Dear Associate Program

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by Eva Almeida

This is an article hypothetically giving the founder of a program tips on how to improve his program. A person who is looking for an appropriate affiliate program can use these guidelines to search for the best one suited for their needs and income expectations.

"I am writing to you today to give you a few suggestions on how you may be able to improve your associate program. This may ultimately lead you to make more sales since your affiliates may be more successful at marketing your products.

Here are my top 10 suggestions:

1. You may want to provide us with ad copy that has been successful for you as well as your top associates. This will give us more time to promote and we will be spending less time trying to write our own effective ad copy (especially for those of us who are inept at ad writing!).

2. Increasing your affiliate commission will motivate us into action! $5 commission on a $50 item seems too low, especially since you are not a two-tier program. Sometimes, I spend more money on advertising than I receive in commissions! My suggestion would be to switch to a 2-tier program and pay $20 on first level and $10 on second level (still gives you $20 for yourself and will boost your affiliate sales!). This is just an example and please feel free to use your own judgment. It may also be a good idea to pay your affiliates on a monthly basis instead of wait until we accumulate $100 in sales (that could take months for some of us).

3. Provide your affiliates with real-time statistics or email us soon after the sale has taken place. I find it difficult to know when a sale was made and have no place to view these statistics.

4. Please develop an effective tracking system. Many affiliates find it inconvenient to always tell their customers to include the sponsor number when signing up or ordering. It would be much easier if you were able to automatically track customers and their sponsors.

5. Create an email discussion list where your affiliates can discuss what ads have been successful for them, share banners, and answer questions. Other ideas for the discussion list include marketing tips such as what works and what doesn't. You could mention which is more successful - banner ads vs text links vs online store fronts. Plus, it would be useful to provide us early notification on sales, promotions, contests and new information on product(s).

I give the credit for this forum idea to John Reese and Rick Bier. Email discussion lists or online discussion boards would free up your time to develop new products instead of answering our questions all day. It would also motivate us to promote your program through sharing our successes and failures!

6. I believe it is crucial to develop a way to train your associates. A weekly newsletter outlining new strategies, places to advertise, hot marketing tips and updates is an effective method to communicate with affiliates. If not weekly, then as often as possible is recommended. I have found that the more an associate program emails me with motivational ideas, the more I promote their product compared to someone who hasn't stayed in touch for months! This also shows productive leadership, which is important. Please try not to email us and tell us how poorly our sales are. We try our best, but some of us have many programs to promote and only so many hours in the day.

7. Stress to all your affiliates the difference between sponsorship versus recruiting. A sponsor helps to train and guide their new members (in a two-tier or mlm) whereas recruiters sign-up people then just move on to the next prospect. In my opinion, recruiters are not as beneficial to a business. Which type of affiliate is your preference? I would prefer a sponsor who trains me on a personal basis to develop my marketing skills. I think this would be a Win-Win situation for all of us. Then I would duplicate this method with any affiliates that I sponsor into your new 2-tier program.

8. Develop a training site just for affiliates. List important advertising areas, display professional-looking banners, and provide free promotional software such as submitters. By writing articles on your product for us to publish in our ezines, we can effectively promote your program to a targeted audience.

9. You can also recommend your affiliates join a program that specializes in marketing training. I know of an excellent one that I am involved with and I would be happy to share the details with you. It has developed my marketing skills considerably through weekly online training by marketing experts. This training forum may free you up from personally training your affiliates that are newcomers to the Internet. It also has a newsletter that it sends to its members on a monthly basis with general marketing tips to benefit marketers from all types of programs.

10. Finally, some general suggestions to show us that you care! Try giving your top affiliates prizes for the most products sold. Hand out discount coupons to all affiliates as a gesture of your appreciation for our hard work. Send a simple thank you note when an affiliate makes a sale. Post our testimonials on your site along with the customer's comments. It makes us feel appreciated and we will be motivated to sell even more of your products. Encourage your affiliates and they will gladly help you to make your business as successful as possible!"

Sincerely yours,

Eva Almeida