subject: Affiliate Marketing - Take Care Of Your Affiliates And Boost Your Income [print this page] Affiliate marketing is a proven method of earning money online. It boosts the income of both the affiliate and the product owner. So here are five tips on how you can better take care of your affiliates.
1. Introduce Your Affiliate Manager to Your Affiliates
This may seem like commonsense but you'll be amazed at how many product owners fail to do this. Super Affiliate, Jeff Johnson, recommends that products owners should first contact super affiliates directly and to ask them to support their product launch before handing them over to their affiliate manager. However, it is a good practice generally to contact all affiliates and let them know the name of your affiliate manager.
I often get emails from individuals whose name I don't recognise and I tend to delete emails from people I don't know. However, in many cases these individuals are affiliate managers for individuals I do know and whose emails I would be inclined to read. So, in an age where we are over-communicated to and where we receive a deluge of emails every day, it's possible that if you don't introduce your affiliate manager that emails from them could simply be deleted without them ever being opened.
2. Inform Your Affiliates of Changes to the Affiliate Program
These changes include changes to your website(s) as well as updates regarding your affiliate marketing tools and resources. You could argue that affiliates should be checking for affiliate tools, etc. on a regular basis but no one wants to check a site just for the sake of checking it. Let your affiliates know when you've updated your marketing and promotional tools and let them know exactly what has been updated.
If you don't let your affiliates know when your marketing and promotion tools have been updated then there can be a delay in your affiliates actually putting these tools to use. And therefore both you and your affiliates can lose out.
3. Aim to Keep Your Promotions Evergreen
It is recognised that product launches and events have a certain lifespan. And so what sometimes happens is that after a product launch or event has ended individuals visiting the website receive an error message or they simply see a message that states your product launch or event is over. This isn't a very positive experience for the visitor.
However, you can take advantage of these late visitors by first of all keeping the website live. You can direct visitors to a free download or perhaps another promotion. Or you can simply invite them to join your VIP mailing list to receive priority notification should you decide to re-open that particular promotion.
4. Respond to Enquiries by Affiliates
Understandably, things are hectic during product launches. However, if you've appointed an affiliate manager your affiliate enquiries should be answered. If an affiliate is asking questions the chances are that they will actually promote your product.
The reality is that although many individuals sign up to affiliate programs only a small percentage are active and only a small percentage will make you any significant sales. Responding to questions asked by affiliates will help to encourage more affiliates to promote your product.
5. Pay Affiliates Promptly
Two key things that an affiliate wants to know is how much is the commission and when they will get paid. The former is generally easy to determine the latter less so. Some affiliate programs are excellent when it comes to paying their affiliates. They pay their affiliates like clockwork and so, as long as you have actually earned commissions, you can depend upon being paid in a timely manner.
Alas, other affiliate programs are not as reliable.
When an affiliate finds an affiliate program that has all the right ingredients, i.e. high quality products, great commissions, a wide range of promotional tools and as well as proven to pay affiliates on time they will be more likely to continually promote that program which can contribute significantly to boosting your income as well as theirs.
