How to Recruit Affiliates
Affiliate program without affiliates is just another waste of time and money...
Keep your site simple.
Its great to have information everywhere on your web page, but this makes it harder for a visitor to find something of interest to them and can sometimes make them leave your site before even looking around, (Don't clutter things up, keep everything looking as simple as possible, don't put everything on your main page make people look around your site).
Create an 'Affiliate Information Page'
Both affiliate directories (more about them later) and potential affiliates need to be able to access pages detailing your program. If your using one of the affiliate networks it's generally not enough to just supply the directories with your co-branded sign-up page at the network. Create your own affiliate information page and include the following -
- A description of your product/service
- Illustrate your commission and payment terms
- Make sure the programs terms and conditions are available before joining up
- Ideally also include a link to your home page and privacy policy
The placing of banners and text links.
Where you place your banners and text links is vital in recruiting affiliates. The clearer the link the more chance a visitor will visit that site. (sounds simple but some sites put links in very obscure places). Also consider advertising the affiliate program yourself, for example with banner advertising or ezine placements. This will not produce an immediate return in terms of sales, but helps grow your affiliate program, and increase sales over the long term.
Submitting to affiliate directories
You should list your program at all the major affiliate directories. You can either hunt them down in a search engine and submit manually (very time consuming!), or you use a service to get your program listed at all the main directories.
E-mailing Webmasters
This is very good in attracting new visitors and getting them to sign up through you. What you need to do is visit some websites with content that is relevant to your products and see if they are lacking advertisments, if they are e-mail them and point them to an affiliate page on your website (this really works). For instance if you were selling a product for cleaning carpets then Carpet shop owners would be the most appropriate people to contact.
DO NOT SPAM webmasters, make your invitation as personal as possible! Also, you need to check out your competitor's offers and may need to offer higher commissions and/or more frequent payment terms - those affiliates who produce the best results will already be familiar with your competitors, so don't expect to switch to your program if it's less attractive to them financially!
Klemen Stirn
YOURsoft
|
