A Solution…But Now Hard Work Ahead!
After last week’s post about my struggle to integrate all the parts of my business into one system, a decision has finally been made – and all the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together.
After a final discussion with Josh Anderson, we are moving to Nanacast and have actually chosen to plug in the Get Response to manage the lists (it is a full integration where cancellations of subscriptions will remove the member from a particular mailing list).
This means a move of about 20 autoresponders (I’m scrapping a few as we move), about 30 or so products and several memberships. We have a lot a work ahead of us, but I’m so glad to have help from Lynette Chandler, Melody Spier and our new intern, Diana Walker to help with the process. And even thought it’s going to be a TON of work, I’m excited about going through everything – making sure everything is up-to-date, efficient and effective. It’s going to be a TRUE Spring Cleaning for my biz.
If you’re a customer, member or affiliate – please don’t worry. We will keep you in the loop about the entire process and will try to make it as simple as possible for you. And trust me – it will ALL be worth it. This will allow us to do a LOT more to help you build your online business.
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Part of the problem is Technology
Sigh…yep, it’s that darned old thing called technology that has created a few bumps in the road (and contributed to that mess of Christmas light cords I mentioned last week!).
With all kinds of products, services, programs and memberships being added…the process went kind of haywire. I originally started with Quicksales.com (a private label of shopping cart) for my digital products, but then when I wanted to add recurring payments with management of membership areas, it got complicated.
To accommodate the need for automatic membership area management (passwords, access, etc.), we started offering memberships by using Amember. Interestingly enough, I could plug Amember into Quicksales (1SC) and I paid about $97 to purchase the plug-in, but the plug-in was limited for a few reasons:
1. To manage your members lists, it would not communicate back with Quicksales (1SC) when a member cancelled their subscription. That meant, if I set up a list in the Quicksales autoresponder, it would become outdated as people left.
2. Quicksales (1SC) doesn’t do recurring payments through PayPal (or 2CO or most 3rd party services for that matter). Basically, a merchant account would be the only option.
3. The process of renewal and adding memberships was cumbersome to customers. Where Amember without the plug in allowed members to add subscriptions quickly and easily by logging into their account, the 1SC plug-in made the process unecessarily complicated by making the customer fill out the 1SC form again.
So…we did a big of working around it and I integrated the systems somewhat. Lynette also did some coding where affiliates could be credited for sales using their original affiliate links (from Quicksales), but the process was manual for us to calculate and affiliates didn’t get sales notifications. What a PITA!
In addition to the manual affiliate process on memberships, my customer lists are splintered. I have a “customer list” in Quicksales (1SC), but it overlaps with my member list in Amember. I HATE sending out duplicate emails to people who have spent their hard-earned money with me.
SO ARGH…I got myself into a pickle. I was trying to work with a system I was already using, so I wouldn’t disrupt my affiliates or my customers – but it’s too messy now.
One thought was to move everything over to Amember, but I think it has its shortcomings and the biggest of which is list management and I want to do it 100% right this time. They’ve made other improvements over the years, but there are so many additional features that would be good to see.
And when it comes to starting something new, I’m EXTREMELY cautious. I do know thing can be absolutely perfect, but I’ve looked at countless other options and none were quite right for me. If I’m going to move, it’s got to be at least NEAR PERFECT.
Then Enters a Possibility
A couple of weeks ago, when I went to the Canada Marketing Summit, I bumped into Josh Anderson. Although I missed his presentation, he very excitedly told me about his system that is PERFECT.
Of course, I’m skeptical. 
He told me to take a look at his Nanacast Business Centralization & Automation System and I told him I definitely would. I know that Josh had previously expressed frustrations with other systems that I echoed and was thrilled that he had the technical team to come up with a solution.
So my new intern, Diana Walker (if that page is blank, come back later…she’ll be posting updates), have spent the morning reviewing the features and possibilities. It is most definitely a very robust system and is created from the savvy Internet marketer’s perspective. Many features I won’t even need to touch, but many of the key things are a solution to my many woes.
