There are a huge number of affiliate programmes out there covering a vast array of products and services. Making sure your programme stands out and attracts the quality of affiliates you require can go a long way to ensure your programme is a success from day one. And to let you in on a little secret, your affiliate programme does not have to pay the most money either.
That said, even if you have a struggling programme, the following tips will help to turn it around. Affiliate marketing is still a growing industry and a lot of our own clients are now dipping their toe in this form of marketing as it can be a great way to generate business.
Here are a few tips to help you launch a programme or refresh your existing one:
Creative
Make sure your creative is up to date and is being refreshed regularly. With designers offering good quality banner designs at low cost, there is no real excuse to not having new creative added each quarter. Also make sure your creative has the right logo and brand. Sometimes these slip through the net and your banners do not reflect the new website.
New offers
Do you have new products and services you could add to your programme? Can you afford to pay a bit more commission? These things will go a long way to get you back in front of affiliates.
Communication
Make sure you have a contact plan in place; will you be emailing an affiliate newsletter once a month? Are you going to follow up with them all? Do not rely on your network or the affiliates themselves to be proactive? This is your responsibility to make sure they are keep up to date.
Recruitment Drive
Are you always on the lookout for new affiliates? You need to spend some time each week or month looking out for new affiliates. You can hunt through the search engine results for your top keywords and see if there is anyone new appearing. Then fire them off an email. Do you use forums? Post some information about your programme. You can now add a full page about your programme on our website.
Affiliate Centre
This is a biggie and one that nearly all companies fall down on. Do you have an affiliate marketing centre, with all your creative in one place? Do you train your affiliates and give them articles on different marketing techniques? Do not assume that all affiliates know everything there is to know about marketing online. There could be some fantastic PPC affiliates that do not know how to blog for example. You will be surprised so make sure your resource centre caters for all.
Remember affiliate marketing is a partnership. Do not assume that they will do all this work just because you signed them up. You wouldn’t send out your own salesman without training and educating them about your products so why would you do it with affiliates?
