By Trisha Lyn Fawver
I
Affiliate Manager
The foundation of any good relationship is communication, enforcing the need to be available across multiple channels for your affiliates to get in touch with you.
Strategies
t’s been said over and over that the key to success as an affiliate manager is maintaining good relationships with your affiliates.
Making yourself available for your affiliates will increase your effectiveness as an affiliate manager, assist you in preventing fraud, and help to create a lasting bond with your affiliates. People are all different, and so are their preferences in communications. Broad availability is your best bet. Make yourself available across more than one medium. In your communications to your affiliates, make sure they have multiple ways to contact you at their fingertips. Your e-mail address, phone number, and physical address should append all messages and correspondence you send to the affiliate so they know immediately how to reach you. When calling and leaving a message, remember to always leave your phone number - never assume they already have it. If affiliates know how to contact you easily, they will be more likely to get a hold of you before making any wrong moves. This will help you to keep your affiliates on the straight and narrow with immediate feedback on their promotions ideas. Communication is dynamic, and in this day and age the number of communication venues is increasing exponentially. Try to stay on that trendy wave and add new ways for affiliates to connect with you as the tide changes.
12 • www.feedfront.com • August 2008
Communication Create accounts across the popular Instant Messenger channels (AIM, Yahoo, MSN) and across the various microblogging ventures like Twitter, Plurk, and Pownce. This quick way to get someone’s attention is incredibly easy to monitor with the right desktop applications, and provides affiliates with a way to instantly ping you if they need help. That kind of instant access to you will win over their business. Social Networks are also a great way to connect with people and interact on a level that’s more human than corporate. Networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn allow you to connect with your affiliates and share your interests and other ideas. A secure personal relationship with your affiliates will benefit both parties.
As the affiliate manager, your insight into the affiliates’ hobbies will help you to understand how they run their business, and might just give you some unique ideas that you can pass on to them to help you both grow their promotions of your program. Their insight into your interests will also allow them to make a personal connection and extend some trust to you when you do make those hair-brained suggestions after learning they collect 1970’s McDonalds Happy Meal toys. Keeping channels open for your myriad of affiliates to contact you will make you an affiliate manager to be trusted, and reckoned with! Trisha Lyn Fawver is the Marketing Manager for PsPrint.com.q