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THE AFFILIATE MARKETING PRIMER
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7
- SETTING UP AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM (Part 2
of 3):
You did read PART ONE, I
hope?...
CUSTOMER SERVICE NEEDS:
One
thing I should mention before going on: Yes, it will likely
cost you
something to set up a program, whichever way you go about it - you knew
that. A business expense you might not be expecting is the
quantity of
email (/phone?) support you may have to deal with (perhaps
proportional to the number of affiliates you recruit).
You'll
get questions and appeals for help from some intelligent people, from
whom you can learn how to fine-tune your program, and from some people
who will perhaps make you shake your head in amazement at their
apparent lack of sense. (Or could it be that your
instructions weren't
clear, or the person fielding the query at your end didn't understand??)
The
idea is that as your revenue grows through the success of your
affiliate program, you'll be able to pay people to handle the incoming
queries, if they pile up.
If
you haven't read in the primer section "How to Get the Most Out of
Your Affiliate Programs" the paragraph
beginning with "Some affiliate companies seem to be contemplating how
to jettison 'poor producers'", I hope you will do so now.
Don't be
shocked by the influx - be prepared for it. Spend some time
thinking
like an unknowledgeable affiliate (even like a not-terribly-bright
affiliate) so that you dispose of as many points of trouble as possible
before they crop up as queries. (This is one of the best
reasons to
work on a really useful FAQ file!)
But
realize that this point of contact is also where you can get a lot of
creative ideas about improving your website or services, for
free!
Everyone who contacts you is interested, and possibly they are even
more imaginative than you are.
Please,
don't make the mistake of having a narrow-minded loyalist as your
customer service representative... Someone who defensively
turns
questions or mild suggestions for improvement into challenges to the
greatness of their company (and perhaps, when asked nicely to pass an
idea on to the website design people, instead cites the years their
team has been on the web and even trots out the "Marketing Degrees"
everyone has, to prove that the website is already perfect and the
"customer" simply too inexperienced to grasp it - I had it happen to me
while writing this!)... That's how to get behind and stay
behind (and
quite possibly lose customers and/or affiliates, of course).
Also
realize that in any situation, of the many people who have
questions, only a small portion of them ask.
You
will do yourself a favor by taking it as read that any question you get
is representative of an issue that is wrinkling the brows of a number
of people who you aren't hearing from.
You want
the most intelligent, thoughtful, (patient,) and analytical people you
can find in your customer service positions! (including if that's you).
It's
a long-proven truism in marketing that the customers who come to a
business with problems that are satisfactorily resolved by a
customer service rep become some of that business' best ambassadors. ...So
don't treat this lightly!
(Perhaps
you might even test your customer support people
periodically with "customer" messages sent by you via email addresses
unknown to them. If they know you'll be doing it, so much the
better -
they'll be on their toes all the time!)
I
think you'll enjoy this article from Ken Evoy of SiteSell, Turn Lemons into Lemonade,
Sure... - about the difference between customer satisfaction
and customer delight. (Mere customer
satisfaction
[i.e., they aren't actually complaining!] isn't enough to drive
businesses to greatness.)
And
here is a short article on "the 80/20 rule" (80% of a business' success
tends to come from 20% of its, in this case, affiliates)... And how
affiliate companies can empower all affiliates to
achieve better marketing results: "Affiliate
Empowerment".
And of
course, a facility for handling international
customers (and affiliates!) can boost your business greatly.
BEING CHOOSY ABOUT AFFILIATES:
A
more appropriate time to worry about which are the best affiliates for
you, if this seems critical to you, is before you
sign them up. (See the "Affiliate Empowerment" article linked
in the
previous paragraph for some excellent clues on what to look
for.) If a
prospective affiliate does have a website, by all means take a look at
it - if it is very amateurish or you just don't feel good about it, you
certainly have the right to turn down the application.
But
remember - it isn't only webmarketing affiliates who can make you
money.. . Do you really want to limit affiliates to only those with
websites?
Also,
I wonder about those companies that make it clear on their affiliate
information page that they'll only consider sites with a direct
connection to their field... They might be blindly ruling out
some more
creative connections that would work well.
