Keeping Your Affiliates Happy and Informed

Setting up a successful affiliate program takes a lot of research and hard work. There are a myriad of things to consider, and you can't be sloppy. You have to do things correctly from the start or people won't take you seriously.

Some of these things are obvious. You have to make sure you have a good product, something of high quality that people will want and will tell other people about. You also need to have a great sales venue, usually a professional, attractive, well written web site. And of course you need affiliates.

Without affiliates your business is nothing, so you'd think that sponsors would treat them like gold, yet I'm continually surprised at how poor affiliates are treated. Again and again people tell me they've left a program because they felt completely deserted, or even mistreated by their sponsor. Sponsors, these people are your life blood. What are you thinking?

When you're starting an affiliate program, it's easy to be swept away by the 'more is better' mentality. You're thinking, 'If I sign up x many people, I'll be rolling in dough.' Will you really, though? You rush from potential affiliate to potential affiliate, selling your great idea to as many people as will listen, but are you really paying attention to the progress of your program? Let's back it up a step.

By spending all your time enrolling, you are neglecting a serious issue with your program: The more informed and the happier your affiliates are, the more likely they are to perform for you. Maybe in your frantic energy bursts you've already signed up 75 people for your program and you're off for more. Do you think that all of these people are going to stick with it? Of course there's a drop-out rate with all business ventures, but how high is yours going to be? If you don't spend quality time with each affiliate, they won't know what they're doing, and they won't stick it out.

Take care of the people you enroll. If you don't have the time or energy to do that, then you've enrolled to many. Make sure your affiliates have all the information they need about the product and the web site. Call them every couple of days when they're getting started just to ask how things are going. Tell them you think they're doing a great job and that you're looking forward to making money with them. Most importantly, make sure you're available to answer their questions and address their concerns. They'll appreciate it and they'll be far more likely to stick with the program.

It is far better to have a few solid, well-informed affiliates working their tails off for you, than to have 100 affiliates, some of whose names you can't even remember, wondering what the heck is going on, and eventually dropping out. If you spend time paying attention to your affiliates needs, you may enroll fewer people, but in the long run you'll have a higher success rate.

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Author Notes:

Keller Flynn contributes and publishes news editorial to http://AffiliateDirector.com. Keller Flynn knows about Super Affiliates and what it takes to find or help create them. Reach him at keller@affiliatedirector.com or 801-328-9006.