Don’t want to outsource your affiliate program to a CPA network? Want to market it yourself online? Here are some tips to get the word out and recruit affiliates:

1) Affiliate Publications
Advertise your affiliate program where the affiliates flock for industry information. You should advertise in magazines and blogs that affiliates read. FeedFront and Revenue magazines are two great resources, as well as many affiliate marketing blogs.

2) Industry Friends
Whether you’re involved in search marketing, SEO, social media, etc, you must know someone in the affiliate marketing space. Let them know about your affiliate program and give them an incentive to give it a shot. Affiliate marketers always seem to focus on what is already working for them so you have to pitch them with someone very interesting for them to pay attention to you.

3) Find Quality Affiliates
As you’ll find, it’s not the amount of affiliates you need to focus on, it’s the quality of affiliates. If you are having a hard time, do your research and find people in the industry by reading blogs, articles and more. Hit them up by email or find them in a social network and tell them you’re interested in forming a relationship with them.

4) Referrals
Make sure your affiliate platform is capable of paying out referral fees for current affiliates who refer other affiliates. Who wouldn’t want to make an extra 2-5% for referring another affiliate? Let other affiliates do the recruiting for you.

5) Related Websites & Blogs
Find related websites and blogs in your niche and contact them to promote your program. Most content sites are created to be monetized. Let them know you have banners and text links for them to make money related to their content.

6) Network. Network. Network.
This ties in all the steps. Marketing your own affiliate program is all about networking and reaching out to the right crowd and the “related” crowd. Go to conferences, join forums in the industry and let people know about your program!

Pablo Palatnik is Managing Partner of eTrend Media Group and Author of PalatnikFactor.com.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 3 here – http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue3.pdf
FeedFront issue 3 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/category/issue-3/

One of the major problems in affiliate program management is that many affiliate managers think of themselves as being merely that – affiliate managers.

Management, by definition, entails organizing a structure to accomplish the plan. Affiliate managers’ classic roles are those of recruiting, planning, optimizing, organizing, directing and controlling.

Affiliate managers, either outsourced or in-house, are perceived by merchants/advertisers as “thinkers”, whereas affiliates/publishers are viewed as “doers”.

The problem is that it often stops at that; the impersonal, efficiency-oriented, hardcore management. Such an approach and style works in classic teams, but affiliates are as far from being a traditional workforce as any group could be.

Very few merchants can afford to practice a rational management approach and still run successful affiliate marketing campaigns. Affiliates are generally not tied by contracts, but rather they are the born-to-be-free types, and do not tolerate directing, controlling, top-down management.

I believe many affiliate programs can be greatly improved if their affiliate managers understand the difference between rational management and leadership, and develop the skills and qualities of good leaders.

Richard Daft, author of “The Leadership Experience,” speaks of leadership as an approach concerned with “communicating the vision and developing a shared culture and set of core values that can lead to the desired future state.”

There is involvement of others as thinkers, doers, and leaders. Unlike management, “leadership occurs among people” and is “not something done to people”. 

Some of the best OPMs (outsourced program managers) and affiliate managers I have known are true leaders. Knowing that every soldier is important, they develop unique individualized relationships with nearly every affiliate.

They are not afraid of making emotional connections. They are inspiring and motivating. Their focus on people – as opposed to the concentration on the affiliate program’s ROI and growth only – is one of the prime characteristics of affiliate leaders.

Most of us have heard affiliate marketing is a highly relationship-centered industry, so we should foster relationships with affiliates. Most super affiliates I know won’t start promoting your program unless they have shaken your hand, or known you as a genuine and trustworthy affiliate manager.

What are the important personal qualities for an affiliate manager to develop to compliment his/her approach by good leadership?  

In “Force For Change: How Leadership Differs from Management,” author John Kotter  recommended addressing it on five levels: (a) heart, (b) mindfulness, (c) communication, (d) courage and (e) character.

It is no wonder why affiliate managers who constantly work on their leadership qualities attract more affiliates, have a more loyal affiliate following, and develop stronger affiliate programs.

Geno Prussakov is Founder of outsourced program management company, AM Navigator, and author of “A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing” and “Online Shopping Through Consumers’ Eyes”.

Download issue 2 of FeedFront at http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue2.pdf.
Articles from issue 2 of FeedFront will also be posted at http://feedfront.com/archives/category/issue-2/.