For
instance, what if I had a site all about the Orkney Islands? - a travel
company would be a great addition, because you have to get there
somehow. Or that site about Harley motorcycles - people
travel on
them... But I've seen travel-related affiliate programs that
state that
they'll only consider "travel websites". It would seem more
prudent to
simply invite people to present their sites and/or other marketing
ideas for consideration, with the understanding that their applications
will be reviewed with the company's objectives in mind.
If
you aren't willing to accept an affiliate without a demonstration of
his or her website's drawing "X" amount of traffic, please don't turn
down the application with one of those "you may have been denied for
any one of the 8 reasons listed below; but feel free to reapply"
notices - that's simply rude. (Why would anyone want to come
back for
more of that? And wouldn't you assume that any
such treatment would apply to their being a customer? - I
would. ...Which would assure
that I didn't become an ambassador - and could even become something
opposite, in my blog or social media chatting, in my web reviews.
Especially
these days, that's really taking a chance with your business'
reputation!)
If
you require a minimum volume of hits (i.e., you are going to deny
everyone with a brand new website), let people know clearly when
to apply before they do so and are denied. There's
no sense in being
negative when you can avoid it.
(And
in case this wasn't obvious, if you're leaning toward having a lot of
control over your affiliates, you probably won't want to set up a
multi-tier program.)
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AFFILIATE PROGRAM SOFTWARE:
In
"doing it yourself", you have three options:
- Program
it
yourself
- Purchase
affiliate software to run on your own server
- Pay
a company to run their in-house software for you on their server
- Opt
for a more "generic" ClickBank-type program (entirely handled from
their servers)...
Read
through the reviews of particular options to get ideas on what to be
aware of in your own analysis of any
option.
(For
the first two types, you will have the advantage of definitively
promoting your own website via its URL being in all the affiliate links
on your affiliates' websites.)
1) Program it yourself:
If
you're a great programmer, of course, you could create your own
program! (No doubt some of the programs for sale started out
this way.) Maybe you want something quite simple, or maybe
you are up for any challenge...
So
I should point out one small thing, in case you take up the
gauntlet: As mentioned in the discussion on the previous
page, some search engines use "link popularity" as one factor in
ranking your site. What you need to be aware of is that link
codes shouldn't contain question marks, because search engines can't
"spider" (follow) through such URLs. It might not make a huge
difference, but there's no sense in penalizing yourself unnecessarily.
Other
than that, I can't give you any help!
2) Purchase affiliate program
software to run on
your own server:
Some affiliate program software sells in the range of up to $10,000
(!). A number of programs sell for under $1000, though some
of those are
very basic and/or inflexible. Particularly for those who want
total control over their own program, it's a challenge to find in-house
software that will do the job.
Pretty
inexpensive and pretty darned powerful affiliate program software
called Ultimate Affiliate is
available from Groundbreak.com. At a cost of $200, this
software ( for use on Unix-based websites) allows you to set up a one-
or multiple-level per-lead or per-sale (percentage or flat fee)
affiliate
program. (A pay-per-click program can be maintained with
software
titled "Ultimate Advertiser".) It tracks by cookies, IP
address
logging, and MySQL database (if applicable), and the administrator can
set the timeframe (up to indefinitely). It will even create
replicated websites for your affiliates, if you should choose that.
The
Ultimate Affiliate program can be integrated with any Perl-based
shopping cart (and some others). It gives you a mechanism to
email your
affiliates easily. The fee includes lifetime software
updates; but
installation, if you choose not to do it yourself (you need a decent
understanding of Perl, and HTML for forms customization), is $100
extra. There are question marks in the codes (they work with
various
shopping cart programs), but that arrangement can be changed by the
administrator. ...The site is chock-full of information! - and you can
actually access some of the modules and play around with them.
Definitely a bargain!
Really, about the only downside I note is that there's no
automated mechanism for paying
affiliates (e.g., linking up with a PayPal account) - you're on your
own with that.
