This white-label guide for school affiliates is provided by LearnWorlds to help you educate your partners. Feel free to edit and brand this guide before you distribute it to the affiliates of your school.
What is an affiliate?
We are so excited to have you aboard our School affiliate program! This guide is intended to help you become a successful partner of ours and earn commissions for recommending our courses to your friends, colleagues, or customers.
In this guide, we will demonstrate how to navigate through the Affiliate Dashboard. We will also share tips and ideas about how you can promote our School effectively and earn more. But before that, let’s look at why affiliate marketing is an online sales tactic that is worth trying out!
What is affiliate marketing all about? It is a business arrangement, in which a vendor (in this case, us) pays the third-party business (you) a commission for sales generated from your promotional efforts, which result in direct referrals. In other words, if you promote our products on your blog or website, and a new student enrolls in our School after having clicked on your affiliate link, you will receive a commission from us. What a great way to earn more money! The good news is that this way you can automatically grow your own business without actually having to create a product of yours!
How does affiliate marketing work with our school?
You can put your affiliate link on your website, and drive web traffic to our products. You can post it yourself right on a page or blog post of your site. The more relevant the content of the post or page to the content of our course, the better chance you get of people clicking through the link.
How will your affiliate link work? The affiliate link will point to our homepage (or any page on our website), and it will have a parameter appended to it. The parameter (which is your unique affiliate ID) passes data to our affiliate management system so that the system knows where the traffic came from and can attribute the right commission to you. Later on, in this guide, we will explain exactly where you can find your personalized affiliate link.
Every time a prospect clicks on an affiliate link, they will be referred to our website. The click is tracked throughout the marketing funnel. So, for example, if the prospect leaves the site but comes back after a week, the affiliate management system will know that the user is the same person you referred.
When the prospect completes a purchase, then we generate revenue, and a portion of it is added as a commission to your account. In the case of a referred student who purchases a monthly membership (subscription or payment plan), you will be getting a recurring commission for as long as they maintain their paid subscription with us.
If you finally pull the trigger on actively promoting our school, you will probably have many questions:
- How is my promotion performing?
- How much have I earned?
- What commissions have I received so far?
- Which commissions are still pending and due soon?
All of these questions are answered in one place for you. Where? LearnWorlds (our e-learning platform) is providing a built-in affiliate and commission tracking tool that powers our affiliate program. This tool automatically provides you with all the necessary real-time comprehensive data, which you can immediately export, so you have a complete picture of your affiliate performance οn a single page!
How to register and log in as an affiliate
You should visit our affiliates page first. Go to the school URL followed by /affiliate-registration. E.g. https://www.schoolname.com/affiliate-registration
When you land on this page what you see is this:
Once you register on this page, you become a user of our school. After that, you will be asked again if you want to join the affiliate program. Only signed-up users can become affiliates of your school.
From this page, you can sign in each time as an affiliate partner. If you are already a school user, you must visit the same site to join the program or you can ask the school owner to add you manually. Once you are logged in as an affiliate and visit this page, the system redirects you to the affiliate dashboard. Of course, this is not the only way you can see your dashboard. You can also view it through the affiliate button found on your home/start page.
Once you register to the program you can immediately create your affiliate links, see all the commissions you have earned, which payment method will be used for you to receive your commissions, which customers you have referred, and much more!
Affiliate Dashboard
1. The Dashboard
You can access all necessary information from your Dashboard page. From there, you can get a quick overview of the program and your earnings from it.
From the Set your payment method option under Actions, you can choose the payment method you prefer:
2. Affiliate links
From the Affiliate links section, you can immediately create and copy the necessary links for your promotions. Let’s explain each of the options here:
- Your affiliate link: You can create the affiliate link for the school’s landing page to use in your promotions and optionally enter a coupon code. Ask the school owner for a coupon code so you can provide your audience with a discount.
- Create affiliate link with coupon: You can automatically apply a coupon to the affiliate link.
- Generate affiliate link to a specific page: You can generate a link to any of the school’s pages by entering a URL.
- Get affiliate link to the product: You can generate affiliate links to specific product pages.
