Wade Swikle’s Top 3 Tips for Building Profitable Affiliate Programs

If you're a moving company owner looking to grow your business and drive more revenue, affiliate programs are your golden ticket. 

“The market has slowed down, but our bookings continue to go up. Our affiliates, word of mouth and repeat business, is now our highest source of new business,” says Wade Swikle.

The CEO of 2 College Brothers Moving has grown his company's revenue 4X in just four years, largely on the back of referral leads.

But he certainly didn’t get there by winging it. We’re peeling back the curtain to reveal Wade’s top tips for building a powerful, profitable affiliate program.

1. Find the right partners

According to Wade, the key to building a profitable affiliate program for any moving business is to find the right partners. But if you’re building your program from scratch, where do you even begin? 

“The best affiliates to work with are those that have audiences that match our ideal customer base,” explains Wade. “For example, we might partner with a real estate agent who works with clients moving to or from our service area. This way, we can generate leads that are much more likely to convert into paying customers."

Here are some simple ways to start finding the right partners:

• Identify companies or individuals that have audiences that match your ideal customer base. Think real estate agents, property managers, leasing companies, relocation consultants, and more.
• Reach out to potential affiliates through personalized emails or calls to establish a connection and explain the benefits of partnering.
• Offer incentives such as commissions, exclusive discounts, or special promotions to motivate them to actively promote your services.

This initial step may be the most time consuming, but according to Wade, it’s worth it.

“Direct mail used to be our number one source of new business and now it's like four or five on the list with affiliates being #1—because we did all that business development in the beginning,” he says.

Every day during their morning sales huddle, he assigns someone in the team to reach out to their list of potential affiliate partners.

“It has a compound effect. Over a year, you've reached out to thousands of people. Even if just 10% of those people get back to you, you've still got hundreds of new referral partners you've collected,” he explains.

To stay on top of it, Wade and his team use their CRM to track email opens from potential partners and determine the best next steps for engaging with them.

2. Make it easy for them to send you leads

Getting the partnership is one thing. But transforming that partner into a consistent source of referral leads is an entirely different ball game.

Wade makes it as easy as possible for 2 College Brothers’ affiliates to promote their services and send in more leads by providing them with:

• Clear instructions and guidelines on how to promote their services effectively.
• A dedicated landing page explaining the full benefits of the referral program.
• Gentle reminders including the link to your referral page, info on how quick the process is, and a reminder of the benefits in every email.

Wade and the team at 2 College Brothers created a targeted Referral Program page that explains their tiered point system to potential partners and offers 1,000 points free whenever a new affiliate partner signs up.

This super-shareable landing page contains all the key details and incentives, making it easy for Wade’s team to quickly share their referral program benefits via email, SMS, or even social media DM.

From there, Wade’s affiliates can easily submit leads via a dedicated affiliate portal just for them. His partners can access their portal anytime via mobile, tablet, or PC and instantly see all the past leads that they’ve submitted with a status of Won or Lost. 

3. Track and measure your performance

“Your bookings are a lot of times twice as high when it comes from a trusted referral source or a repeat customer than just a random marketing source,” says Wade.

And he’s got the numbers to back it up.

He uses SmartMoving's reporting and tracking features to see how effectively his referral partners are driving leads and sales for the business. 

• Use tracking and reporting tools to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as leads generated and sales made through your affiliate program.
• Analyze the data to identify which affiliate partners are driving the most results.
• Make data-driven decisions about which partners to prioritize, and consider dropping those that are not performing well.

With a clear view of his VIP affiliates, Wade can go the extra mile to nurture those relationships. He even partners with local gifting company C-Sweets to send fun edible gifts to top partners, as well as any high-priority new partners he wants to get in front of.

“By monitoring these KPIs, we can make data-driven decisions about which affiliate partners to prioritize and which ones to drop. This helped us maximize the return on investment for our affiliate program,” explains Wade.

Make referrals your #1 lead source

Wade is no longer beholden to pricey PPC budgets or endless mailing campaigns. By leaning into his affiliate network, he’s been able to achieve 3X more profit on $6M in revenue, while expanding into new states.

His story makes one thing clear: the right affiliate program can bring about peak profits for your moving business. 

Even if relationship building comes naturally, remember to treat affiliates as a strategic marketing channel for your moving company. While you're out there shaking hands and pounding pavement, use technology to nurture partner leads, just like you nurture sales leads. 

“I attribute a lot of our success to the powerful tools in SmartMoving, from follow-ups and lead tracking to being able to track our referral sources and run our affiliate program,” says Wade.

With a powerful CRM, dedicated Affiliate Portal, and robust reporting tools, SmartMoving gives you everything you need to build and scale your affiliate program.