7 Secrets of 7-Figure Affiliate Launches

Today, I’m lifting the curtain on some of the most coveted secrets in the affiliate marketing world: the seven strategies that I’ve used to run seven-figure launches. These are the exact tactics that have taken five and six-figure launches and turned them into multi-million dollar successes. I’ve never shared some of these strategies before, so listen up!

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Previous Episodes of The Affiliate Guy

Should You Approve or Decline an Affiliate? How to Decide

How to Communicate Better with Your Affiliates

Successful Affiliate Onboarding: How to Setup Your Affiliates to Win

How I Grew a Major Affiliate Program from $15M to $325M a Year (In Only 4 Years)

How to Create The Right Affiliate Commissions

7 Secrets of 7-Figure Affiliate Launches

Today I am sharing some of the most coveted secrets in the affiliate marketing world. The seven strategies that I’ve used to run seven figure launches. Now, these are the exact tactics that have taken five and six figure launches and turned them into multimillion dollar successes. I have never shared some of these strategies before, so listen up. Let’s get started.

All right, if you’re listening to this, I assume that you want to know the secret of successful product launches. I have run, at last count, 68 product launches. I have studied hundreds of more. And today I’m going to share the secret weapons behind the biggest launches that I’ve seen, including those that we’ve run, that we’ve watched others run, friends have run, and I’m going to share what you can learn from them.

I’m going to share a few tips and strategies that I’ve picked out over the years about running these seven and even eight figure product launches. And some of these I’ve never really shared before. So take good notes. The secret weapons of successful product launches I’m going to show you what separates, this is the big thing is like what separates those five, even six figure launches.

Like the half million dollar launch is from the seven and eight figure ones. Its probably not what you think. A few episodes ago, two, three episodes ago, I did an episode. I shared how I took a program from $15 million to $325 million a year. This is an affiliate program, a big affiliate program. Took me about four years to do that.

That was all about Evergreen affiliate programs. Today im talking about launches, how to go from six to seven figures. Back in 2008, I did this big study and I verified it again in 2022. Same thing, found the exact same things. There was no difference between 2018 and 2022. And I looked at six figure launches and seven figure launches. Most importantly, I looked at the businesses that ran six figure launches.

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Then they ran a seven figure one. It’s kind of like good to great. If you’ve ever read the book good to great by Jim Collins, what he looks at is companies that went from, well, from good to great. You know, they went from, hey, maybe they’re returning an average of 50% better. I forget the exact criteria, but they’re returning better than the market average. And then they go to returning significantly better than the market average. Because here’s the thing. If you run a $700,000 launch. That is better than 99% of launches. But how do you go from a $700,000 launch to a $7 million launch?

What are the biggest differentiators? So we studied them and then we started putting them into practice with our clients, and here’s what we found. I’m going to share kind of the results of that saying. Now. Before I share that, though, actually, let me clarify what it is not, all right. It is not experience. It doesn’t take ten years to get to seven figures. People who’ve been in business a year have done massive launches. Our first guy that ever paid me money like a decade ago for a course or for my knowledge, meaning he wasn’t paying me to run his affiliate program. His first launch was $4.2 million, if I’m not mistaken.

It’s not list size. Now, that helps. There’s no doubt about it. If you have a 5000 person list size and somebody else has 100,000 people and you do everything else the same, the person with 100,000 will probably make more sales. They will probably make more money. It will be easier to do seven figures.

There’s no doubt about that. It’s not their qualifications or credentials. It’s nothing. The connections that you have, though, again, those help. If I know 50 people who have an average list size of 50,000 people who would make great affiliates, and you know none, I will probably do better than you. But does that disqualify you from having a seven figure launch?

No. So that’s not what we found. It was not their sales strategy. Again, if you have a better sales strategy, you will do better. It was not their ads. It was not how good they look on video or how good their copywriting is. It was not their social media following. It was not how long or short their launch was. Now launches are getting shorter. Just a side note, when we studied this back in 2015, the average launch, it was 17. 6 days, down to 17. 1. So a half a day shorter.

