this will have a coupounding effect on our profits. Lets now say we will make another 10 sales of each in month 5 and see what happens.
Month 5
Piano course sales = 10x$30 = $300
Autoresponder software sales = 10x$10=$100 + (30 memberships x $10) = $400
Using this example you can see how by selling membership products you can earn more over time. I also used an example where the sales were much less that that of the piano course and it still wins out over time.
Month 6
Let’s say for month 6 we don’t sell anything:
Piano Sales = $0
Autoresponder sales = 0. Memeberships = 40. So 40 x$10 = $400.
Every sale made of the autoresponder gives us a monthly income, potentially for life. Assuming all of our members keep their membership we can grow a nice income from memberships over time.
Access a sales system which benefits affiliates with residual income here.