Consultation. Also, include an offer for assistance, along with a contact email address to offer support for any affiliate needing help.
It’s brief – it’s simple – it’s effective.
We can even take it a step further with our content by providing ads and solo mailings to promote the free report! ...
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Now, what I consider to be MANDATORY when it comes to creating “content” for your affiliates to customize with their affiliate link and give away is...
3-4 ezine articles.
1 special report.
That’s the minimum amount of content you should have inside your affiliate center PER PRODUCT in order to get your affiliates started.
If you can add in other things that I’ve mentioned (I.E. Mini-courses, videos, blog posts, etc.), then that’s even better.
The important thing is to provide quality content for your affiliates to customize with their affiliate link and begin distributing to their network of contacts.
And I don’t want to get off on a tangent here, but I think it’s worth reminding you of the purpose of this content:
To pre-sell.
That is, you want this content to be good enough to show that you know what you’re talking about so the reader will click on inserted links to arrive at your product sales page.
I always use the phrase “useful, but incomplete” to describe this method of preselling. You want the content to be “useful” enough to the reader that they can get some benefit from it on its own, but “incomplete” enough that it can be maximized by investing in your product.
That’s the ultimate freebie-to-product conversion ratio.
So, that’s the “content” side of things.
What about the “advertisements” side of things?
What kinds of “advertisements” do you need to include in your affiliate center?
Again, there is a wide variety of items...
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Classified ads
Solo mailings
Product reviews
PPC Keywords
Banners and Buttons
Thank You Pages
Error Pages
The more different “kinds” of advertisements you can provide your affiliates, the better.
And make it as EASY as possible for your affiliates to use the materials.
Make sure you do more than just provide the affiliate with graphics to use ... pre-populate those graphics with the affiliate referral link so all they have to do is copy some code into their page.
We’ll talk about this more later, but I want you to learn this immutable law of affiliate management –
The easier you can make it for your affiliates, the more likely they are to
actually take action!
So, what’s the “mandatory” requirement for ads to include?
Here’s what I recommend –
3-4 classified ads.
2 solo mailings.
1 banner, button and cover graphic.
Now, before we move on the Affiliate C4TM #2, let me share the single biggest mistake most affiliate managers make with their affiliate centers.
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You ready? Here it is –
The biggest mistake affiliate managers make with their affiliate centers is
allowing them to become dormant.
In other words, they initially stock it with a little bit of content and a little bit of advertisements ... and they move on.
And sooner or later so will their affiliates. My money’s on sooner.
A smart affiliate manager (you, you, you!) will continue to provide additional content and advertisements (especially content) for their core products so their affiliates can continue to promote those products.
It’s the difference between a passive and active affiliate team. Don’t let your affiliate center gather dust. You heard it here first. ;-) So, on to Affiliate C4TM #2 which is...
Affiliate C4TM #2: Checklists.
This may surprise you. Did you know that you can actually get affiliates more active by simply telling them what to do, in what order?
Over the years, I’ve watched affiliates in various affiliate programs and I discovered a noticeable difference in action among affiliates when they are provided with a chronological listing of steps to take in promoting offers.
Here’s what usually happens –
Affiliate program manager offers some content and ads with a quick
“Let’s make some money together” rah-rah speech. And that’s it.
Here’s what should happen –
Affiliate program manager offers those same things, blurts out that pep talk and adds “This is what you do first. Then, when you’ve completed that, do this. Next, you’ll do this.”
Something that has been effective for years in affiliate management, is you provide affiliates with what is called an “Affiliate Attack Plan”.
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For example, you might walk the affiliates through detailed marketing steps for EIGHT WEEKS of promotion.
Do you get that?
You give affiliates something different to do to promote you for eight straight weeks (that’s two months!).
That’s a huge canyon of a difference between the usual 1-2 times an affiliate does something proactive with an affiliate program.
What’s the difference? We handed them a plan.
Week one, you do this. Week two, you do this. Week three, you do this. All the way through eight weeks.
You can set it setup so you’re not bombarding their subscribers with ad after ad. It is very strategic.
Solo mailing is week one.
Free report is week two.
Newsletter article is week three.
And it works beautifully.
Listen to me carefully: people, in general, want a sequence of steps to follow.
They don’t want to have to figure it out on their own. They don’t want to have to make decisions about what to do next.
They’d rather follow a proven plan. They’d rather check off this step and then move on to the next step.
For example, let affiliates know the first thing they should do is mask or redirect their affiliate link to diminish affiliate theft.
Then, systematically move them through steps 2, 3, 4 and so on, getting them to rebrand the PDF report, distribute articles, etc.
It’s all laid out in step-by-step order, with detailed instructions on what to
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do each step of the way.
And that, folks, is what makes an affiliate program successful.
Note: Another idea is to setup an autoresponder sequence for your “affiliate attack plan”. This can be an OPTIONAL part of your program. (I.E. The affiliates can join the autoresponder sequence or not at their choice from within the affiliate center)
If they decide to join it, they would receive an email each Monday with an action step to complete for that week to promote one of your products.
I would highly recommend that you create an “affiliate attack plan” for your affiliates – a chronological checklist of action steps for them to complete in promoting their affiliate link.
Do this for each product you have in your lineup. The best part is, the basic structure can remain the same for all of your products – just make changes as necessary. (I.E. Insert different ads, articles, etc. for the specific product being promoted on the “affiliate attack plan”.)
That brings us up to Affiliate C4TM #3...
Affiliate C4TM #3: Coaching.
You know, I find that there are many affiliates who are motivated, but they don’t know HOW to do many of the things they are
“instructed” to do.
And so, they don’t. Ouch.
You must provide MORE than content and ads. You must provide MORE than a step-by-step plan to work through.
You must provide training to help affiliates do the things necessary to
make money for both of you.
Each of these Affiliate C4TM components builds upon the previous. As you add these 4 components to your affiliate center, your sales begin to see greater explosions.
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Content and ads get you started.
A workable checklist increases the profit.
Training takes it up another notch.
Here’s the thing about training –
You only need to create the training materials once. All affiliates can use
them for a lifetime after that.
Now, when I talk about training, I speak in regards to two areas –