How to Reach Out to Potential Affiliates

Working with Affiliates is a two-way street; sometimes potential Affiliates will reach out to you, and sometimes you will want to reach out to them. Here are some tips on how to find and reach out to potential Affiliates about promoting your products.

Where to look for new Affiliates

Existing customers

If you have an established product, you can see who has purchased it and reviewed it. From these customers, you can identify names that you recognize from other corners of the web. Maybe they're active on Blender Artists or posting regular tips on Instagram. Customers are a great place to start looking for new affiliates because you know they have tried your product and, if they gave it a good review, you know that they are happy with it.

Active community members you respect

But what if you are new to Blender Market or have a new product and your list of customers is short or non-existent? Look to the communities that you frequent—Blender Artists, ArtStation, Twitter, etc.—and identify people whose work and opinions you respect. Chances are that if you think they are a reputable source of advice and recommendations, other people do too.

Search for mentions of your product

Head over to your favorite sites and do a keyword or hashtag search for your product. When you find people mentioning your product as something that they use or want to use, make a note of it. If your product is a regular part of their workflow—or could become a regular part of their workflow—they might be interested in promoting your product.

Remember: Make sure that the people you are reaching out to are communicating with your ideal customers. If you reach out to someone who is popular with sculptors but your product is a hard-surface modeling tool, your Affiliate-Creator relationship is unlikely to be very fruitful for either of you.

Let them know you're open to working together

To let our affiliates know that you're open to partnering with them, just fill out this form. Once you have submitted it, your profile become part of our Creator Directory for Affiliates, which allows affiliates to identify creators who are looking for promotional help. It also assists them with finding products that would be a good fit for their artistic interests and specializations.

How to Reach Out to New Affiliates

Not sure how to draft a message to someone that you want to promote your product? Here are some ideas:

Let them know why you are contacting them. Be direct. Tell them that you're looking to promote your product more widely and you were hoping to partner with them as an Affiliate. Not everybody knows what an affiliate is or does, so feel free to explain. You can use this sentence if you want: :)
- As an affiliate, you would earn a percentage of any of my sales that are a direct result of your referral to my product on Blender Market.
Tell them which product(s) you would like to partner with them to promote. This is particularly important if you have several products on Blender Market and you want this person to be an Affiliate for one or more specific products.
Offer to send a review copy of your product. This is especially important when you are not drawing from your existing customers or when you're trying to get the word out about a new product. How can an Affiliate recommend your product if they have never tried it? Authentic recommendations are the most effective, so when you are trying to recruit a new Affiliate, make sure that they have everything they need to make that authentic recommendation.
Tell them why you want them to be your Affiliate. Make it clear that you're not just spamming affiliate invites to everybody. What about this person makes them perfectly suited to promote your products? Tell them what you like about them—maybe it's their work, maybe it's the way they educate their audiences, maybe it's their sense of humor, maybe it's the impressive audience that they have built over the years. A good working relationship starts from a place of respect, so let them know what you admire about them. Tell them why you think that the two of you would be a good fit.
Tell them what you have to offer. This may just be a percentage—typical percentages range from 5%–30%. But maybe you can offer other things, too, that could make your offer more enticing. Examples include preview copies of yet-to-be-released products, percentage bumps at different points in the year, or promised percentage increases the longer you work together. Whatever your offer, let them know whether you are open to negotiation.

Note: Anyone you want to add as an Affiliate must already be a member of Blender Market or sign up for a Blender Market user account. If you're not sure whether a potential Affiliate has a Blender Market account, you can direct them to our sign-up page.