What Incentive

[eliteshops]

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Hi

Firstly, thanks to everyone who joined Ballicom following my last post

At the moment I am trying to convince my client Ballicom to run an incentive scheme to get sales moving bu need some advice

Can I ask what incentive is best.

Do you prefer a ££££ bonus for reaching a certain amount of sales or a bigger bonus for the first person to reach a target amount of sales.

Having said that, I am also open to ideas and no a £1000 bonus for one sale will not wash (unless I'm the affiliate )

Kind Regards


Alan Foster
Webmaster

Ballicom
Design365
eliteshops
& Many More

[Matthew Wood]

Hi Alan,

Incentive schemes should do just that; incentivise... Unless you're the super affiliate for a program then nothing is less appealing to the broad affiliate base than a merchant saying 'the affiliate who generates the most sales between blah and blah will receive £1,000"

So incentivise all groups of affiliates, those who do 5-10 sales a month, to those who may do 200+

You can do this with tier levels - thankfully becoming more popular now - though these can alienate new affiliates if using PPC as the lower commission rate is a barrier to entry for them. - Virtually all networks can accommodate this.

Bonuses are good (like DGM often do) - however personally I prefer a set higher commission based on previous months sales. You can record your ROI throughout the month better.

You'll need to get your affiliates moving and giving you that all important exposure. You're in a competitive market, and people will have tried and tested programs which they may not want to downgrade to give you a chance - harsh but that’s reality. You may not have the same problem with ‘product feed’ affiliates.

Early adopters to your program re important, especially ones who can give you sales. Keep them sweet – they may be pushing your program at a loss or at less EPC than other programs. Take care and communicate with them to keep them sweet and loyal.

I’d also put some budget aside to send them a surprise gift – always goes down well. We are your sales force after all.

Get feedback (on here) and by email from your affiliates – be proactive and you’ll get good results.

Product specific incentives may also be worth a try – perhaps on one of your most keenly prices lines? Could get some PPC affiliates interested - for example the affiliate who sells the most DVD recorders (across all brands) will win one or £xxx cash.

In the end though you can incentivise your affiliates by keen, polite communication, ensuring tracking pixels don’t get ‘lost’ and by posting on here all for free.

Good luck.
Matthew.

[eliteshops]

Hi Matt

Thanks for that well thought out and comprehensive advice. I have passed it on to Ballicom and hopefully this will persuede them to get something going.

I have been doing affiliate work for nearly 7 years now with Elite Shops and am still amazed at how much information we can glean from forums such as this. I have now started assisting merchants in running their schemes and am starting to realise that it is'nt just a case of throwing together some banners and importing some code. This is ball breaking stuff and the amount of effort they have to put in to keep us affiliates interested and promoting their products above the others, offering the schemes to suitable affiliates and promoting hot products is not as easy as it first seemed.

Getting back to the topic in hand though. I agree with incentivising all groups of affiliates, those who do 5-10 sales a month, to those who may do 200+ and will definately look at tier levels or 'most improved affiliate'

Higher commission is an option but ballicom is more a stack them high - sell them cheap set up so this might be tricky to convince the MD.

I agree with your comments about breaking in to tried and trusted affiliates. Indeeed, at Elite we change the content regularly, but if you look closely it is usually the same merchants but just their latest offers.

Also, agree communication is the key. I know the IT distributers offer good deals if a specific brand is promoted so I will get them to look at dishing out one of their special offers to the affiliates - Im sure this will work for all parties.

Once again, thanks for all this 'food for thought'. I am enjoying looking at the affiliate world from both sides and this forum is definately the place to be

Alan