Affiliate Programs
By Linda Woods
Friday, November 14, 2003; 4:00pm EST
One of the key elements necessary for attracting top affiliates to
your affiliate programs is to
create a professional, credible program. With so many dot-coms failing
over the past year, good affiliates have become a bit cynical and
suspicious about putting out the effort for a merchant who may close
shop or cheat them out of their legitimately earned commissions.
Putting these concerns to rest is a top priority for good affiliate
program managers. Here's a few ways to build trust with your affiliate
sales force.
Build Respect &
Trust
Making sure that you consider affiliates as your valued outside sales
force is one way to start treating your affiliate program like an
important part of your overall business strategy, not just an
insignificant "add-on" that you give little attention. Building a
viable outside sales force requires a "sales manager" (your Affiliate
Program Manager), professional sales collateral materials (your links,
banners & promos), adequate training (do your affiliates truly
understand the benefits & features of your products?), a generous
commission structure and recognition and rewards for outstanding
sales.
Pay on Time
This seems like an obvious suggestion, but take a look at your
Affiliate Program's FAQ. Have you stated perfectly clearly not only
what the payout is, but exactly when it is tallied, what constitutes a
legitimate payout , when they will be paid and how? A good affiliate
program information page will include items like precisely when they
are credited with the sale, how or why a sale maybe cancelled, what
the "return" days are and how that affects commissions. Also,
affiliates need to know when a payout is earned, what day can the
affiliate expect payment if their required minimum has been met. Your
tracking software gives you access to all the statistics necessary to
fulfill these obligations, so make sure you do in a timely manner.
Nothing goes farther to establish credibility than a regular, accurate
check! When you belong to a network, some of these issues are handled
for you, but it should be a visible part of your policy and commitment
to affiliates whether you have to handle payouts in-house or through a
network.
Commit to Accuracy
The one thing that merchants who run in-house programs must consider
is that affiliates need to know that they can trust the statistics
being provided by the tracking technology. One of the implied benefits
of running your program through a network is that there is a trusted
3rd party to monitor tracking accuracy. This can also be established
when you run an in-house system if you make sure your software can
provide 24/7 up to the minute details on all transactions and can be
easily verified by the affiliate through their admin interface. For
example, good affiliates will want to be able to see total sales, as
well as the status of individual transactions, like pending sales,
reversals or approved sales. They want to be able to "test" the
program, by making a purchase through their affiliate link, see it
appear on the interface, and then see it listed as reversed or pending
when they cancel the sale. In this way, they can be assured that the
technology is working for ALL transactions. Very active affiliates
will see these accurate and real time statistics as being vital to the
health and success of their business.
Adhere to High
Standards
Over the past couple of years, a group of dedicated volunteers have
formed the Affiliate Union
whose aim to develop both a "certification standard" and a way for
organizations to implement those standards. They have been working on
a "Merchant Certification Checklist" that has been developed by
consensus from a board made up of merchants, affiliates, industry
consultants and affiliate technology representatives. A few of these
points are; having a fair and equitable Affiliate Agreement, providing
reasonable notification of substantive changes in payouts, stringent
privacy assurances and ethical email practices among other things.
Getting an Affiliate Union certification can do much to provide good
affiliates with some assurances about a company's dedication and
commitment to their affiliate marketing program.
Personalized &
Regular Affiliate Communications
Countless programs are out there that rarely, if ever, make a
proactive attempt to personally communicate with their affiliates.
Perhaps this is due to the sheer numbers of affiliates they have, or
the lack of committed management. In either case, this practice does
little to allay suspicions in the minds of dedicated affiliates. How
can you really trust a "big business" to treat you fairly if you
rarely hear from them, and when you do it's a standard message like
"Dear Affiliate" and it's signed with the impersonal, "The Affiliate
Team". Some networks don't even allow you to send personalized
messages to your "sales force" with crucial business correspondence!
That's unacceptable and will undermine your efforts to build personal,
lucrative relationships with your valued affiliate sales force. Even
if you run a very large program, you should have an email delivery
system which can send a personalized letter with the affiliates' first
name, AND it should be signed with the real name of the person
responsible for handling affiliate issues. Also, every effort should
be made to stay in regular contact by phone, not just email, with
those top performers that drive significant sales to your program.
In closing, a sense
of suspicion and distrust has often clouded business relationships
between online merchants and affiliates. Both sides are perhaps to
blame for many of these misgivings, but if merchants make a bona fide
effort to adhere to fair business practices, provide excellent
tracking reporting and statistics, communicate well, and make it known
that they run their program according to the guidelines set forth by
industry groups, like Affiliate Union, they will undoubtedly gain the
respect and loyalty of hard working, professional affiliates. Both
will benefit financially from this mutually respectful relationship.
Source of Article
Linda Woods started her own consulting business in May 2000, after
a 10 month stint with Commission Junction, in the Marketing Department
in charge of Affiliate Acquisition and Educational Training. Prior to
that she was the Marketing Director for WebStuf, a web design firm,
where she specialized in helping smaller companies develop their
marketing strategies, including affiliate marketing channels. She has
taught E-Commerce classes at University of California at Santa Barbara
and writes and speaks extensively on internet marketing strategies.
Linda is also available for private consulting contracts of all sizes.
You can visit her web site at
http://www.partnercentric.com/.
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