On
the other hand, here's on-site software that has its own
(real-time credit card processing service-integrated) shopping cart - and
is designed with downloadable products in mind... Synergyx, by Paul
Galloway. (You might say that it's comparable to ClickBank's
own system, if you're familiar with that - more on that in the next
section - but you don't have to have [only] intangible
products.) Single- or two-tier, and the commission structure
can be very flexible. You don't have to use the
shopping cart (now - room to grow?).
Synergyx
may be getting into the pricey range, but it includes
installation, integration with 5 different payment services, and phone-based
live training and customer support. Paul is utterly
devoted to customer service (and many very successful webmarketers
stand by his software products.) ...And wow, does this program
have features! - I think you'll be very impressed (and the site offers
a great demo).
Then
we have iDevAffiliate,
quite
sophisticated on-your-server software at only $99. Many
testimonials laud the super-easy setup and range of features.
Good info/demo on the site. This choice might be
especially
good for merchants in three
categories.
- For those wishing to use
PayPal, this interfaces
with other shopping carts, but it's easy to integrate the PayPal mass
payments option.
- For those focusing on speakers
of Spanish,
German, French, Italian, Dutch, or Portuguese, the control panel
for both affiliates and merchants can be set to any of these languages
(or English). Plus one can calculate payments in any of 52
currencies.
- And for programs which
especially lend themselves
to offline marketing, there is an option for
creating a special page on your site for customers to type in the
affiliate's ID (which could be called a "promotional code" or some such
thing). The company also offers a monthly-fee,
on-their-server option (which, coupled with the "promo code" page,
would be a way for a merchant who works largely
offline to run an affiliate program nevertheless).
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| 3) Pay a company to run their software for you on
their server:
Truly
excellent company-hosted affiliate program
software is offered by Inuvo - it's called MyAP
(formerly MyAffiliateProgram).
I think of this as the Cadillac of the genre... Yes, it costs
to
get going with it; but it has an
abundance of truly useful and elegant features. The site is a
well-honed information-giver, and their merchant services are superb,
with different levels of
service to choose from. You might want to check out
their site, no matter what route you're thinking of going.
One
of the main virtues of this type of program, aside from server
cost/space saving, is that it allows for easy portability in case you
change servers or ordering systems.
A
very good alternative is AffiliateShop, by
Pendulab. For a good-value monthly plus small setup fee, you
can
have access to the means for click, lead, or sales-based affiliate
tracking. (No residual - but you can pay different amounts,
either by percentage or flat fee, to different affiliates.)
You can also pay extra to have the company pay
your affiliates each month. Single- or multi-tier program
options, ad tracking, even an optional live chat feature for
your
site - and good access to support. Your domain in the
tracking
code. The software tracks by both cookies and "session
variables", for a period of 30 days. You can also be included
in
a directory of merchants who use the AffiliateShop service.
4) Opt for a more "generic"
ClickBank-type program (entirely handled from their servers):
For those wishing to base an affiliate program
around services or ditigal products (i.e., not tangible
products), ClickBank is very popular (and
easy/quick/cheap to get going
with). It provides an internationally accessible
infrastructure that both takes care of all the order processing (via
credit/debit card - so that you don't need an expensive merchant
services account) and a single-tier affiliate
program. The affiliate program is fairly basic - but for what
it is, it's an effective solution for many
businesses.
ClickBank
represents, to me, the "lazy merchant's answer to affiliate
programming" - minimally, all you have to do is set it up and let it
go. (Let me clarify that I don't mean to put down anyone who
chooses the easy way! - I so chose myself. I feel that it's
very important to limit your responsibilities to what you really want
to be doing - otherwise burnout is likely to ensue.) While
you can develop your own relationship with those
acting as your affiliates (which is likely to add to your overall
success as you work to add to your affiliates'
success), you don't have to when you use
ClickBank. You also don't have to pay the
affiliates yourself (which is true for most of the affiliate program
clearinghouses).