3. Commissions
From the Commissions page, you can see commissions and details about your sales and you can also export a file with all detailed information about your commissions in CSV or xls format. In this section you can see details about:
- The product list
- Your customers
- The deals you make
- The commission rate
- The commission amount
- The date of the purchase
- The status of your commission (new, approved, due, or paid)
4. Payments
From the Payments page, you can see the total amount of money you have been paid, the payment method and payment details, and the day you were paid. Kindly note that all the data are exportable.
5. Leads
From the Leads page, you can see people who have registered to your pages and have become leads. You can also export leads.
6. Customers
Finally, in the Customers section, you can view all the customers you have referred to the company so far. You can also export customers.
That is all you will be able to see through your private affiliate dashboard.
Note: The last two options Customer and Leads will be visible only if the admin has given you access to that information.
Promotion ideas
Affiliate marketing can be a fantastic supplementary income stream for you. There is a range of promotional tactics that you can use as an affiliate to add to your bottom line. In brief, here are the basic promotion ideas you can start using right now:
1. Blog content
A blog is a valuable asset for every company, as it can be your command center for content marketing campaigns and affiliate promotions. Promoting our school on your blog can be done in various ways. Here are some blogging activities you should try:
1.a. Product reviews
Getting to know the product well can help you provide a compelling view of it, presenting both its advantages and disadvantages. Give your readers a recommendation through an in-depth review of our courses. What’s important here is being fair and honest with your review as much as possible. The focus of a product review should be on the quality of the product and the benefits that the users enjoy.
It is a good idea to add your bonus to your offer so that people who sign up for a course plan will also get an additional gift from you. Your reward could be an ebook or a 1-hour of complimentary consultation with you.
Consider using visual media, like images and screenshots, to add a real feel of the product to your review. We suggest using screenshots to enrich feature descriptions. Also, be sure to provide tips and tricks to the readers, which will entice them to use the product. Finally, when you are done writing your review, don’t forget to share it on social media and send it to your email list!
1.b. Comparison guides
Similar to a product review, a comparison guide would give an overview of what a product offers and how it ranks against other online courses. Your guide will be more useful if you try to match different courses to different audiences. Not all products are a good fit for everyone; try to establish which course is best for your audience. It is recommended that you also create a comparison table. Here are the steps we suggest you take to write a comparison guide:
- Step 1: Choose courses carefully
- Step 2: Research
- Step 3: Come up with a catchy headline
- Step 4: Write the guide
- Step 5: Use CTAs
1.c. How-to guides
So, let’s say that your audience is repeatedly coming up with specific questions on a subject. Such questions can be answered in a guide that you create promoting a course and urging people to find answers in that course.
How-to articles provide a series of easy-to-follow steps to achieve a result or a transformation. They are structured in a way (e.g., step by step) that offers a specific solution to a problem. Unlike other post types, how-to guides are usually longer, more straightforward, and get into more depth. In essence, how-to guides are one of the most favorite and most popular types of articles.
1.d. Video walkthroughs
A short blog post accompanied by a great video tutorial (hosted on YouTube or any video platform whatsoever) can give your readers an idea of what they are going to learn in our school step-by-step. If you have a YouTube channel, this should be an easy task for you. However, if you are new to video production, don’t worry. The process you follow to create a video is simple, and there are several reliable resources to help you out, coming from the YouTube Academy and AuthorityHacker.
An excellent idea is to create a video walkthrough or a storyline that shows people what they will learn. To be successful, you will need to optimize your video to target the part of your audience that is more likely to be interested in taking that specific course.
1.e. Personal case study
Through a case study, you offer an in-depth analysis of the product, entirely from your angle as a user. It is a useful weapon when you want to share your own experiences and views on a product you have used. Provide a description of the course, and how it helped you achieve your goals. For better results, provide tips on the best way to use the product. You can even demonstrate real results, that show proof, help establish trust, and paint a picture of what is achievable through that course.