And now we’re down to 15 and a half. So just over two days shorter. But I’ve seen long ones succeed. I’ve seen three and a half week, four week launches succeed. I’ve seen really short ones, ten days succeed. So it’s not that. It’s not their reputation. It’s not whether they have a book or whether they’ve been on Oprah or been on major podcasts. It is none of those things. So what is it? What separates the six figure from the seven figure and the seven figure from the eight figure launches. Well, this is what the data shows. This is what the research shows. This was true in 2018.

We first did it. We found the exact same things in 2022. And guess what? They’re probably going to be true in 2025 and 2027. And unless some major thing happens, they’re probably going to be true a decade from now. So I have seven things and I’m going to put a number on them only for me because if I don’t put a number on them, I’ll forget where I’m at.

So I’m going to put a number on them. But when I say number one, that’s not necessarily number one ranked. I will highlight some of the key findings, though, as we go along. All right. The first thing they planned at least six months in advance, preferably much longer. When you have massive number of affiliates, and we’re talking about affiliate launches here, not just your internal stuff. When you have massive numbers of affiliates, you cannot run a launch like this in just a few weeks or months.

You do not want to be rushing at the last minute. I have been a part of launches where the talent, the team is writing copy the night before, the day of, and it’s stressful. We lose focus on customer interaction and doing things like Facebook lives with affiliates and we’re trying to get all this, our ducks in a row and we can’t do the things that are moving the needle. And so what we’re doing is we’re spending a lot of time on $10,000 needles instead of $50,000 needles. And you don’t get to seven figure on $10,000 needles. You get to seven figures on 50,000 75,000, $200,000 needles. And so I’ve been a part of that. That’s what six figure launches do.

Six figure launches do things last minute. Seven figure and eight figure launches, they prepare their team. They have a plan for things like customer support and live chat and what happens with failed payments and card abandons and all these things. They know who is responsible for what and when you have timesheets. So we make sure with our team, like, we’ve got people in different time zones, so we’re basically of 18 hours a day of coverage from about 01:00 in the morning till 07:00 in the morning eastern time. You’re not going to get any reply from us, but the rest of the day you’re going to get a reply.

Everything is done well in advance. They’ve tested their links. All of these things are set up in advance if you’re going live. They’ve done a run through of the live, a dress rehearsal. They’ve tested what happens when, I mean, literally years ago, we had some issues where the live stream just cut off after a few hours. And so we tried some new software, and here’s what we did.

We did a six hour live stream to test it. Basically, we did a dress rehearsal of the first half hour because that’s an important half hour. And then we worked on all the transitions multiple times. So transitioning from being live to a recorded commercial or recorded interview, and we worked on those transitions. Transitions are very important. And then we practiced coming back from the transitions.

We practiced the top of the hours. We were actually on video for like an hour and 45 minutes. And then, you know, but we were done what we did. We just left the thing running for another 4 hours just to make sure nothing broke. So meticulous planning. I think it back to my book launch. I planned that thing 18 months in advance.

Now, if you’re doing a yearly launch, obviously you can’t do 18 months, but you can do nine months, you can do ten months. You can make sure your affiliates know the dates of your launch, the moment your launch this year is over. If your launch ends today, let your affiliates know within the next 72 hours when the next launch is, then go and get it on their calendar, then take a couple of weeks off and then get back to planning the next one.

The second big thing, and this was the biggest differentiator we saw. I think I might have shared this before, some random podcast episode, as like a side note, but the biggest differentiator that we see between six and seven figure launches and seven and eight figure launches is the number and variety of entry points.

So just the sheer number of entry points and the types of entry points. So if you think about it, if you look at the typical launch, nice little six figure launch, or maybe a low seven figure launch, they’ll have a video series. So you got the overall video series, video one, video two, video three, maybe a webinar, that’s five entry points, eight figure launches compared to seven and seven compared to six.

