Is your affiliate program turning away clients and affiliates?

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Affiliate programs are meant to be a win for everyone involved:

• a win for the client who is given exposure to something she may not have known about otherwise
• a win for the affiliate who gets to share a great product or program with her readers and possibly earn a commission for doing so
• and, of course, a win for the product or program creator as they get more exposure, and potentially make more sales in both the long, and short, term.

So with so many “wins”, why are affiliate programs ticking people off and costing you both money AND your reputation?

1. Most affiliate programs require the affiliates to do way too much work by:

• requiring they set up special pages on their sites,
• requiring they send out emails on certain days and tweets on others – usually when many other people are sending out the same email or tweet,
• requiring affiliates to do promotional calls – so several people are doing the same calls, and
• as a result of the above, actually cost the affiliate money to have all of the above done by their team.

2. Most affiliate programs don’t consider how they appear from “the outside”:

• how it looks to your readers when they receive the same exact email, verbatim, from multiple people telling them “they’re special and only a few people are getting this incredible deal”,
• how it appears and feels to your affiliates when they’re emailed again and again to send something out, often with it interfering with their own marketing efforts (it can actually feel harassing), and
• as a result of everything above, how it feels to the affiliate who’s put so much into the program to not be paid for 60 or more days as is often the case.

Okay then, now that we’ve covered all the negative things about many of the affiliate programs out there today, let’s come back to how today’s article started. . .with the reason why you DO want to have a program:

When done right, an affiliate program is a win for EVERYONE involved!

Make It Real – My Request to You

First off, grab a sheet of paper and make 3 columns: Love, Like, Never Again.

Now think of all the affiliate/joint venture partnerships you’ve been a part of (whether as the affiliate, the person being promoted to, or the affiliate program host) and what you loved, liked and disliked about each.

Jot everything down in the appropriate column.

Now take everything you wrote in the “Love” and “Like” column and build your own affiliate program.

Use the best of what the shopping cart has to offer and then use your Team and your website pages to fill in the missing pieces.

Not sure what to do and want some help with it all? Sign up for “A Shot of Sandy” today and I’ll share the backend of my affiliate program management with you.

Sandra Martini is a long-time marketing and productivity consultant who helps entrepreneurs create and implement the systems to achieve their visions, with services such as coaching, client systems development, consulting and Team Sandy Done 4 You Online Business Marketing & Management as well as a variety of informational products.

For more business building strategies and to get your free audio series “5 Simple & Easy Ways to Put Your Marketing on Autopilot”, visit Sandy’s site at http://www.SandraMartini.com today.

© 2002-2010 Sandra P. Martini. All Rights Reserved

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