Affiliate marketing for Football Teamkits

[John Murray]

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Hi all,

I'm sure most of you hate posts like these but maybe there's a few kind souls who remember what it's like not having a clue and will help me get up to speed.

Heres the story: I live in Thailand and have just started an online business which will supply football teamkits (Jersey, Shorts and socks) to local league, schools, pub teams etc in the UK and other markets but focusing on the UK to begin with. I have launched www.sportzkit.com but it will be a couple of months before the site is operational. The key function of the site and differentiator for the business is that you can select a template for your kit and 'tailor' it you your club colours, choose long or short sleeves, diffferent collar types online in a very intuitive manner and you can specify printing on the front and rear of the jersey for player names, club sponsors etc. As a result you will get a made to order set of kit delivered via DHL for STG£250 - £300 which is less than what most 'traditional' suppliers charge for going with their stock designs and colours.

I want to use affiliate marketing as my main marketing tool and my target audience are football related websites but not necessarily the big 'news' type sites such as soccernet.com or teamtalk.com used by people who 'follow' football but the type of sites/forums/chatrooms used by people who actually play football or organise local leagues as these are the guys who buy kit for their team every year or two and the people I want to attract to my site.

So thats my business, what I need to know is absolutely everything there is to know about using affiliate marketing to get customers to my site. I know absolutely nothing so anything anyone can tell me about what to do, what not to do, whether I am wasting my time i.e. affiliate marketing doesn't work for sports kit?, where I should go for information, golden rules etc etc will all be very much appreciated.

I'm a member of other forums (not related to affiliate marketing) and I know sometimes there is a yawn when a complete stranger posts a mail like this in a forum full of expert users but I'm hoping a few of you will take the time to get me up to speed so that in time I might return to favour to some poor sod who is starting a busines but hasn't a clue how to set about using affiliate marketing.

FYI I will be setting up an Irish company which will take orders, collect credit card payments and manage customer service. The Thai end of the business (seperate subsidiary company) will fulfill the orders, conduct quality control and ship the orders. The Irish company (tax efficient) will be the company paying affiliate commissions which I assume is a lot more comforting to affiliates than dealing with a Thai company.

Thanks to all who have read this far and special thanks to anyone who reads this far and actually replies with some helpful advice.

Regards

John Murray

[drivetowin]

Hi John

Welcome to the forum - your offering sounds interesting and marketed on the right sites could do very well as an affiliate programme.

As for advice:

1. Go with one of the affiliate networks - I'd recommend you talk to Affiliate Future and Paid on Results who can both give you good advice and will both offer you low signup costs and monthly admin charges.

2. Make sure your site is aimed at customer conversion - thats your job - getting the customers to you is the affiliates job

3. Do not include your telephone number or url in any creative (banners etc)

4. Do not have a prominent telephone number on your site.

Do all of that and you will be off to a good start.

[Kandevil]

1. As your just putting the site together, please consider the idea of a white label site this would be really useful.

2. Also if you can go with a network that offers two tier commissions that would be great

3. I agree with all Kbudden's points above

check your PM for more.

[John Murray]

Hi guys and thanks for the replies, very useful.

Some more questions if you wouldn't mind:-

1. Is there a US version of Affiliates4u or similar forum where I can get US specific info?

2. After the UK my main target markets will be the US, Australia/New Zealand and Ireland (just because that's where I'm from not because it's a big market). Are there networks which will actually cover the UK, USA, Australia/New Zealand and Ireland or do I have to go with networks based in each geographical location and if so any recommendations other than Paid on Results and AffiliateFuture which I have for the UK?

3. I notice a few companies like vouch4me are signed up with both Paid on Results and AffiliateFuture, does this really generate extra cover? Do networks really promote you if they know you are also with another network?

4. If I signup for a network can I expect them to generate a selection of banners and text links or will I need my webmaster to create those?

Thanks in advance.

John

[Supercod]

Originally posted by John Murray
1. Is there a US version of Affiliates4u or similar forum where I can get US specific info?

No but the closest one is this http://abw.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x

Originally posted by John Murray
2. After the UK my main target markets will be the US, Australia/New Zealand and Ireland (just because that's where I'm from not because it's a big market). Are there networks which will actually cover the UK, USA, Australia/New Zealand and Ireland or do I have to go with networks based in each geographical location and if so any recommendations other than Paid on Results and AffiliateFuture which I have for the UK?

UK and USA you could try CJ if you’re looking for someone already setup in both areas, however I personally think your better to deal with a company in each territory. Depends on your budget and if you will have a full time affiliate manager to manage a few networks.

Originally posted by John Murray
3. I notice a few companies like vouch4me are signed up with both Paid on Results and AffiliateFuture, does this really generate extra cover? Do networks really promote you if they know you are also with another network?

What it will do is give affiliates a choice, some like to work with one network over another, and some would rather not ever work with a network. Speaking from POR we have merchants that are happy on a few networks (as it works for them and they are making money) and others that are happy with just the one, some times it takes them a couple of tries to find the one they are happy with and I am sure that's the same for everyone else.

Originally posted by John Murray
4. If I signup for a network can I expect them to generate a selection of banners and text links or will I need my webmaster to create those?

If you get accepted to work with POR then yes POR will make a small selection of banners to get you started ( plenty of examples here of ones we done for merchants http://www.paidonresults.com/merchants/ ), however you really should spend your time working on things like data feeds as they have very good results long term.