Affiliate Blueprint Part two

[deano6410]

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Last week I published part one of the affiliate success blueprint, it had mixed success, so I hope that this part is more useful for everyone. This blueprint is aimed at merchants to help them get an understanding of what affiliate marketing is and what it can do for their business. It is NOT aimed directly at affiliates.

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing

Affiliates add value to consumers that you as a merchant can not. This means casting your net wider and making more sales.

Affiliates provide value through:


- Product Information & Reviews
- Merchant Information & Reviews
- Price Comparison
- Consumer Rewards
- Targeted Content
- Community Membership

Before starting an Affiliate Program

If you have an existing affiliate program or are looking at implementing one it is imperative that you analyse your business and website critically. No website is ever “done”, and to ensure you get the best site conversions for you and your affiliates ensure you are continually testing all aspects of your site.

A poor performing site, will in turn affect the performance of your affiliate program and have a negative impact on your brand. Affiliates will discontinue supporting your business, if when they send traffic through to your site, it does not convert to sales.

The following makes up a list that needs to be reviewed before starting an affiliate program, or immediately addressed if you are currently running an affiliate program.

7 Critical Review Points to ensure your Affiliate Program will be successful

Well Performing Website

Your website should be producing adequate sales to ensure that your affiliate program is also successful. All ordering bugs must be worked out if you are selling products, and a good lead generation system in place if you are a service provider.

Amateur or outdated sites affect customer trust, and simple tactics of using stamps of approval (BBB Online, Verisign) can ease concerns.

Sound Business and Revenue Model

Affiliates will only join programs for businesses they believe are going to remain solvent. Ensure you have strong and large margins, enough capital to experiment with Marketing, and not a confused mix of revenue ideas.

Variety of Products and Services

The quality of your products and services effects your business just As it does your affiliate program. Prices can’t be too low (below $15) or there is little incentive for affiliates. New product and services being introduced regularly will ensure that you are
recognised as an innovator, and also provide more lucrative opportunities for affiliates. Finally products need to be up to date, and not past their prime.

Adequate Management

You must allocate sufficient resources, and have sufficient capital to Ensure your have the personnel to drive the affiliate channel. Affiliates and Strategic Partners need constant attention, and Communication, and recruiting new affiliates takes time and effort.
No network can do this for you. You must develop ongoing promotions, incentives, and innovations so that your Affiliate program stands out, and your affiliates remain loyal.

Technical Resources

Using a non-professional webdesigner is not acceptable, as increasing conversion and streamlining navigation requires constant attention, testing, and tweaking. Site design is never done, and fresh content is essential to ensure that your site Ranks well within the Search Engines.

Quality Products/Services & Ethics

Providing good products that people love is an ingredient for business success. Exceed your customers expectations with great customer service, Firm no-spamming policies, clear cut return and payment policies, and strong business ethics.

Have realistic expectations

Affiliate Marketing is not a fast sales channel, but is a long term investment in growth through partnerships. For new programs wait 4 – 6 months to see growth, and a year until your program makes up a significant portion of online sales.


From my blog

[pricethat]

Do you know, on the whole i thought that was a good read without frightening a merchant off, it did not try to sell the idea to them that they can freeload, it did not create impressions it was free traffic/branding like so many networks i know use to get the contract, what it did do was show that it needed a commitment but at the same time didn't go so far into it that it would frighten someone off. I liked it, but i think you need to reword these little bits:

Affiliates add value to consumers that you as a merchant can not. This means casting your net wider and making more sales.

Affiliates provide value through:


- Product Information & Reviews
- Merchant Information & Reviews
- Price Comparison
- Consumer Rewards
- Targeted Content
- Community Membership

I am sorry, what value is this? I would of thought the primary reason merchants are reading your document is for sales. Affiliates provide sales or leads directly to you for a percentage or fixed rate fee, we are not here to provide merchants value, if they want value then they can go to tescos or something.

Your website should be producing adequate sales to ensure that your affiliate program is also successful. All ordering bugs must be worked out if you are selling products, and a good lead generation system in place if you are a service provider.

You mentioned the same further up the document, personally i do not think the above really offers much to the merchant, all merchants think their sites are great. Personally i think it should be reworded to say "your website must have a strong visitor to conversion ratio" ideally this should already be calculated and improved upon prior to launching an affiliate scheme so you can proudly announce your conversion rates and attract affiliates onto your program".

Sound Business and Revenue Model

Affiliates will only join programs for businesses they believe are going to remain solvent. Ensure you have strong and large margins, enough capital to experiment with Marketing, and not a confused mix of revenue ideas..

I would say the above is correct, but you talk about a sound business model but you not actually cover one important issue which is pricing or competive offerings at all. Most small companies get nowhere with what they offer because their pricing is just too uncompetitive and then they turn to affiliate marketing to try and bail them out. Something like:

Affiliate marketing will not make up for a poor business model or bad pricing policy. If your prices are much higher than widely available then affiliates may choose to promote your competitor who offer their visitors a much better propositon.

Technical Resources

Using a non-professional webdesigner is not acceptable, as increasing conversion and streamlining navigation requires constant attention, testing, and tweaking. Site design is never done, and fresh content is essential to ensure that your site Ranks well within the Search Engines.

It is a good start but to be honest deano the site design is really not the be all and end all for most of us, if the site design was ok for us to start promoting them to begin with then generally it does not change so much that you need to really identify this in the document, what you did completely miss the point on is "technical resources". Affiliates need custom landing pages built sometimes with seperate tracking, localised cookie management, data feed services and variants like content units. I think you would be better off saying that the merchant should have access to a developer compitent, in every area of their website to develop custom requirements for their affiliates and their marketing agencies or networks. The word "access" doesnt frighten them into thinking they need full time developers but it does tell them that things will have to be done sometimes.

Good one that, would like to see what other peoples comments are on it, i like the way it was presented though, i am normally much more aggressive with my wording i guess.

[deano6410]

Thanks for your feedback Pricethat.

It was made to be sent to million pound companies, so the criteria is probably a bit too strict for the average webmaster.

Agree with your points though. Many thanks.