JV with other affiliate managers.
There are likely other affiliate programs out there that are related to yours without being in direct competition with you. Work with the affiliate managers / owners to mutually build each other’s programs up.
There are numerous ways to do this. Let me just quickly mention a few ideas...
Mention each other’s programs in your respective affiliate centers.
Publish each other’s articles in your affiliate newsletters.
Host an affiliate contest together where affiliates promote both of your products for prizes and incentives.
Conduct a training call for both groups of affiliates.
Participate as a guest expert in forum posts at each other’s forums.
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Combine your products into a “package deal” that both sets of affiliates promote.
Co-author a freebie report that both groups of affiliates can rebrand and distribute.
With any of these strategies, you’ll automatically get affiliates to join your program. The possibilities are limitless.
Listen, don’t be a “scarcity” thinker. Don’t be one of those people who think “If I work with someone else, they’ll get all my stuff”. Be willing to work together for mutual benefit.
Okay, there you have some ways to “recruit indirectly”, some advanced affiliate recruiting techniques.
That brings us up to step #8, the “M” of your S.A.L.E.S. A.R.M.Y.™, which is...
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Step #8: M – MAKE An Investment
What kind of “investment”? When I speak in terms of making an investment, I’m referring to the concept of bringing in an “affiliate manager” to basically run your affiliate program operations.
Note: Now, I’ve included this at step #8 simply because that’s where it fit best in the S.A.L.E.S. A.R.M.Y.TM acronym, but you can just as easily work this in right after step #1 when you setup the affiliate program.
In fact, if you can do it, it actually will benefit you the most by finding an affiliate manager prior to the launch of your affiliate program simply because he or she can do much of the preliminary work for you.
5 Keys To Finding An Affiliate Manager
I guess the best place to begin is to define what an affiliate manager is. Affiliate manager, Nicole Dean defines an affiliate manager as...
“A Contractor, Employee or Consultant who is responsible for Recruiting,
Training, Managing and Motivating a team of Affiliates for an online
business.”
Basically, an affiliate manager generates revenue for your business through the enlisting, equipping and educating of affiliate partners.
Now, that includes a LOT of different activities that I’ll just briefly touch on here –
Recruiting. An affiliate manager actively and continually seeks out new affiliates to join your affiliate program through personal contact, announcement services, directory submissions, advertising and a variety of other methods. With an affiliate manager in place, you don’t have to spend time finding and engaging new affiliates – she’ll do it on your behalf.
Training. Of course, it’s not enough to get affiliates to join your program.
They need to be educated in various promotional techniques in order to generate revenue. A good affiliate manager will provide ongoing tools and
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training so affiliates are able to effectively market your products and services.
Managing. A good affiliate manager takes the time-consuming duties of overseeing your affiliate program off of you. Instead of answering questions, troubleshooting problems, setting up or modifying accounts, dealing with commissions and fulfilling other supervisory tasks, you can be doing creative work (or, if you’re like me, playing more golf☺) while your affiliate manager takes care of affiliate needs. Affiliates are directly accountable to your affiliate manager instead of you.
Motivating. Finally, your affiliate manager will be responsible for turning passive affiliates into active ones by starting and sustaining relationships with your affiliates. By regularly communicating with your affiliates, using incentives, giving public praise, and so forth, your affiliate manager will motivate your affiliates to not only be more active, but to be more loyal to YOU and your program as opposed to your competition.
Some specific things an affiliate manager should do for an affiliate program include-
Distributing my ezine articles to directories and partners.
Setting up and expanding my affiliate center.
Formatting, branding and compiling marketing materials.
Recruiting affiliates to join the affiliate program.
Personally contacting major players on my behalf.
Creating and running affiliate contests to boost sales.
Creating training video tutorials and informative reports.
Establishing and posting to our affiliate program blog.
Answering affiliate support questions.
Helping me plan for short and long term success.
Giving me counsel on various affiliate program related decisions.
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Creating affiliate training pages for each of my products.
Performing various behind-the-scenes tasks. (Uploading files, etc.)
Submitting affiliate program to various directories.
Distributing rebrandable reports to directories.
Generating web site traffic to the affiliate program site and product sites.
I could go on and on, but this just gives you a brief look at some of the things that you can have your affiliate manager do on your behalf.
Now, before we get to the interview with Nicole that I’d like to include for you, let me talk through a few important things here about working with an affiliate manger.
5 Keys To Finding An Affiliate Manager
5 Keys To Succeeding With An Affiliate Manager
First, let’s look at...