1.f. Resources or tools page
Famous or beginner bloggers and online entrepreneurs use this tool to promote third-party products that they adore effectively (e.g. Blog Marketing Academy - https://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/tools/)
A list of recommended products is a handy tool for your readers to find out what tech tools you are using in your business. Resources or tools pages are usually placed on the top menu to grab more attention and attract more clicks. Be sure to add your affiliate link to the name of each product. Every time a user clicks on that link and makes a purchase, you will earn a commission.
1.g. Add your referral link to other places on the website
There are more places where you can put your referral link to gain even more visibility and clicks. Your blog’s sidebar is an excellent place to showcase your link. Another place you can find affiliate links is in the footer. You can create a recommended products section, where you can add three or four products (with your affiliate link). Even better, if your site runs on WordPress, you should be able to use some plugin that will associate different sidebars (and sidebar content) to various blog posts. This way, you can have more relevant CTAs that will depend on the post content. What’s more, your link can go to tailor-made CTA boxes that will show in related posts, again, using some WordPress plugin. A plugin will apply those changes sitewide, saving your hours of manual work.
2. Email marketing
It is always recommended for a business to start and grow a targeted email list. Email is one of the most effective channels you can use to promote products and make money. To build an email list, you need to give web visitors a way to subscribe through their email addresses. You can do that by merely placing a subscription form on your website. Along with their subscription, give away an opt-in offer, e.g., an ebook, checklist, or coupon code. This is often called an “ethical bribe” because it is used to entice people to subscribe to your newsletter.
What are some tips for growing your list faster? Make the sign-up process simple and place the form where it is visible on your site. Come up with a winning content strategy and create excellent content for the emails to send (1or 2 per week) for the weeks to come. Avoid spamming your audience with too many emails. Also, don’t add your affiliate link to every email you send out.
Give your readers the time to breathe and steadily build their trust in you. Always try to send out valuable email content. It could be a brief overview of the benefits of taking the course or a summary of a guide you just published on your blog. Never send out naked affiliate links without including a valuable copy. As long as your campaigns are sent out to a segmented audience that shares an interest in what you offer, the chances that they buy through your affiliate link are higher.
Sales won’t come overnight, but with some time, patience, and effort, you will see your affiliate rates rising. There’s no need to sell immediately after a new subscriber joins your list; try building an email sequence, where you can have two or three emails that provide real value and build trust before sending an email that promotes a product.
3. Lead magnets
Lead magnets are the “marketing candy” for opt-ins. They can catch the attention of your site visitors right away. They are incentives that marketers offer to encourage people to sign up for their newsletter. Creating a lead magnet that is closely related to the core offer/product that you are promoting can increase the number of opt-ins. Be sure to include your affiliate link where appropriate throughout your ebook or PDF file.
There are many types of lead magnets you can put together. Here are the most common ones:
- PDF checklist/tips
- Case study
- Beginner’s guide
- Report
- Ebook
- Whitepaper
- Video/free webinar
- Cheatsheet
- Template
- Script/swipe file
- Worksheet/Cheat-sheet
- Toolkit/resource list
OptinMonster offers a list of lead magnets that are different in their type. You can check which ones fit your strategy and add these to prominent areas of your site, e.g., your blog, using pop-ups.
4. Webinars
A webinar is a live or pre-recorded video session that is broadcasted over the internet. Webinars are a powerful tool that you can use to serve many purposes, including affiliate marketing. It is an effective way to stay connected with your audience and affiliate partners and also encourage more people to become members of your audience.
Participants often need to register ahead of time or pop in at the designated time (in the case of a free YouTube live or Facebook live broadcast). They are often used by marketers and entrepreneurs to inform their audience, build trust, and promote a paid product.
A free webinar should be educational, high-quality, entertaining, engaging, and data-driven. It should also include eye-catching media and ask nothing in return for joining in. It should be a sales webinar of some sort; at specific points throughout the free session, and at the end of it, you should present your audience with a paid offer, such as your premium service or a product with which you are affiliated.
