Recruiting Affiliates

If you run an affiliate program, your success as an online seller depends largely on your affiliates.  They are the individuals who market your website.  They bring traffic to it and help to generate sales.  This is an important job.  Unfortunately, not all affiliates realize the potential they have to make a difference or make money.  Some need an extra push.  You can provide that push and motivation by hosting affiliate contests.

When it comes to hosting contests for your affiliates, your options are endless.  Anything remotely related to affiliate programs and their success can be turned into a contest.  Not only that, but you can have varying rewards.  For example, a contest winner can have their name listed on your affiliate program website or in a newsletter.  They can also receive compensation; your options are endless.  If you are looking for good and unique ideas, continue reading on for a few sample contests.

Reward top performing affiliates.  Top performing affiliates are the backbone to your success.  They drive the most traffic and sales to your website, where you have products or services available for sale.  Everyone wants to be rewarded for a job well done.  When rewarding your top affiliates, choose between the affiliate that brings in the most sales or the affiliate that generates the highest sales in terms of dollars.

Reward most improved affiliates.  As previously stated, your top earning affiliates want to be recognized for their job well done.  This is important, but so is providing encouragement to the “little guy.”  These ones can benefit the most from a rewards system.  Consider offering a contest for the most improved affiliate.  Once again, you can choose from the affiliate who increased their sale frequency or the dollar amount the most.

Reward the affiliate with the best marketed website.  This website receives the most traffic.  Remember, traffic translates into sales for you.  Affiliates need to do more than just create a sales page or throw a few links and banners on their website.  If no one visits that website, both you and they won’t make any money. That is why internet marketing is an important component of affiliate programs.  Use site explorer websites to determine which of your affiliates have the most incoming links.

In keeping with internet marketing, you can turn your contest into a lesson.  Article directories have been used as internet marketing tools for years.  Capitalize on this.  Ask each of your affiliates to submit one article to an article directory.  They need to include a link back to their website, where your coded banners or text links are displayed.  Have each affiliate participating in the contest send you the link.  Read each article and choose your favorite.  Which one are you, as an internet reader, more likely to click on?

Reward the affiliate with the best designed website.  A well-designed and easy to navigate website is also important with affiliate programs.  A poorly designed website cannot hold readers for long.  Most internet users will click on the back button before they get the chance to see or click on your company’s banners or links.  For that reason, consider hosting a contest for the best designed or easiest to navigate website.  If you can’t decide, pick a few of your favorites and get your other affiliates to vote.

Reward affiliates with the best ad placement.  If your affiliate program relies on banners, you know the importance of ad placement.  Clickable graphics appearing at the top of the page get more clicks, as readers don’t have to search the page to find them.  Hosting a contest for ad placement can also turn into a lesson.  You highlight the importance of ad placement.  Since many seasoned affiliates know all about placement, it may be best to avoid compensation.  There may be too many winners.  Instead, write the names and provide links to the affiliates with the best ad placement.

Most of this article focused on using banners and text links as affiliate marketing tools.  If you are selling a single product or service, you may opt for traditional sales pages.  For example, your affiliates can use a provided template or design their own standalone sales pages.  In that case, host a contest and reward the affiliate with the best sales page.  You can base your contest on design, ease of reading, and information provided.

If you run an affiliate program, you need to ensure your affiliates are doing their part.  They must use your coded links and banners.  If not, they are doing nothing to generate sales for you.  In fact, they are wasting your time.  With that said, don’t write off each of these individuals as lazy.  There are many cases in which those new to affiliate programs need a little help and support, be sure to give it to your members.

As previously stated, you need to provide all of your affiliates, especially those new to the program, with support.  Why?  Better yet, focus on the dangers of not.  If you setup an affiliate program, give a few coded links, make payments when needed, but then just disappear what could happen?  Continue reading on to find out.

You may lose quality affiliates.  Do not make the mistake of assuming all good affiliates can do the job without asking questions.  Some may be unable to access your website, may have trouble uploading your graphics, and others may have payment related questions.  Anyone can have a question at anytime, including your best performing affiliates.  Don’t let them get angry and jump ship because it takes you one week or never to answer a question.

