Recruitment Ideas for New Affiliate Managers
By Mark Romanelli
Direct Response Technologies, Inc
Last week I wrote an
article about managing affiliates on a day-to-day basis and
why there is no such thing as autopilot in affiliate
marketing. Well before you can manage affiliates, you have
to have someone to work with. Many people think that
working with an affiliate network is all they need to do to
get affiliates. For the most part they are wrong. While
the value add of an affiliate network is to introduce you to
new affiliates, those affiliates are not really yours, and
you will have to weed through a dozen applications to find
just one worthy participant.
Getting quality
affiliate partners into your program is usually the most
difficult aspect of building a successful long-term
program. If you are just starting an affiliate program,
simply getting any interest from potential partners may be a
challenge at first. So the question becomes, how do you get
the word out about your program to attract affiliates?
Below are a few
suggestions that can be implemented. DO NOT try and rely on
just one tactic. Every industry is different and you must
try different things to secure new affiliates. Try these
methods to identify who your potential affiliates may be.
Once you have located the right partners, personal contact
is much more effective to reeling them into your affiliate
program.
1) Affiliate Recruitment Software
- There are a few software's available that
will help you find potential affiliates easily. The two main
software's on the market are Aerlis (www.aerlis.com)
and Super Affiliate Generator (www.makelinks.com).
The way the these systems work is that you can type in a
keyword or a specific web address, and the software will
pull a list of all of the sites linking to that specific web
address or keyword. When it pulls each site, it will give
you any contact info available as well as their Alexa
ranking. Now you can call or email these webmasters and tell
them about your offer.
2) Affiliate Message Boards
- There are dozens of affiliate message boards across the world.
Nearly all of these forums are free to join and participate.
Do a search on the web for affiliate message boards and you
will find plenty of resources. This is a great way to
regularly announce your program, ask for recommendations,
and build relationships with other affiliates and merchants
in the industry. Do not go to the boards sounding like a
sales person. The affiliate industry is a community and you
need to work your way into it by making yourself known
through questions, comments, or suggestions. Here is a
brief list of some of the more popular Affiliate Message
Boards:
3) Alexa/Link Popularity Searches - If you do not use
affiliate recruitment software like those mentioned above, there
are still several free tools on the Internet to help your
search. Alexa (www.alexa.com)
is a website popularity engine. It measures how popular your
website is (i.e.
Yahoo.com is #1). If you do a search for a site on Alexa,
you can also drill down into the details of their site. For
instance, it will tell you which websites are linking to
their site. This could be a way for you to find out who your
competitors partners are. Usually anyone linking to a site
is some type of affiliate. You can also do a search on
Google for "Link Popularity", and you will find several
search engines that specialize in telling you which sites
are linking to which.
4) Outsourced Program Management - If you are too
busy to devote your time and efforts into searching for
affiliates, there are many industry professionals that focus
on affiliate recruitment and management. We partner with a
few of the industry leaders in this field. Contractors like
this usually charge a small monthly fee and percentage of
affiliate sales. Direct Response partners with several
reputable Affiliate Manager’s in the industry. Contact us
for a referral list.
5) Your Own Website & Promotions
- A lot of websites that run affiliate programs don't give
them enough promotion on their own websites. Some sites,
especially larger corporations, don't even list an affiliate
program! You should create a professional sales page for
potential affiliates. You have to include all relevant facts
and try to provide them with some incentive that your
competitors don't (i.e. affiliate contests or prizes). A lot
of times, your current clients and the traffic you get to
your website are the best possible affiliates. If
applicable, you can also announce your affiliate program in
your offline marketing collateral.
6) Conferences & Networking Events
– There are many online marketing conferences where hundreds
of merchants, affiliates and vendors join together
throughout the year. Although the majority of these events
are predominantly populated with other merchants and
vendors, some of the larger affiliates can be found at
these. In general these conferences lend for excellent
networking opportunities. Currently the Affiliate Summit (www.affiliatesummit.com)
is the most popular and targeted event put on for the
affiliate industry.
7) Affiliate Announcement Publications
- There are several email lists in the
industry that will announce your program to a list of
affiliates for a certain dollar amount. These are not a
quick fix, and generally get a low response rate, but they
will net you some affiliates and get your campaign out in
front of webmasters. Here is a list of the most popular:
Use these methods as
best you can to locate your potential affiliates. Once you
get the ball rolling you will find that many affiliates will
begin signing up for your program. But don’t let that
fool you into thinking your program is successful yet.
You then have to focus on working with quality affiliates.