They have the video series, so we’re at five. They have three webinars, that’s eight. They have like another little workshop day, a live day, that’s nine. They have a couple of ebooks, that’s 1011. They have a free report, that’s twelve. They have a cheat sheet 13. They have a guide, a live stream, another webinar, a challenge, a book, a. A mini course, a quiz, an assessment. I mean, these are things you don’t have to do.

All these case studies, coaching session with hot seats, going live in a group, they got all these things. And then when they open the sales page, when they open cart, they have a sales page, they have a sales video, they have a fast action bonus, they have a mid card bonus. The biggest differentiator between seven and eight figure launches was the number and variety of entry points is the same for six and seven figure launches.

The big thing here is you’re hitting different modes of learning. We’ve seen like, hey, get the access to the videos via audio. Why I am not a visual learner. I actually have a really hard time remembering things that I have read, for example, but I remember what I hear. I was one of those people who, I could not read the books for class, for history class, for example. But if I paid attention in class, I was going to get at worst a BDE if I never opened the book and all I did was paid attention to class because I would remember almost everything I heard. I’m an auditory learner. If you don’t give me auditory learner options, I can’t follow you.

So there’s different modes of learning. There’s visual, there’s auditory, there’s hands on, there’s all types of different modes. So give them those different modes of learning. Give them those entry points. The third thing is the affiliate resources are provided at least two months out and this will lead into our fourth thing. But that means if you are launching on November 1, you are giving the affiliate resources, the swipe copy, the graphics, the login to their portal so they can do everything they need to get their link and all that, everything that affiliates need by Labor Day at the latest.

So technically it’d be like September 1, which is before Labor Day, I believe, usually everything at least two months out. And that sounds crazy, right? How are we supposed to do that? Well, part of that is it takes all the pressure off. You’ve got that done. The last thing you want to be doing is putting your affiliate portal together a week and a half before the launch. It’s too much stress. I mean, the big reason why I think this means so much is that now affiliates have everything so far in advance and they can start thinking like, are they going to log in and get all the swipe copy and do all that two months in advance? Probably not. I’ve never done that as an affiliate.

But I might take a quick look at it, I might spend five minutes with it, eight minutes with it, and I’m in the Facebook group and all that. And so it’s in my subconscious and maybe I’ll have an idea like this happened with me. Speaking of product launches, I was promoting, if you’re on my email list, and you should be, by the way, sign up@madmcwames. com. dot I just promoted Jeff Walker’s PLF product launch, formula launch that we promoted every year.

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And I had a random idea back in June for this August launch, and it hit me out of left field, and I was like, wrote it down, put a note in my phone, you know, took a picture of it, sent that to myself. Then we executed on that weeks later. But I never would have happened, I don’t believe, if I hadn’t got an email from Chris on his team sending me some stuff about the launch. And the cool thing is, like, jeff and his team didn’t used to do that until I taught them, like, no, you got to do this soon. Soon.

Like, as soon as possible. So at least two months out, which this leads into number four. This was the fourth big differentiator that we saw is that affiliates were really warmed up. They prepared way in advance, but specifically with their audience. They were warmed up. Their audience was warmed up. This is the content, the warm up sequence, the teasing in advance.

You know? Stu McLaren, one of our former clients, talks about the longer the Runway, the bigger the result. So how can we help our affiliates warm their audience up weeks or even a month or so in advance? How can we get them to go all in, not just for the 15 days of the launch, the 16 days of the launch, but how can we get them to go all in for six, seven weeks like it’s their own launch?

Yeah, I remember we had an affiliate for Stu, who he was launching. I always remember the dates, because I have shirts that have the dates on them. April 21, April 22, and April 23 were the ones that we ran. And I have shirts to say April 21, a shirt that says April 22, a shirt that says April 23, which was really convenient, as a side note, because I have some dear Friends whose anniversary is on April 22. And so I gave them a couple of shirts, and they thought it was amazing that I made them shirts. I didn’t make those shirts, but they thought it was the coolest gift ever that had their anniversary date on it.