You may create a bad name for your affiliate program.  Affiliate programs do work.  They are successful.  The business person using an affiliate program, which would be you, sees an increase in sales.  Better yet, the affiliates who help generate those sales are paid.  This information will spread like wildfire online.  People are always taking about how they make money online.  Don’t be surprised to see an influx of applications after your payments are sent out.  This is because your affiliates are talking about the opportunity online.  Unfortunately, people don’t just talk about good things.  They share problems and complaints online.  If an affiliate of yours cannot get a response from you, they may turn to the internet and broadcast their complaint.  Anyone who reads it may later think twice about joining your affiliate program.

You may cause unintentional rule breaking.  Many affiliate programs prohibit affiliates from using their own links to buy.  The goal of affiliate programs is to generate unique sales, not planned or staged sales.  If your rule on this practice is not outlined in your terms and conditions, you are likely to get an email asking about the rule.  However, if you don’t respond, the affiliate may go ahead and use their affiliate links to make a purchase.  Not only do they get the items they ordered, but they get money from the commission too.  If you catch the person, they can claim they didn’t technically break the rules because they weren’t highlight and because you didn’t respond to their original message.

You can lose money.  As previously stated, you need to cater to all of your affiliates.  Whether they have a question, suggestion, or complaint, it needs to be address.  If you just ignore your affiliates, you will anger some.  These angry individuals are likely to jump ship.  When that happens, you lose money.  Don’t just think about the money lost immediately, but the long-term.  You had an affiliate who was having problems getting your embedded banners to display on their website.  You ignored their question and they left.  This is bad if they had a well designed, easy to navigate, and marketed website.  You may have cost yourself thousand of dollars in sales, just in the first year!

As you can see, there are many consequences to avoiding your affiliates.  Never do it.  If you don’t already provide your affiliates with helpful support, start now before you staring seeing the consequences.

If you run an affiliate program, do you reward your affiliates for a job well-done?  If not, you should start and immediately.  These programs rely on the hard work and determination of affiliates to be successful.  You may be surprised how much motivation rewards provide.

As great as it is to hear that you can and should reward affiliates for a job well-done, why?  It is really worth the time and effort.  Of course it is!  Remember rewards are motivation.  You need to motivate your affiliates.  An affiliate is more likely to promote their website with your links and those links when they get an extra incentive for doing so.  Don’t make the mistake of believing rewards are only for children.  They are not and they can do wonders for your affiliate program.

Not only does rewarding your affiliates improve their drive and determination, but it should lead to more sales for you.  An affiliate selling your eBook through an affiliate sales page is more likely to push your product and market it when they get rewarded.  This means more sales for you.  The same with retail store affiliate programs.  Whether you sell one product or one thousand, you should notice an increase in sales after putting a rewards program in place.

Now that you know the benefits of rewarding your affiliates, what type of rewards can you do?  Your options are endless.  With that said, try to keep it related to your affiliate program.  For example, reward top earning affiliates with commission increases.  Reward all of your affiliates with a temporary increase in commission percentages during the holidays.  Give away the some of your top selling products or electronic devices, like a new laptop.

It is best to reward your affiliate with prizes.  This is a given, as people love free stuff.  With that said, don’t discount a little bit of recognition.  Do you send out monthly newsletters to your affiliates or have an online message forum?  If so, highlight top earning affiliates or the most improved.  Better yet, turn it into a learning experience.  Interview that affiliate or provide links to their website or sales page.  Let your underperformers see what it takes to be a successful, well-paid partner.

The simplest way to reward an affiliate for a job well-done is to send them a personal message.  Did you notice that an affiliate helped to assist in a large sale, like a $2,000 television set?   Send them a quick congratulatory message and thank them for participating in your program.  People want to be recognized and congratulated for a job well-done.  A boss shakes the hand of a well-performing employee in the traditional workplace, so try to do the same.  Showing appreciation is a very simple yet effective way to improve moral and keep good performing affiliates onboard.

As you can see, there are many ways to reward your affiliates for a job well done.  If you aren’t doing so now, give it a try.  Monetary compensation or prizes always do the trick.  As previously stated, people love free stuff and your affiliates feel the same way.  As for sending a congratulatory message or featuring a notable affiliate, you open the line of communication.  This is important when running a successful affiliate program; you and your affiliates must work together as a team.