Affiliate programs (also called Referral Programs or Partnership Programs) are essentially commission-based sales schemes.
Joining an affiliate program is a neat way to make money from your users. But just as you can join someone else's affiliate program, so you can set up your own program and invite webmasters to sign up. Here are my top 3 tips to succeed with your own affiliate program.
1. How to attract affiliates
One of the biggest fears new Affiliate managers have is in finding new affiliates. This fear is a stumbling block that stops many site owners from getting started with affiliate marketing. Interestingly, with a proper marketing strategy, getting affiliates may not be very difficult. Given below are some tips that may help in attracting new affiliates.
Find complimentary sites - "Complementary" sites are sites that sell products or services that compliment your offers. If you sell "gardening tools", a site that sells books on "gardening tips" would be a perfect affiliate.
Find content sites - There are many sites that do not sell any kind of product or service but are mainly content oriented sites. Such sites promote an idea, concept, study or belief. Content sites that are used as a resource for your target market are ideal affiliates.
Finally, there are several sites on the Internet dedicated to listing affiliate Programs. Get your program listed in these directories.
2. Classifying Affiliates for Better Management
The hardest part of administrating an Affiliate Program is deciding what your affiliates need to help make the sale. But, by carefully categorizing your affiliates, you can easily determine what their needs are and how to accurately meet them.
The first step is to pick at least three types of affiliate. Take a look at your affiliates and try to determine one outstanding characteristic that can easily be compared across the board and choose at least three types of the characteristic.
The Second Step is to determine the needs of each type. Each of your affiliate types will have different needs; some of their needs will overlap, but you should find a distinct difference in many of their needs. If you find that all of them have the same needs, go back to step one and re-think your types.
The Third Step involves the process of creating and compiling linking methods for each group of affiliates. Based on the needs you identified in Step two, create and compile linking methods for each type.
3. Safe Guarding Against Spam
Any time you run a program where your affiliates rely on other signups to generate profits, you will eventually have a problem with spam. One of your affiliates will inevitably get it into their head to blitz the Web with unwanted garbage.
When this happens you need to be ready to take action otherwise it will cost you! Your Internet company can boot you off your server and you can find yourself blacklisted. Not good for business. If you get an email from someone claiming they received spam with your URL, then take it as an early warning.
I am not advising you to immediately terminate the affiliate's account, but be sure to contact them to follow up on the complaint. Let your affiliate know you received a complaint and advise them to remove this person from their list.
If you only get one or two complaints, it's probably not spam, the complainants might simply have signed up for an email list and forgotten all about it. You will know when one of your affiliates is spamming, because you will get anywhere from 10 to 100 complaints in the same day all regarding the same URL.
The best thing to do in this case is to immediately terminate or disable the account of the affiliate URL that was spammed.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
CHOSE AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM
So you want to choose an affiliate program or are you already involved in one?
These are six tips you must understand deeply. But first, understand that affiliate programs work just like network marketing. I said it works like it because it involves down-lines.
Now to get started. Once you understand these tips and use them wisely, you would make a real success out of the affiliate program you choose.
1.Choose the Right Affiliate Program.
Before you pick an Affiliate program, make double sure it is the right one. Check the company's profile. You cannot be in a moving vehicle and remain stagnant. If your affiliate program is one that makes steady progress, you also make progress. If it is stagnant, you inevitably will be stagnant. Check for the company's age. Companies in their first two years pay high, but they face the risk of quitting all too soon. They are but infants. Companies in their first seven years are more likely to be stable. Older companies are reliable. Very reliable. They have a track record which you can easily check out and have good organisation built from years of existence.
2.What are the Companies' Products.
Please be very careful. Only a thin line separates Multi-level Marketing (MLM) or affiliate programs from illegality. You are however safe if the company has a product it sells. Never join a pyramid scheme. I am not an expert at that but I suppose pyramid schemes are scams. If the company does not offer a product or service, you might as well forget it.
3.Check the Compensation Plan.
Your primary reason for joining an affiliate program is to make money! Should I say that again? To make money! So please, check the compensation plan. Make sure it suits you. When dose the company pay? At what rate? How does the company pay? If it doesn't go down well with you, just forget it and find yourself another affiliate program with which you feel comfortable.
Note however that even if the commission schedule is small but sure, the work you do can help you blow it all up. Think of $1 in 1000 places ($1000). It can be achieved weekly. You can realise that with almost all affiliate programs.
The bottom line, choose a program that suits you.
4.Join Free Programs But....
A lot of affiliate programs allow you to join for free. I suggest you join the free ones. My reason is; you can easily leave without much loss. I feel sorry for people who have tried several programs and paid heavily just to realise it is not the right one. But if you think you can afford it, then the choice is yours.
Once you've made a choice, remember these last two tips!
5.Build Your Team of Affiliates.
This can be the most excruciating part of it all, but once you have a team of down-lines who are active, it is well worth it.
Always remember, "for every twelve, there is always a Judas." There will always be bad apples in a barrel. Find the good ones, train them, help them and you have simply helped yourself.
How do you know the good ones? Simple; watch out for those that ask questions, contact you and fulfil all requirements in short periods of time. Go for them and you are building a money spinning business.
6.Put Yourself in the Shoes of Those you Want to Recruit.
Make things easy for them. Put together all the information and deliver it to them. I know it took you sometime getting the information. Help them get it in a shorter time. Probably in few hours. Contact them always. Answer their questions. Give them all the help you can. Show them what to do and help them do it right.
Remember, you help them; you simply help yourself. Put yourself in their shoes and do exactly what you would have loved if you were in their shoes.
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