Affiliate Magazine » Sunshine Rewards

Five Ways to Get an Affiliate’s Attention – By Tricia Meyer

Colleen — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 14:00:35 +0000

With tens of thousands of merchants across a number of different networks, affiliates are always being approached to promote new affiliate programs.

How can affiliate managers and merchants get the attention of the affiliates and ensure that their programs get consideration?

Here are five quick tips.

1) Look at the affiliate’s site and tell him exactly how he can promote you. Don’t just say “I think we would be a good fit.” Everyone says that when they haven’t actually looked at the site. Tell the affiliate what specific products you have that fit his niche, where your banners might work, and what kind of copy you can offer. Don’t be pushy but give suggestions that show that you are not just mass mailing affiliates; you actually researched their sites.

2) Give the affiliate all of your contact information up front. Do not sign the recruitment email “The X merchant affiliate team.” The affiliate wants to know that you are going to be easy to contact, and the affiliate may even have specific questions before applying to your program. If she cannot quickly get in touch with you, she may just pass over the email.

3) Provide the affiliate with a sample of your product at a conference or by mail. Swag is fun but an actual sample of your product that the affiliate can try out is more likely to compel him to want to promote you.

4) Tell the affiliate why your program is unique. This is more than just a description of the merchant. Give the affiliate such a compelling reason to join that she won’t be able to ignore the email. Do you offer higher commissions than other merchants in the same space? Do you allow unlimited keyword bidding? Are you the number one retailer for a specific type of product?

5) Lastly, and this one is the most important one, build a relationship with the affiliate. Affiliates can get thousands of emails a day and often ignore most of them. The only way that you guarantee to get the attention of an affiliate is to build a relationship before pushing your program. This might include hanging out together at conferences, engaging them on Twitter, or participating in forums that they frequent. The more that the affiliate likes you as a person, the more likely he or she is to promote your merchant.

Tricia Meyer is the owner of Sunshine Rewards, Helping Moms Connect, and other niche sites.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 13 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/45332687/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-13
FeedFront issue 13 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2010/12a>

Pop Culture Sites: Quick Pros and Cons – By Tricia Meyer

Colleen — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:00:56 +0000

Every time I hear about a popular, new book series, my mind immediately goes to whether or not it would make a good niche website.

I start searching the web frantically for everything I can find about the book, including how deep the series will be, whether there is talk of movies, and the amount of merchandising being done.

Sometimes I sit on the idea for weeks and other times I register a domain name immediately.

The one thing I always do when I launch a new site is work through the pros and cons of starting a site for that niche. Here are my top three suggestions for each if you are considering starting any type of pop culture niche website.

Cons:

• If you are trying to launch a site about a new topic before anyone else, you are taking a gamble whether that particular topic is going to become hot. The chances are good that you will have to launch a number of sites like this before you end up with some that really explode.

• Even if the niche becomes a hot one, it may be hard to monetize beyond Google AdSense and products targeting the demographic interested in the given topic. Even if products exist, they may not be available through affiliate programs or may only be in affiliate programs with which you do not want to work.

• Pop culture sites do not usually have much of a shelf life. People move on to the next popular artist, television show, and even book series in a short time. By the time you build up your traffic, no one may be interested in it anymore.

Pros:

• Sites are easy to launch and generally do not initially cost you more than a domain name and your time. Using WordPress and a free or cheap theme, you can have a site up and running in an evening.

• When you are interested in the topic, it can be fun to research it, write about it, and look for complementary merchandising opportunities. If you are going to be reading about it and talking about it with your friends anyway, why not make some money off of your knowledge?

• Google Alerts are a pop culture webmaster’s best friend. By setting up alerts for your topic, you can be notified within an hour of any news about the topic, including product releases, book pre-orders, movie debuts, and concert ticket sales.

When launching a pop culture niche site, sometimes you get really lucky (hello, Twilight!). Other times you don’t get much of a return on your investment (Percy Jackson who?).

As long as you weigh the pros and cons of your decision, you won’t regret that you took the chance.

Tricia Meyer is the owner of Sunshine Rewards and runs a number of niche sites.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 11 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/29057000/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-11
FeedFront issue 11 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2010/07

Merchants, Bring On the Videos – By Tricia Meyer

FeedFront Staff — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:16:31 +0000

Psstt…hey, merchant! Yes, you. The one with the great products and good conversion rates but no videos, yet.

I’m talking to you. And I am quite certain that I am not the only one trying to get your attention.

Although I actively post my own how-to and product demonstration videos on my site, it is always good when I can give my visitors a variety of videos. This includes videos made directly by the merchants.

The merchants are the ones with all of the products on hand and the knowledge about how to use them.

The number of merchants with videos available for affiliates right now is incredibly small, compared to the number of overall merchants. Less than 1% of the merchants I’m currently promoting offer video to use in my marketing efforts.

The format of the video is not all that important. Affiliates will find ways to work with YouTube, Qoof, or whatever you give us. If we can embed the video with our affiliate links it is all the better, but it is not necessary.

Some of the merchants who are ahead of the curve are giving us a variety of options. For my visitors who like instructional videos, I love the Sephora how-to videos on YouTube that show everything from how to get the “cat eye” look to which waterproof makeup works.

For general sales, products like the Little Giant Ladder come across much better in their Avantlink videos than in any banner or text links I could put up.

What doesn’t help me is a link from my site to your site where you show the video yourself. That has been done for years. I want your video to put on my own site where I know that my visitors will watch it and want to click the affiliate links.

If the video is available on your site, give me a way to embed it on my site.

Merchants, if you share our vision for the use of video in affiliate marketing and choose to make videos for affiliates; we will find ways to use them. Well-placed merchant videos can be the key to success for all of us in the upcoming holiday shopping season.

Tricia Meyer is the owner of loyalty site Sunshine Rewards. See her mix of videos at http://www.SunshineRewards.com/videoblog.

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/