If you’ve already got your own affiliate program, are you sending out a regular newsletter to your affiliates? If not, you are missing a truly golden opportunity to increase your sales.
Here are the reasons why you do want to send your affiliates a newsletter on a regular basis:
– You can address any questions that seem to come up regularly.
– You can update affiliates on any new policy changes, new tools they can use, etc.
– You can update affiliates on new product offerings, new contests, etc.
– By staying in touch, you maintain a presence in their minds, thereby reminding them to promote your products.
Here Are Some Tips To Help You Write Great Affiliate Newsletters:
– Use subject lines that include keywords to get your emails opened, not just “Monthly Newsletter.” Your subject line should make it clear your newsletter is for affiliates (not consumers) and there is useful content inside.
TIP: Beginning your newsletter with the highest commission paid for the previous week seems to generally work well at both getting the email opened and inspiring affiliates. Another good opener is, “Hello John, we’re grateful you promote our products at website.com.” This reminds them of who you are and their connection to you. By the same token, using a salutation such as, “Hi Affiliate Team” provides the same benefit.
– List your main topics at the beginning of the newsletter so they know what’s inside. If you hide some of your topics down below, they won’t be viewed by as many affiliates. But if you provide a bullet list and perhaps even hyperlink them to the appropriate areas of the newsletter, affiliates are more likely to find the information they want.
– Give your affiliates plenty of advance notice of sales, coupons, codes, discounts they can offer, contests, discontinuations, etc.
– Prior to a new product launch, give affiliates your latest product for free so they can tell their contacts about it with authority.
– Send your affiliate newsletter weekly, not monthly. Yes, affiliates do prefer to hear from you every week as long as you have relevant information to share with them.
– Unless you’re in a high-tech industry, consider using plain old text for your emails. It loads faster on phones, it’s less likely to get flagged as spam, and it’s actually slightly more likely to get read by the recipient. On the other hand, if you’re in an industry that expects lots of flash such as high-tech, then do use HTML. Also, if you want to display your product or your new banner, then of course use HTML. Best bet when you’re uncertain? You already know the answer – TEST.
– Ask your affiliates what they need to be successful. Don’t send them a time-robbing 20 minute survey. Instead, point them to your forum where you’re asking them what they need, what they think, etc. Or conduct a very short poll. Keep communication on a 2-way street and you’ll be astounded at the insights your affiliates will sometimes provide.
– Offer affiliates the chance to be on a special list for “flash” sales. These are sales of significant discounts that don’t last long and sometimes come with little warning. Some affiliates who are more reactive will want to know about these and others won’t because they prefer to plan their promotions well in advance.
– Provide a call to action at the end of the newsletter. What do you want them to do? Call you for more info? Go to your webpage to get the codes for your new banners? Tell them what action they should take.
– Always test your newsletter before you send it. Check for formatting errors, misspellings, inaccurate information, etc.
– Include your contact information in every newsletter.
If you need more info on what to put in your affiliate newsletter, go to Google and search for “affiliate newsletter tutorial” and you’ll get some great ideas.
– Depending on the network they use, you maybe able to search for your competitor’s archive of affiliate newsletters and see what they’ve done in the past.
TIP: You might also sign up to be an affiliate for your competitor so you can receive their affiliate newsletters as they’re sent out. Just an idea 😉
Start sending newsletters to your affiliates regularly, and you will surely increase their engagement and sales, which if your product brings value to customers is a win-win-win.