And we had an affiliate who canceled her launch. That was supposed to happen. I think it was, like, in early March. Cause she wanted more time to build that long Runway to promote. It was tribe at the time, but then it became the membership experience for Stu. So one key to this is just keeping your audience warm and teaching your affiliates, like, you gotta keep your audience warm.

Yeah, I preached this so much to our affiliates. You must warm your audience up before you try to sell them anything. One of the biggest mistakes I see new affiliate marketers make is trying to sell to a cold audience. They come out of nowhere with a promotion, and they expect their followers to suddenly develop a need and a desire for the product, and that doesn’t work. The master of sales, Zig Ziglar, said, every sale has five obstacles.

No need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust. And when you don’t warm up your audience properly, you face all five of those obstacles. You haven’t established a need, so you’ve given your followers no time to even consider coming up with the money. There’s no hurry because there’s no need or desire. There’s no trust for you or the product creator. So in short, you have no chance of selling. And so a cold audience doesn’t buy. You have to warm up your tribe first.

And you need to help your affiliates do that by providing things like quotes from the talent, right? Providing them just content that they can give to their audience. That just gets them thinking. It should be social media or little blurbs to put in emails. And from an affiliate perspective, make sure you’re posting in the Facebook group at least every two weeks. Just a quick thing, make sure you’re communicating with them.

Make sure you’re training them. Make sure you have a kickoff celebration a couple of months early. Make sure you have for the pre pre launch materials, right. Make sure you do a pre pre launch contest. It doesn’t need to be a $55,000 contest, but hey, like, especially for your smaller affiliates to get their audience really warmed up, whoever sends the most leads, let’s say your launch is again on November 1.

Whoever sends the most leads prior to October 28, from October something. Now, speaking of all those things there, the fifth thing we found is that they had superior affiliate management. It’s really hard to do all of the things that we just talked about, managing a Facebook group and training and communication and all the warm up stuff.

If you’re doing it by yourself, it’s impossible do not to do seven figures. Can you run a successful 300, 400, 500, even six $700,000 launch? Just pushing it over half a million. But can you get lucky and run one by yourself? Absolutely. But they have a superior affiliate management team. Once you hit about seven figures, you can have one person from about one to maybe 3 million.

Once you hit 3 million, you’re probably going to need a team, a full team. And these people who are running these eight figure launches, they did not skimp in this area. They knew the secret of successful launches that most people don’t talk about, and that is hiring the right people, either externally or internally, getting coaching.

If you can check out our coaching program@youraffiliatelaunchcoach. com. and it’s a great coaching. We’re helping tons of people with their affiliate programs there. They hire an agency, you know, like ours. But the most important thing is that they prioritized it. They invested in specialized people. So they had a full time customer service person.

They had a full time affiliate manager or affiliate team. They had a full time tech person who’s full time during the launch. It doesn’t have to be on your team full time, but they are full time during the launch. These are top tier people. They had a full time person, an expert, doing the retargeting ads. They weren’t trying to do diy it. You want to run a seven, eight figure launch, you can’t diy it very often.

I mean, again, you might get lucky. And I’ve done that myself back in the day, and we ran a really darn close to seven figure launch with four of us, and it was the same four that had built the business. You know, like, it was a diy thing. I was the affiliate manager. I was the late night customer service person.

I was doing the phone sales. I was running the retargeting ads, and I was the tech person. That’s how we did it. But that doesn’t typically work once you hit seven figures. The 6th thing is they solved a specific problem for a specific person. And this might sound a little counterintuitive because many people think that to go from six to seven figures, you have to add more people to your audience. And it can be true, but you don’t have to expand the audience. Really, the most successful product launches we studied solved very specific problems for a very narrow market segment.

