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In your online business, you take a lot of time laying out plans for your upcoming sales or campaigns. So when you get your affiliates involved, the last thing you want is for them to be distributing off-brand or inaccurate information about your promotions.
Bad representation by your affiliates can not only hurt sales, it can also cause potential customers to lose trust in you and even damage your relationship with your affiliates.
Thankfully, we have a few tips that we're sure will help you to better prepare your affiliates for a successful marketing campaign!
Make Sure Your Affiliates Have All The Details
The first and most important thing you should do to prepare your affiliate network for a promotion is to provide them with detailed information about that campaign.
Send them information about what you're promoting, the meaning behind your campaign, how long it will last, its target audience, and so on. Your affiliates are creative and smart and have their own great ways of promoting your business, so ensuring that they have all of the information possible is one of the best things you can do to ensure success.
Further Reading: How to Create a Resource Hub for Your Affiliate Program’s Associates
Remind Affiliates of Your Brand
When you're detailing your sale or promotion, be sure to include information for your affiliates about your business’ brand and how important it is to maintain brand identity.
One major part of your affiliates’ role in your company is to promote and emphasize your brand to customers. So you want to make sure that the representation they are providing — whether it be in blog posts, social media, or on their YouTube channel — is accurate and appropriate.
Further Reading: How to Use Branding Effectively on Your Affiliate Site (5 Easy Methods)
Give Affiliates Useable Ideas
You’ve taken the time to plan out your promotion, and you know the vibe and appeal you're going for. However, your affiliates don't, and sometimes simply writing out your plans and expectations isn't enough.
Give your affiliates examples of ways they can promote your online business using images, sample blog posts, and pre-made banners to help them create a promotion that will benefit both them and you.
Further Reading: 5 Tools to Help You Create Banner Images for Your Affiliate Ads
Give Affiliates Swipe Copy
Another great way to prepare your affiliates for promotions is to offer them swipe copy they can use in their promotions. Swipe copy is content that your affiliates can copy and paste or, ideally, use and alter to implement in their affiliate promotions.
Not only does this help your affiliates save time and create content more quickly, it also helps ensure your affiliates stay on brand and hit the high points of the promotion. Swipe copy helps your affiliates succeed, and it gives you security and peace of mind in the long run.
Further Reading: How to Create an Educational Guide for Your Affiliates
Make Good Use of Time
Timing is everything when it comes to promotions and marketing. If you have a sale or special offer, or you want to inform customers of a new product or service, ensuring this information is delivered to current and potential customers at the appropriate time is critical.
Affiliates appreciate receiving notice of the promotion at least a month ahead of time so they can prepare their copy, take or source photos, and plan out their content strategies. Being wise with timing can factor hugely in the success of your affiliates and your promotion.
Further Reading: Why Affiliate Marketers Should Focus on Quality Over Quantity
Open the Lines of Communication
The last thing you want to do is give your affiliates information and then totally shut down. Doing this is not only rude, it won't benefit your campaign AT ALL.
Keep the lines of communication open between you and your affiliates. You can do this by allowing them to email you and/or your affiliate support team, offering support documents and videos, or even opening a Facebook group or affiliate message board so your business and other affiliates can all come together in one space and help each other out.
Further Reading: How to Promote a Positive Relationship With Your Affiliates
Offer Incentives
Who doesn’t love a good incentive? Your affiliates are already aware that any time their link gains a sale they'll earn a commission. But what if you added to that reward?
Affiliate programs, such as that of Swagbucks, not only offer regular commissions, they also offer extra rewards for top referrals, or turn the promotion into a game where individuals in the affiliate marketing program can team up to participate in promotions and earn bonuses.
Your affiliate program is supposed to be a way for your affiliates to earn passive income, so make sure it's worth their while and something they enjoy being a part of.
Further Reading: 3 Ways to Reward Your Affiliates
Conclusion
Marketing and promotions are critically important to your online business. And involving your affiliate program in your plans can stretch your efforts in ways you can't on your own.
Remember, affiliates help you reach audiences that your typical marketing efforts may not reach. They also offer a human touch and a relatability to your campaigns that customers will appreciate.
We hope these tips will help you to better prepare your affiliates for your promotions and build profitability for your business!
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