Tourism Internet Marketing U

Leverage the Power of your Affiliate Program

First of all quantity does not equal quality. Go for a few affiliates that are really good at selling your products and/or services. Then supply them with the tools they need to do the best job they can do.

 Here are a few examples of how to go above and beyond for your affiliates:

• Conduct weekly online affiliate meetings to provide affiliates with new materials on a regular basis.
• Go out of your way to help make the links stand out on yuor affiliates’ sites.
• Provide different sized icons that grab visitors’ attention and are designed with  the target market in mind. Prepare the proper HTML coding and tag line.
• Inspect your affiliates’ web sites regularly to determine whether there is anything you can do to help them add value to the links on their pages. Remember though, you dont run their web sites so be diplomatic.
• Offer more advanced tools such as a generic e-mail newsletter that they can easily download, personalize and send out to their mailing list. Remember that this newsletter should be to entice teh affiliates mail list subscribers to visit the affiliate web site and click on the affiliates program link.
• Provide a weekly e-mail to your affiliates with new material, icons, articles, banners, etc., as well as recommended actions to be taken by the affiliates for the coming week.

Of course it is up to you to decide which, if any, of these strategies works best for you and your affiliates. Remember, the goal is to provide your affiliates with the value-added services that will not only strengthen the power of your affiliate program, but also show your affiliates your commitment to seeing them succeed.

Still hungry for more information? Check out my book, 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site, there is a whole chapter on affiliate marketing.

- written by Susan Sweeney, CA, CSP, HoF
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