Ten Keys To An Affiliate Program

Affiliate Programs: Targeting a customer base and the web sites they most frequently visit, a business sets up an Internet sales system that moves the consumer from visiting another site to a point of sale at their Web site. Sometimes called an affiliate or associate program, resellers, revenue sharing programs, per inquiry/per click-through sales, or per sales commissions, the online affiliate programs simply make it easy for your customer to find you through high traffic, niche sites on the Internet. In exchange for forwarding you customers, the Web site owner/affiliate is rewarded each time one of their consumers makes a purchase at your site. Amazon.com is the most famous example with its Associate Program.

Discover how to target your customer base and affiliates to generate leads, along with innovative means to convert those leads into sales. Most businesses think it is just about generating traffic, but your conversion and follow up process are crucial.The following is an excerpt from my book. Order your personal copy at and start building those additional channels.

1. Target Your Customer Base and Niche Web sites Where They Are Meeting: Qualify your Affiliates and Build Your Network
Right now your target prospects are out there looking on the Internet. There are over a million commercial sites to choose from, so its not easy. To develop your business and traffic, you have to do what few others are doing: clearly and quickly defining your value to these target prospects through the Web sites that they are already meeting at.

Go out on the Internet and act like your customer; what key words do they use to find your product or service? What are related hobbies, discussion groups, or subjects you find? What are the key frustrations your customer runs into? More importantly, what are the sites that solve these problems?

2. Focus on your "SellThrough" Measurement by Tracking Your Affiliates Traffic and Counting the Percentage of Sales to that Traffic
Customers are very simple; they will not work hard to work with you. Your ratio of sales to traffic is a critical count to measure; it is the most accurate way to gauge your success. Why focus on click through ratios when you can focus on the sell through:

SellThrough: The conversion rate of visitors to buyers from a specific affiliate Web site. Create a general measure of your sell through ratio from targeted sites, and rank your top affiliate sites in terms of the sell through ratio.

3. Give Your Affiliates the Marketing Tools to Succeed
Now that you have targeted your market and determined your sales goals in terms of the SellThrough, it is time to create the best means to drive people from other Web sites to yours quickly. The Internet is a direct response medium - people literally have to take an action by clicking their mouse to make anything happen. For your affiliate program to succeed, you need to invent the best lead generating items like:


Banner Ads

A Personal Endorsement from an Affiliate is the Most Powerful Tool of All

Give them Pictures of your Product and Service, and Encourage a Text Link

Create and Distribute Free Reports to Post At Your Affiliates Sites

4. First Contact Sales Strategy: Give Them a Specific Offer On Their Visit
Perhaps the most common, online marketing mistake is sending someone to a home page from an affiliates link. Home Pages are often filled with so many choices, so many products, so much noise that your prospective customer cant process it all. Focus them on one product, one choice, when you market.
Your target customers do not care about you or your product; they only care about themselves. If you start by focusing on the benefits, the reason your product or service is important to your customer, and position yourself from your competition with a clear, direct message, you will increase your Sell Through.

5. Develop your Lead Product, Back End Product, and Other Related Products and Services
Think through your affiliate program and forge your long term relationship with your customer by building a sales process that takes them from first contact to close, then follow up with more products and services - more reasons to visit your Web site and buy. It all begins with considering your product line, and the first product you introduce them to when visiting from your affiliates sites.

6. Convert them Quickly at your Web site and build in follow up mechanisms via email: The Power of Loyalty Programs
Loyalty Programs are the best way to follow up; give your long term customers status (special pricing, rebates based on buying volume, and added bonuses are good programs) as a benefit for giving you permission to contact them after they have visited. If you do not give them a reason, they will not understand the next time you contact them. Follow up via email is a critical part of your success.

7. Create an Exit Strategy
Have you noticed that most Web sites focus all their energy on the entry point, either through a home page or a specific product/service entry page, but pay little or not attention to how that customer leaves?

This key is quite simple; your customer will leave your site. No one can keep them entertained forever. Once again you can build your affiliate program through the idea of an Exit strategy: Since your customers will leave, identify those pages that the will likely leave from and point them to related sites, even other affiliate programs. Many visitors will leave via a links page; turn your links into commission sales links by joining up with other affiliate programs.

8. How to Reward your Affiliates, and Reward Your Best Affiliates Even More
An affiliate who generates you many sales should be rewarded for performance. Many affiliate programs set the same fees for every affiliate; the person who sells one of your products makes the same as one who sells 100 of your products.

Create an affiliate program that follows the 80/20 rule; 20 percent of your affiliates will generate 80 percent of your business. Treat those top 20 percent differently by rewarding them with improved profit margins as they sell more; the best sales force is given reason to increase sales.

9. Testing and Sales Tracking your Process: The Importance of Repeat Business
Your ratio of repeat visitors is an essential part of your tracking. As Internet traffic grows, consumers will swamp all sorts of Web sites looking for what they want. Those who only sell them once, and leave it up to the customer to remember the Web site and to return, will likely lose their market share in the long haul. To build your market share, you must test your approach, and track the results.

10. Get them to Remember You...Your Brand
The final key is to develop your businesss reputation in the minds of both your affiliates and your target customer base. Be sure to:

A. Include your company logo or symbol in your advertising; it will develop a visual symbol that people can remember. From banner ads to a simple link with the company logo next to it, this means of "branding" simply puts your companys image in their mind. Without it, you only have text or a simple banner ad, which could apply to any company.

B. Spread the word about your program and get your company logo in important sections of other Web sites. When you go to a search engine and see Amazon.coms symbol, it reminds you that the company is seemingly everywhere. As people visit other, affiliate sites, it builds up the consumers retention of your business simply through good repetition.

About the Author

:To contact see details below.


dunn@activemarketplace.com
http://www.activemarketplace.com