What's wrong with all of you affiliate managers? True, it's essential to focus on
super affiliates, because they are drivers of most of sales, leads, and clicks in affiliate marketing. But that doesn't mean that those affiliates who have not achieved super affiliate status should be treated as pariahs.The plain fact is that very few affiliate managers are bothering with majority of their affiliates. According to findings by affiliate metrix, top reason why affiliate managers neglect their affiliates is a lack of time. Affiliate managers do not plan to fail, rather they fail to plan. A little time management can translate into a lot of longevity for an affiliate program.
Who are your affiliates? The super affiliates are a finite group. You are already communicating with them, but you've got to shift your paradigm a bit and fit in ample time for others, that critical mass of producers that will be with you from month to month. If you step one rung below super affiliates, you've got Up-and-Comers: targeted sites that do well enough with your program to generate multiple checks each year. With a little help, they could be next big thing in your program.
Also, you've got a large segment of Onesies: low traffic and low revenue sites that will earn one (maybe) check from you per year, hence their name. And lastly, you've got one's to avoid… Untouchables: banner farmers, under construction sites, no focus, no content, and no traffic sites.
Time can be on your side Sure, we all have time constraints, which results in our inevitable focus on building and maintaining relationships with our super affiliates. However, it's easy enough to create shortcuts for yourself, so that you can service all affiliates, without neglecting top affiliates.
One habit of successful affiliate managers is to compile canned answers to frequently asked questions of their affiliates. Yes, these questions should be answered in your FAQ (frequently asked questions document), but if affiliates are asking you, they obviously do not know answer.
Every time an affiliate asks a question, write out a thoughtful answer to that affiliate. But never re-write same answer twice. Instead, create a file in Notepad where you will house all of your eloquent answers. Save file to your Desktop, and next time you are asked a banal question about your program, don't hit delete button, hit your answer page, copy answer, and shoot it off to affiliate.
For starters, answer following questions on your answer page:
·How can I join your program? ·When and how do I get paid? ·How do I get your affiliate links? ·Can I link to your from more than one site? ·How do I update my contact information?