If
you like the ClickBank model overall but are a little frustrated at
some of its restrictions (intangible products only, no monthly billing,
cap on the amount you can charge customers and pay affiliates, no
payment differential possible for JV partners) - and are willing to at
least commit yourself to a single session of affiliate-paying (through
their easy-to-use mechanism) each month - I suggest taking a look at
two other options...
www.Click2Sell.eu
is pretty comparable to ClickBank - but as the late-comer, it offers
some further advantages: It handles tangible and intangible
products, including subscription sales - and it's truly geared toward
international programs. Also, it's totally free
to set up an account, for any number of products; and the transaction
fees are minimal (especially for pricey products). And you
can
receive payments instantly
instead of waiting for a monthly (or less often) check.
PayDotCom
is another totally cheap way to go if you
have only one product, which is totally free - and their
activation fee (pay once for all the other products you ever want to
add) is still cheaper than ClickBank's fee (for 50 products).
A major benefit of using PayDotCom is that purchasers can use their
PayPal or StormPay electronic funds as well as
credit cards and online checks to buy your products. (Also,
your payments are instant
instead of a) monthly b)
and only if over a certain amount c) and minus a check charge - they go
into your PayPal or StormPay account. No money held in
reserve, either.) Take a look... there are a number of other
feature differences that might make a big difference to you (notably
the ability to track, communicate with, and provide tools for your own
affiliates). Still single-tier, though.
And it has one
disadvantage you'll need to carefully consider: they charge affiliates a small
fee for each sale they make for you (which might make some affiliates
reluctant to work on your behalf).
And
for another option entirely, there's the 2-tier affiliate program
option for those who wish to simply add an affiliate program "on top
of" their webhosting, via WebsiteWizard - an excellent webhosting
service with 3 levels of service (and this feature is part of
#3). Even the least expensive version of WebsiteWizard (quite
cheap) let's you add a PayPal-linked shopping cart to your site; #3
also enables you to take credit cards without PayPal (and has some
other nifty features, naturally).
There
are many ways to go! - it just depends on your desires and your budget.
The
issue of how and how long links are tracked for your program could be
of great concern...
Savvy
affiliates are looking for the most complete link tracking possible,
for as long as possible. If you're seeking quality affiliates
who will feel loyalty towards your company, this factor might help you
in deciding which affiliate program management software option to go
with. Here is an informative article called "How
Does Affiliate Tracking Work: A 'Not-too-technical' Overview!",
by Todd Farmer and Jeff Doak of Kowabunga! Technologies.
While
we're on the subject of affiliate program software, there are some
adjuncts I should mention...
HANDLING ALL THOSE SMALL
PAYOUTS EFFECTIVELY:
If
you're going to be handling the payments yourself, a complementary
service that a great many merchants are finding valuable is PayPal. Their
Partner
Program gives businesses all over the world a cost-effective means of
handling the many smaller payments that tend to go along with affiliate
reimbursement, via electronic transfer.
You
would submit to PayPal a list of email addresses and payment amounts;
they will then automate a batch payment to all of your
affiliates.
Money is transmitted securely from your credit card or bank account to
each affiliate's "holding tank" - the recipient can then retrieve it by
direct deposit or ask for a check to be mailed to him/her.
You can
still set a minimum amount to prompt a payment - but now you don't have
the expense of cutting checks, stuffing envelopes, and paying
postage... And the service, incredibly, is free to both
sender and
receiver.
Some
international affiliate programs avoid the big expense of cutting
checks in foreign currency this way... They might send checks
in their
own currency or distribute payments via
PayPal. However, recipients in only some countries
are
able to take money out of their accounts (by
transferring to their bank accounts) - which limits them to utilizing
their affiliate income in purchases from vendors who accept PayPal
payments.
(Anyone
can use this service, by the way, not just affiliate
programs.
Individuals use it like a debit card. It's popularly used on
auction
sites. And it can be used to especial advantage by any other
type of
business that makes many small payments regularly, such as
rebates.
Money can even be transferred from one PayPal account to others via
email as well.)
Another
such growing service, also free to join, is
MoneyBookers, which
is rather more popular than PayPal in many countries outside the U.S.
The website is in your choice of a dozen languages, and it
supports payments between people (and/or businesses) in 40+ countries.
There's
one more section to go - See PART THREE of 7 - SETTING UP AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM...
Wondering
what to try next in your marketing arsenal?... ThinkJointVenture.com
Keyword
Brainstorming (...Then choose it and use it)
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