We’ve watched all the introductory videos, and have compiled a list of questions for the Josh’s team to see if this might be the solution we’re looking for. A couple of things that concern me:
- There is no autoresponder component built in to the program. However, there is FULL integration with Aweber and by full I mean Nanacast optionally communicates with Aweber when a member cancels their subscription, so they can be removed from your list.
- The built in affiliate program is set to credit the first affiliate referral. It tracks this via IP & not just cookies, but I believe the last referrer should get the credit for clinching a sale. I’m also not sure about the possibilities with cookie-stuffing on this (I need some techy to explain), but I assume Josh has taken care of it, but will ask. Just clarified with support that this was a previous feature of the system, but they now operate on a last referrer system tracked by IP and cookie.
* But side note, one cool part of the affiliate program is that it can set up to automatically deliver bonuses from particular affiliates if they wish to include some incentive to purchase. Of course, that’s where I see their might be a problem with giving the sale to the first referrer. If people are buying because of bonuses it will generally be from the last person who referred them. Hmmm. The bonuses are delivered by the customer using a coupon, but I’m not sure exactly how affiliate credit works.
There are a few other things I’ll be asking before I take the plunge, but this could be it. And if it is, that means more exciting products & programs for you…and if you’re my affiliate, everything will ALL be automated and there will be some pretty cool new features.
And hey, if all the technobabble (from the perspective of a non-techy) is of interest to you, I’ll keep you up-to-date on what direction we turn to from here.
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Give Special Reports To Your Affiliates To Use
Affiliates use a variety of methods to promote products online. Some run email campaigns or promote through weekly or monthly newsletters. Others maintain websites that provide informative or fun content or product reviews. Still others discuss and recommend products through their blogs.
One thing that works no matter how promoted online is the special report. Special reports can be written on any subject imaginable, then given away online to promote products. Many smart affiliate managers write these reports, and then allow their affiliates to brand them and give them to their site visitors or members of their mailing lists in an attempt to get sales. It works.
What Should I Write a Report About?
Write a special report about anything that is closely related to the product. It could present a problem that can be solved by your product. If you are selling a fairly common product, it could detail new ways of using it or how to get the most out of it.
It is important to provide information that potential customers can use and will enjoy reading. Write a report that is just an advertisement for the product in disguise, readers will see through it. Give them something that they can use, they will be more inclined to listen to your message and possibly buy the product.
What If I’m Not a Good Writer?
No one has to have a master’s degree in English to write a special report. All you need is a conversational writing style and a good command of spelling and grammar. If spelling and grammar are not your strong points, you can always use a spell checker and a proofreader.
If you really don’t want to write your own report, hire someone to do it. There are plenty of freelance writers out there who would be happy to put together a report. They might even be willing to come up with a topic if you can’t get past that part of it. If you are not in a financial position to pay a writer, you may want to look into getting private label rights reports that allow you to give the reports to your affiliates to promote your products.
EDITOR’S NOTE: One such place is the Special Report Club.
What Is Branding?
Branding is simply adding the individual affiliate’s links to the report so that they will get credit for sales resulting from their distribution of the report. This can be accomplished using the program used to create the report. There are also free software programs that can add in affiliate links for some third-party affiliate managers. Use them to brand reports for affiliates, or offer them to the affiliates so that they may do it themselves.
Branded special reports are a great asset to affiliates. By distributing the report and allowing others to do so as well can increase their sales. That is beneficial to everyone involved.
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Free Checklists: How Do I Get My Affiliate Program Up & Running?
If you’ve been procrastinating about getting your affiliate program started or really rolling, these checklist might very well come in handy.
Put together by Angela Wills of Affiliate Manager Mojo, they’re a quick guide to:
- Choosing an affiliate system.
- What your affiliates need to know to get started.
- Promo tools for a top-notch program.
- Common promotional graphics sizes.
- Affiliate recruitment.
- Keeping in touch with your affiliates.
You can download yours by clicking here (PDF).
