Your Affiliates Need Tools
October 27, 2009 by
Filed under Marketing
There are many things you have to do and decisions that have to be made before you launch a product. One question you probably worked through is, should I have an affiliate program? If you answered yes, you’re happy with your decision and think you’re good to go. But wait, you’re not ready to launch your product yet; you need to set up some tools for your affiliates before you start asking them to sign on.
Having affiliates is a great way to sell more product, but affiliates want and expect a little help. There is more to an affiliate program than just doing the techy work and making sure the affiliate splits are correct. You need to have an affiliates page with tools to help them sell your product. It might seem a little time consuming to you; you’re trying to get your product launched and don’t feel you have time for it, but having tools available will help them, and you, make more money.
If you offer an assortment of tools for your affiliates, they can pick and choose which ones they want to use, based on their style of affiliate marketing. Some affiliates might want keyword suggestions and others might love pixel banners. Cater to everyone and let them use their favorite marketing methods.
If you’re not sure what your affiliate tools page should look like, take a look at what other marketers do. Notice how they set up their page. This page not only includes tools, but it’s a bit of a sales page itself telling or reminding people who visit why they should become your affiliate. Some even have a table on the page that shows how much you can make in a month if you make, say, 5 sales a day.
Does their affiliate page look good? Do they look like they care? Do they offer ongoing support for affiliates? Is there possibly an affiliate manager or an affiliate blog or forum that’s designed to help affiliates succeed? What else do they offer?
Here are some suggestions of what to have in your affiliate toolbox:
ads in different shapes and sizes
keywords
auto link changer
link cloaker
articles
emails
blog posts
autoresponder series
product review posts
free reports
brandable PDFs
ebook covers
banners
testimonials
text links
signature links
video product reviews
video interviews
Now, don’t think you have to include all these things, especially if you’re launching your first product. It’s a list to get you thinking of what you can offer to help your affiliates make sales.
You definitely want to have a pretty good array of promotional materials if you’re asking some big names to sell to their lists. They want, and expect to see items such as promotional emails they can fine tune and send out. Make it as easy for them as possible.
Another good idea is to have instructions on your affiliate page that tells new affiliates what to do and what order to do it in. Don’t assume you’re only working with the big guns who already know, you’ll have some beginners joining your team as well.
For example, you could number the steps like this:
1. Get yourself a ClickBank ID here.
2. Here is what you can do with the tools (add this to your blog, email this to your list, set up a lens with this, etc.)
3. Now download these promo tools.
4. Sign up to this list for affiliates for further updates.
To conclude, make sure you have at least a few promotional items for your affiliates to use. It might seem like too much work when you’re ready to launch your product, but you’ll be doing your affiliates, and ultimately yourself, a favor in the end.
Tags: Marketing