What buyers need to know. They need to know exactly what they are signing up for. A clear and simple message allows them to understand the product right. And more importantly, to make the decision to buy. And if your product offering is not clear and concise, forget about it. Like, people want clarity. They want clarity and they want it quickly.

So solve one specific problem for one specific person. This one specific person is your avatar, right? And so an important exercise here. I talk about this in my book, turn your passions into profits. If you haven’t read it, go through it. This is the, basically the first and second chapters are all about, this is developing your ideal customer avatar. So this is that fictional person who represents your entire audience or a segment of your audience.

This is the one person for whom you are going to create content. This is the one person who this product is for. This launch is for this workshop, this webinar, this ebook, this video series, whatever that pre launch stuff is, this is for that one person. You are not creating content, you’re not creating products for the masses, you’re not creating products for your audience. You are creating and promoting them for one person who is your avatar.

You’re not marketing to your list, you’re marketing to an individual. So if you want to grab my avatar creation guide, it’s totally free. Go to mammothwilliams. com avatar. You can grab that there, or you, like I said, you can grab my book. And it goes into it.

A lot more detail in the book. Just go to passionsintheprofitsbook. com. you can grab that there. But you need to know this avatar better than they know themselves. And the last thing that we saw when we studied the differences between six and seven and seven and eight figure launches, the seven and eight figure launches were 100% clear on their messaging.

They had their stories nailed down, their themes were perfect, the exact phrases they used, and over again, those were dialed in like it was amazing. And this is something I learned with my book, was I had everything dialed in six, seven months in advance in terms of what are the stories that I’m going to talk about, what are, like my ten best stories, ten best examples from the book, what are the phrases, what are the things like, I’m going to say every interview over and over again? And so what stories are you going to tell?

Like, what are your five to ten best stories, best examples, best case studies, perfect. Those remember the names of people, don’t say, well, this one guy, I’ve got my ten for my book, nine of them, I use their name. The one where I don’t, I did not have permission. She did not want me to use her name, and I respected that. But it was such a great story that I still told it. So remember those names. Practice telling them over and over again.

What stats are you going to use? You shouldn’t memorize those stats. You shouldn’t be like, wow, I was like 40 or 50%, I don’t know. No, memorize those. What quotes are there quotes you’re going to use? Memorize those. Are there examples you want to cite? Then work on those.

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Work on areas of transition like we talked about. Work on whether it be in a webinar and you transition from teaching to sales. You might want to practice your whole webinar five times, but you want to practice those transitions 25 times. Probably practice your pitch over and over again. Dial in your messaging on your offer. Know your bonuses well.

We got seven bonuses. And crap. I can’t remember number six that happened with me with my book. There was a section of the book that I didn’t think anybody was ever gonna ask me about, and I’d written it. It was new content that I’d never talked about before, and they asked me about it on this podcast. I was like, shoot, there were seven, or I think there were five things.

I was like, I remember number one and two, and I think I remember the last one. So I’m like furiously going through the book, trying to get to that part, and I had to like really drag out one and two so I could find the third, fourth, and fifth things and say those, well, that’s my fault, right? You should know those. Know your price points.

What are the payment plans, what’s in the product, the modules? It’s a course. You know, if it’s a course, know the specs, know all of that well in advance. So those are the seven differentiators between these six and seven figure and seven and eight figure launches. Basically planning in advance number of entry points, getting those resources at least two months out to your affiliates and getting them really warmed up. Superior affiliate management, solving that specific problem for a specific person and getting 100% crystal clear on your messaging.

If you’ve got any questions about this or anything else in this episode, or any episode for that matter, you can text me anytime at 260-217-4619 And lastly, make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. It’s going to be a good one. Next episode we’re going to talk about how to activate your inactive affiliates and turn them into lifelong partners. How to take those inactive affiliates, the ones who aren’t doing anything, get them excited to promote and turn them into some of your top promoters. So make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss it. I’ll see you then.

See you soon.