Affiliate Marketing – How do you make it work for you?
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing; also know as Performance Media can be thought of in 2 ways
- it’s like having a team of commission only sales people that are continually putting your business / website in front of prospects
- it’s like having and incentive based word of mouth program, so that people (who might have spread the word anyway) are given an incentive (usually monetary) to let everyone know how good your business is.
The Advantage
- You only pay for results. Like a commission salesperson, you only pay your affiliates if they have driven people to your website/business that has resulted in customers and/or sales. You don't pay for page views or click-throughs: you pay for results.
- It exposes you to a bigger market to sell your product.
- If you are spending a serious amount of money on affiliate marketing then that’s a nice problem to have, because it means you are doing a serious amount of business through your affiliates referrals to your site.
Creating a successful affiliate program
- Make it lucrative – most affiliate programs fail because they try and be too stingy with rewards. Your affiliate needs to be able to make good money from referring people to you, or they are just not going to push your business very hard. They more lucrative you can make it for them, while retaining enough margin for yourself, the more your affiliate referrals will grow and the faster you will grow.
- Give your affiliates the tools they need – Give your affiliates, pdf brochures, youtube videos and other marketing material to help them promote your site. Building a strong relationship with your affiliates is crucial to a successful performance campaign. Look at it as a long-term relationship that you need to work on constantly, which will lead to a mutually successful situation. It is essential to develop a community of reliable affiliates, who are committed to your program and its success.
- Look at your conversion rates – The best performing online businesses have a simple and clear site. Ensure your site is easy to complete the desired conversion action whether that is making an enquiry, joining or registering or buying a product or service.
- Direct traffic to a persuasive and relevant landing page – A link through to your site from an affiliate should go to a page that presents relevant information tailored to the products and services that your prospect is looking to buy. If they are coming from an affiliate they are already qualified, so give them the info they are after.
How to build email lists
A regular, valuable email to your database is usually a core element to any eMarketing strategy. But how do your build your database and how to do you grow it? Following are a couple of ideas that might get you started.
Networking Meetings
From your local chamber of commerce, to specialized industry groups, the meetings of many organizations are great opportunities to make contact with new people. You are exchanging business cards with people, so make sure that keep in touch with these people. Send them a personal email the day after the meeting, recapping your conversation with them, and letting them know that you will be adding them to your monthly email list.
Trade Shows
Whether you have a booth, are one of the presenters, or are simply attending a trade show, you have an excellent potential opportunity similar to networking events, but at a much greater scale. Organizing the follow-ups to people you actually spoke to yourself, and then adding the person to your database is a given.
Seminars
Organizing informational seminars is a great way to build a healthy relationship with prospects and potential referrers. One effective technique is to have advance registration, and to ask permission to send regular emails at that time. (You can use www.stickytickets.com.au/a183 for this). You can also offer to send the material to people who can’t make it, so that even if the person is not able to attend the seminar, you still have an opportunity to stay in touch with them.
Retail Locations
Storefront and retail locations provide many great ways to build your email lists. Adding fishbowls or point of purchase displays are easy ways to take advantage of real-world traffic. (BTW – I always leave my business card in bowls at restaurants and places like that. Partly because I like to be kept informed on special nights they are having, but also because I have a special business card that is a mini advertisement of how my business can help them. Occasionally, as they are adding my card into their database, it catches their eye and they give me a call).
Events
Concerts, parties, art openings, or any other occasion that gathers people together can provides an opportunity to build your email address lists. Having a registration or check in location, or associates with clipboards working the room are just two ways to make contact. In the case of events, it is a good idea to offer some kind of incentive to boost signups. However, make sure that the person can only receive the incentive via email. This way, you will improve the quality and accuracy of the lists you are collecting.
Post Cards/Direct Mail
When a company has an existing database of postal addresses, direct mail may be the best way to get the email addresses for your existing customers and prospects. Again, offering an incentive always helps stimulate a greater response, and is particularly effective when there is a pre-existing relationship. Publish a specific, but simple, web site address on your mailing to direct people to a landing page with the list signup on your site (www.yoursite.com/special), so you can repeat the offer from the direct mail piece. This can help increase the number of people who actually signup.
Phone Calls
Using the telephone to get email addresses can be a time-consuming process, but isn't it time you gave your customers and prospects a call anyhow. In this case the call will both continue to kindle the relationship, as well as helping you establish an email based communication point.
Run and online competition or promotion
If you offer an incentive, people have a reason to give you their email address. A popular way to do this is to run an online competition where a person can enter by submitting their name and email address and possibly their interests. You can multiply the competition response by giving them the opportunity to have additional entries in the draw by sharing the competition with other people. Please note that you may have to register your competition with various state regulatory bodies. (If you need help with this, Redback Solutions, has a competition website that you can use and can also help with legal side of things)
Social Network for Australian Entrepreneurs
After facilitating a discussion on Social Networking for Business at Pioneer Business Swap in Crows Nest last week, there was a general concensus that there is a lack of myspace type networks for business.
ecademy.com comes close but in my opinion is very cluttered and you have to pay for a lot of the features.
linkedin.com is a fantastic tool for connecting with others and allows you to build on online resume but doesn't have the same a lot of the myspace features such as open networking, photos, blogs, discussions etc (ie it is a connection network not a social network).
So I've decided to kick off a social network for Australia entrepreneurs. you can find it here. http://australianentrepreneur.ning.com
Please join contribute and share with others.
Your "Busy-Ness" Attracts!
If you want to attract more clients then you need to get busy! You need a planned approach for increasing your perceived level of activity. Your prospects want you to be busy, because it implies you are good at what you do. Plus it could mean you are one of the few hip, happening, and tuned-in professionals in your field.
Your “busy-ness” should include:
- Being seen at industry or networking events and fundraisers
- Getting out and meeting people, prospects, colleagues and partners
- Writing articles that get published
- Running your own Blog
- Participating in industry committees and groups
- Running surveys to find out more about your market place and clients
- Participating in web-based discussion groups
This all sounds good, but beware. If you are not careful you'll find that you've filled up all your time and have lost your concentration on your business.
YOU NEED TO FOCUS YOUR EFFORTS
Before you increase your activity, first understand who your market is. You need to know what your ideal client looks, sounds and thinks like.
When you focus your efforts you can easily create multiple points of contact with potential clients. You need to pick your selected audience, and then find multiple opportunities to hit them with your message.
Every opportunity you have to meet new people is an opportunity to grow your business! If you are willing to invest your time, networking is a process, and the payoffs are almost immeasurable. It's not realistic to expect instant success. It takes time. You can plan your networking opportunities to shorten the time it takes to build those relationships.
Your activities must first be noticed in order to create an impression. You need to remember to evaluate your activities to ensure you are getting the best impact in return for your efforts.
You need to be careful to avoid:
- Networking events that are not attended by potential clients or referrers
- Networking events where you continually run into the same people
- Over-exposure
- Submitting articles that are not read by your target market
- Sending out direct mail offers that sound like you are desperate for work