5. Podcasts
Unlike webinars, podcasts focus on audio. Podcasts are on-demand internet radio talks. They can be a one-person show or feature a conversation between two or more people. According to research, podcasts have been increasing in popularity. Some of the reasons why podcasts have become popular are the following:
- A podcast is easier to consume
- It can be monetized effectively by the creator
- It can reach a much bigger audience
- It can be listened to just about anywhere
A podcaster can use podcast episodes to promote affiliate products. In such a case, an affiliate link wouldn’t come in handy; a coupon code or a shortened affiliate link would be more appropriate.
Another way to promote products is to interview people who have used the product and can talk about their experience. If you know a person who has tried the course, you can ask them to join your podcast and share the good and the bad in their experience. Perhaps they can share some tips with potential users. It’s important here to focus on the results and ask questions that have to do with how the product has helped your podcast guest.
When you feel comfortable producing episodes, it is time to focus on the promotional aspect of podcasting. Use email marketing, social media, and your network of like-minded professionals to promote your podcast.
6. Social media
Social media can cover a much bigger ground when it comes to announcing and promoting product releases, and when these two work together, they can bring more traffic to your site. Your ultimate goal when using social media is to get the word out to the public through the six critical social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
Facebook offers the possibility to record Live videos and advertise products on the spot. On Instagram, you can use Stories to share useful insights. Instagram does not allow you to share any links in simple posts, but you can add a link to your profile. Pinterest, on the other hand, will enable you to take beautiful screenshots of your school and share them with your audience.
Don’t be afraid to go “all in” with social media! As you can see, each network can play a different role in your affiliate marketing endeavors. However, there are affiliate marketing tactics that can bring great results in any social network. Here are some of them:
- Share posts with valuable and high-quality content
- Use screenshots of the product that you are promoting
- Consider redirecting your links (You can either use a WordPress plugin or custom code to redirect a branded URL to your affiliate link).
- Keep on posting. The secret of social media success is consistency. When you share posts regularly, your next post will be anticipated.
7. Seasonal offers
Holidays are an excellent opportunity for eCommerce to increase sales and online shoppers to get more bang for the buck. Several times a year, we run promotional campaigns or flash sales. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or other seasonal holidays, offer the perfect opportunity to do affiliate marketing and invest your time and effort in it. Plan ahead of time. Create a 12-month promotional calendar with your offers and affiliate offers you intend to promote. This will help you create content and email your list in time.
8. Co-marketing
Co-marketing, which is the official term for this, is the agreement between two businesses collaborating on promoting specific products or content. It is a mutually created campaign that shares aligned business goals and a common direction.
There are different ways you can promote our school to provide value to your audience and generate affiliate commissions at the same time. What’s more, we are very interested in working together with our partners on joint marketing campaigns. It would be a pleasure to work with you on a co-marketing campaign!
Do you have different online properties, including a site that attracts organic traffic, a sizeable email list, a YouTube channel, a podcast, and various social media accounts? Do you have a considerable audience reach? Or maybe you have a SaaS or another tech product that is complementary to ours?
We are open to discussing app integrations, co-branded advertising, cross-promotion, guest posting, content co-authoring, webinar co-hosting, podcast interviews, and any other customized marketing action that will benefit both sides. Feel free to come up with the most effective ideas for content cross-promotion, and discuss your strategy with us.
Success tips
When you publish an affiliate link, on any medium, it is essential to state what the nature of that link is. This is often called Affiliate Disclosure, and its purpose is to inform web visitors that your review, endorsement, or recommendation is for a company or product that might compensate you. Learn more about where and how you need to disclose your business relationship with a product vendor by reading the official FTC’s Endorsement Guides.
Always try to promote products that you have already tried and know their worth. Before recommending a course, make sure that it is a good fit for your audience, which means that when your typical buyer persona uses the tool, they are most likely to find it useful for their business.
Don’t be salesy when you create content. Always add value to your audience. Show them the method to do something and recommend a tool or two for them to use. Explain why they need this tool and how it adds value to their work.
In terms of SEO, it’s best to find out what keywords people are searching for before you start writing your guide. The more you take advantage of relevant keywords, the higher your post will rank on Google search results. More top ranks will ultimately bring more traffic, i.e., more eyeballs, to your content and more clicks on your affiliate link.