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Communicating effectively with affiliates - 5 golden rules

Over the years I’ve been contacted by literally thousands of affiliate managers, networks, agencies etc. They’ve all wanted me to either promote their affiliate program or push an existing program a little bit harder.

I’ve talked about this kind of thing before here and here but thought it would be useful to publish Kieron’s 5 Golden Rules of Effective Communication with Affiliates - (Copyright Kieron Donoghue 2007 - all rights reserved)

1. Communicate in a way that the affiliate is comfortable with: A lot of affiliates are hobbits and live a solitary life with few or little friends. They don’t handle themselves well in social situations and prefer to communicate via a PC and not in the “real world”. OK a bit of a wide generalisation and stereotyping there but also true somewhat. If you are an affiliate manager who is outgoing and likes to talk then you will probably prefer to phone up your affiliates to discuss whats going on etc. All good, but your affiliate may not respond well to this and you may wonder why you always seem to get an answering machine or no answer. Its not that the affiliate doesn’t want to work with you, its just that they don’t like to use the phone. To you or I this may seem odd but I do know a lot of affiliates just like this. So if you constantly get an answering machine message, try email or Messenger etc.

Conversely you may get affiliates who delete/ignore emails but if you pick the phone up and speak to them they will think you’re the best thing since sliced bread and will promote your program 110%.

My point is that as the “salesman” in this scenario it is your job to find out what methods of communication works best for your affiliates and tailor your dialogue to them. If you are a lazy affiliate manager and think that by sending out a blanket email once a month is enough then think again.

2. Frequency of emails: For “everyday” messages pertaining to your affiliate program then there is no doubt that an email direct to your affiliates inbox is the best way to go about it. I’m talking about things like bestseller lists, hints and tips, commission increases etc. You know, the “day to day” stuff. In my opinion I think this should be done once a week, no more or no less. Also, avoid Monday mornings and especially Friday afternoons. There are currently a couple of networks who send out every single bloody email on a Friday afternoon after 5pm. Guess what? Most don’t get read.

So maybe why not choose a regular day of the week to email your affiliates. Say every Tuesday for example. Now, importantly, make sure you do it *every* week on the same day. Why? Well this means that we will see your weekly email regularly, so at least once a week we will be thinking of you. This may lead us to promote you on our sites. Then, if we know that we can expect an email every week then we may even write fresh content on that day based on the super offers/news/advice that you offer in an email. Honestly, this is how it works.

The only exception to this is if you are launching something Super Duper Special. Say you have a hot exclusive affiliate offer which will only run for 48 hours and the business has just decided to launch it. Then by all means tell us, don’t be worried if its truly worthwhile contacting us about it then we will appreciate it.

One word of warning though, don’t send your emails *too frequently*. In the past I have promoted 3 Mobile and the in-house affiliate manager was so keen it was annoying. Typically I would receive 3 to 5 emails a day from this person. Some were just ridiculous like “we are launching an offer on the new Nokia 123 phone tomorrow at 11am” followed by an email 2 hours later saying “this promotion is now not launching until tomorrow at 5pm”. For goodness sake, just tell us when it is live! This went on an on for weeks and in the end I had to email him and ask him to remove me from the mailing list as my head was battered. Now if only he had just put it all in a weekly digest, it would have been great.

3. Personalise your emails: OK I know you can’t personalise a general email message about some new creative being uploaded for example. But, you can personalise it by using our names, “Dear Kieron” is so much nicer than “Dear Affiliate”. Also, put down your name and contact details in the email too. You will be surprised how many emails I get from “affiliate manager” or “no reply”. And don’t forget to give us an email address to reply to you too. Some networks send out emails from an address you can’t reply to, I mean whats the point? Same applies if you are representing yourself on forums etc, let us know your name! This helps us to build rapport and puts a more human face to electronic communications.

On the same subject if you are sending out say a weekly list of your Top 10 bestsellers for us to promote (and if you are not then why not) then why don’t you send us personalised deep text links to use? Affiliate Window are the only affiliate network that I am aware of who do this. For example I get an email every month (not weekly but its a start) from the affiliate manager for Vodafone which contains the bestsellers. The email contains links with my affiliate ID already embedded. Beautiful. Given that I work so hard (cough) anything that helps make my life easier is a Godsend. And which mobile phone merchant do you think I will give the most space to on my sites? The one who doesn’t speak to me or rarely does or the one who sends me personalised deep links?

Here’s a great example of a personalised email I received the other day from Graham at Buyagift. It ticks all the right boxes:

a) Its personalised and relevant
b) Its a good idea and will help me monetise my site
c) Its got my affiliate ID already embedded
d) Its got all his contact details in
e) Its direct and to the point, no filling here
f) He offers to buy me unlimited Peroni! *

* Maybe not

Hi Kieron,

I hope you’re well. Just seen your new Hamilton site and it looks great - if you’re interested we sell Karting Experiences at Buckmore Park in Kent, where Hamilton was first discovered by Ron Dennis in 96. I’ve included a link below with your affiliate ID already in - if you wanted any custom creative let me know the size and I’d be happy to put it together.

http://www.awin1.com/tclick.php?id=16083&mid=273&p=http://www.buyagift.co.uk

/Product/Id/353

See you in Bristol for a beer!

Regards

Graham Keen

Affiliate Marketing Manager

Buyagift.co.uk

020 8370 8303

4. Don’t be scared: I’ve read on forums and spoke in person to various affiliate managers face to face who tell me that they are scared to email affiliates. Why? Because in the past some affiliates have complained about receiving too many emails. Let me just say that any affiliate who doesn’t like to receive communications from merchants to HELP THEM MAKE MONEY are just stupid. Plain and simple. When there are so many merchants who don’t communicate at all with us then we need to make the most from the ones who do. If an affiliate really takes an exception to receiving emails from a particular merchant they can always either unsubscribe from the email list (all networks allow this) or - and this is a radical thought here - just delete the email and do some work instead.

If any affiliate emails you the affiliate manager and moans about your emails then just kick them off your program, I would. Provided you are following my guidelines as above then its obvious the affiliate is an idiot so just boot them off.

5. Don’t ring affiliates out of hours: Office hours are 9 to 5. OK we all work much longer hours than these but remember that a lot of affiliates work from home and have families to consider. The other week I had a phone call from a very serious lady from 888.com at 6pm on a Sunday. I mean, come on. I’ve also had a few calls on a Friday after 5pm - why are you calling me now? Shouldn’t you be in the pub? I am! Seriously, don’t expect meaningful business conversations at this sort of time.

The one exception to this rule is of course to my friends. I’ve made a lot of good relationships in this business and I know that if certain people from networks calls me on home at say 8pm then its for a good reason and I don’t mind one bit.

What I’m listening to right now: Keyshia Cole feat. Missy Elliot and Lil’ Kim - “Let It Go”

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Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.