Affiliate Marketing Programs: 7 Tips To Re-Energise Them
Affiliate marketing programs are available in all shapes and sizes and also in various different phases. New, in development, but also asleep. Your program is working, there
is some sales coming in, you occasionally send a mailing. Going fine? But the majority of your sales (about 80%) will come from a small group of publishers (usually about
10-20%). Sound familiar? Time to revitalize your affiliate program and activate your publishers!
Tip 1. Program update
First look carefully at your own program. When did you last review your program conditions? Is your advertising material still up-to-date? Do you regularly send mailings and do you ever set up an action? You do need this to run a decent program and keep your publishers interested.
If there is an action for your customers, this can be a reason to urge your publishers. A good deal for the customer sells well and is therefore also interesting for them to promote! Make sure you have appropriate advertising material that the publishers can use.
Tip 2. Activation campaign
How are you going to revitalize your affiliate program? You can do this through an activation campaign; a campaign to wake up those 80% sleeping publishers. Of course, part of that group is not active because, for example, they are small sites with very little traffic or because the managers are no longer actively involved with their site. They just cash in what comes in and do nothing more with their platform. But there is undoubtedly also a group that is active, but not in your program. You have to reach that group.
Send them a mailing and try to stimulate them with an activation bonus. For example, you can double the first as many orders or pay a reward for the fastest riser (incremental sales bonus). You can also reward them with products, a free subscription or a discount coupon for your webshop.
Tip 3. Staff bonus
You can also enter a discount bonus for everyone in the program. For example, create three categories of a certain number of sales and add an extra bonus. Do you have more than 100 orders? Then you fall into the gold category and receive € 100 extra. More than 50 sales are silver and € 50 bonus and more than 25 are bronze and good for € 25 bonus. The numbers and amounts depend of course on the average number of sales and the fees and turnover of your products. This must be a bit in proportion.
Tip 4. Ask your publishers!
This sounds very simple and it is; Ask your publishers what they think of your program. You can ask their opinion by means of a publisher survey. Consider:
• Questions about your program; what do they find good and less good?
• Questions about your reimbursements; are they competitive?
• Questions about the network; are they satisfied with that? Which dashboards and reporting options do they use?
• Questions about the advertising material; can they get away with it?
• Questions about your contact; do they read the mailings?
• Ask for points for improvement; what should the advertiser do to become more interesting to them?
With this input you can get started with your program. Your publishers feel heard and you know where the points for improvement lie. A win-win situation!
Tip 5. Come up with ideas yourself
A nice approach when getting in touch with silent publishers is to come up with ideas yourself. Show that you have viewed their site and let them know where you would like to be - in a top 5 list for example. Is the information about your product or service obsolete? Then supply the current information directly, along with some visual material. This way the
publisher can start immediately and the threshold is less high to fit the content and promote you (again) actively.
Tip 6. Approach your publishers personally ...
Many publishers have been unsubscribed from the mailings of the network because they will otherwise be overloaded with messages. Relationship management is extremely important in affiliate marketing. Publishers want to feel important. So try to have as much personal contact with them as possible. You probably already have contact with the top publishers by mail and not via the network. If you have found out which publisher you would like to activate thanks to a benchmark or gap analysis, approach them personally. This way they know who is 'behind the affiliate marketing program' and they will be more inclined to start working for you, than on the basis of a message via the network.
Tip 7. ... and make them feel special
Publishers are people and they want to feel special. Surprise them from time to time! You can do this with a thoughtful action. Some examples of this:
• Send them a sample, a small product or a voucher for your shop
• Send them some treats with Halloween, Christmas or Easter
• Send them a ticket for their birthday
You can also consider organizing a publisher event. This way you create extra binding with your brand and a stronger bond between publisher and advertiser.