Among all other methods of affiliate recruitment, e-mail is by far the most commonly used one. In A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing I wrote that affiliate program managers should strive to make their recruitment e-mails “attractive, yet not too lengthy and hard to follow” (p. 74). Today I would have expanded my recommendation for these e-mails to be:
- Personalized – Do everything possible to find out the name of the person you’re writing to, include their website url and/or company name in the text of the e-mail.
- Professional – Avoid clichés that make your text look another one of the make-a-million-in-a-month e-mails we are all so familiar with. Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Don’t make it look like one.
- Attractive – From the “Subject” line all the way down to the incentive that would make the affiliate to sign up with your program in response to your e-mail — make this piece of correspondence attractive and enticing.
- Concrete – Be specific regarding your thoughts on how the webmaster/affiliate will be able to partner with you, and where/how you think they will be able to promote your product/service.
- Concise – No more than 3 paragraphs, 1-2 brief sentences each.
To see an example of how not to do, read my today’s “Ineffective Affiliate Recruitment by E-mail” post at Econsultancy.com
Ahhhh, another gem I’ve found in the archives.
When I am recruiting, I certainly find out as much as possible about that person(s) and their business (within a reasonable amount of time) and am sure to make it apparent that I know who they are and what they do.
If it’s a designer I will take some time to look at their work or portfolio. If it’s a host, lets say, I will learn about their services. And I manually type out most of the correspondence.
Sometimes, the response will be, “Wow, you actually looked at my work! Thank you!”
-very important
There is a leadership style called transformational leadership (I will certainly write about it at some point) that among other things is based on the factor of individualized consideration. This factor is “representative of leaders who provide a supportive climate in which they listen carefully to the individual needs of the followers” (Northouse, 2007, Leadership: Theory and Practice, p. 183). In effective affiliate program management the individualized consideration and careful listening start way before the actual start of work with an affiliate. It starts on the recruitment phase when you actually do look at their work, and offer them real ways to enhance their website + monetize it through your affiliate program.
Oh, and by the way, thank you for the compliment, Ron. 🙂