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Getting Affiliates Working for You: The Power of Consistency
Over the past few months, we’ve been offering affiliate management services to a few clients…and for the past 6 years, I have been managing a number of my own programs too. If there’s one thing I’ve learned along the way is power of being consistent with your program in order to achieve a steadily growing number of sales.
I’m talking about consistency in a few ways from offering regular promotional tools, keeping in contact with your affiliates and reaching new affiliates. Here are 3 thoughts on how to make consistency work for your affiliate program:
1. Regular Promotional Tools: If your goal is to have an affiliate program that brings in a regular income, here’s a simple ingredient to add to your consistency plan -> Set a schedule to put together new tools for your affiliates to use on a regular basis. By giving yourself a schedule and planning your tools in advance, you’re more likely to actually deliver on what you hoped.
(By the way, if you’re looking for promo tool ideas, a while back I posted 29 ideas to get you started right here – it’s a PDF document you can download freely)
If you slapped up your affiliate page, put up some banners, ads and called it a day – that’s going to make it tough for your affiliates to promote your product on a consistent basis. Of course, you can encourage them to add promos to their autoresponders and post ads on their relevant high traffic pages so that a regular stream of traffic continues to come. But if you REALLY want your affiliates on board and getting the word out in a variety of ways, you’ve got to give them fresh stuff to work with – so they promote you over and over again.
2. Staying in Touch – In addition to broadcasting updates to your affiliates on a regular basis, make an effort to build an ongoing relationship with specific affiliates. If an affiliate contacts you with questions or requests help, they’ve opened the doors to further communication and you can use that to your advantage. If an affiliate is making sales, email them personally to thank them and offer them a special promotion they can share with their list. If an affiliate is sending traffic, but sales are a bit low, talk to them about the methods they’re using and see if you can help them improve things.
And once you start this dialogue with specific affiliates, keep it going if the affiliate becomes or continues to be an active member of your team. Don’t assume that your broadcasts inspire these affiliates to immediately take action. If you contact an affiliate personally, they are more likely to act (maybe because they like you, they feel obligated or any number of reasons – but it works!).
Let’s face it, ACTIVE affiliates aren’t as common as we might hope…so whatever you can do to encourage this continued action is going to go a long way.
3. Reaching New Affiliates: Although you may get affiliates who stick around and promote you for years, most come and go. They’re busy or they move onto new ventures, so you can need ensure you continue to bring new affiliates into your program.
You can do this by contacting potential affiliate individually, inviting your customers to join your referral program, asking for referrals from your existing affiliates, creating joint promotional tools with other product sellers and a ton of different ways…just make recruiting, in some form, a regular part of your affiliate program.
But How Do You Get Consistent?
Saying you should be consistent is easier said than done. There are tons of things we want to get done and sometimes things like nurturing and growing our affiliate programs fall by the wayside. One way to stay on top of things is to plan your activities at the beginning of each month:
- Decide what you’d like to offer and set dates to release your promotional tools, special offers, etc.
- Look at your stats and see who you might start a personal dialogue with.
- Find “an excuse” (a mutually beneficial excuse, of course!) to contact affiliates you’ve been in personal touch with before.
- Look for new potential affiliates or figure out a promotional strategy to bring in more affiliates that month.
Just a few ideas to get you started…but as always, when you have a plan, it’s easier to get where you want to go
(And pssst…if you have troubles coming up with the ideas, we’ve got something coming very soon to help you out with that and more. )
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Sweetie on the Net: My Interview with Andrew Wee
This was a fun (and I hope, informative) interview with Andrew Wee from last week.
Our goal was to talk about managing and growing your affiliate program and we definitely did discuss that, but we also got into a great discussion about time management, working efficiently and tips for people new to online business and more.
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Neglecting Your Affiliate Program? Good News!
As online entrepreneurs, it’s easy to get into the trap of trying to do too much. And even though we try to get it all done, sometimes we can’t even get to some of the important stuff…including our affiliate programs.
If you keep meaning to be more proactive with your affiliates, but never seem to get around to it…I have AWESOME news.
We’ve put together an incredibly affordable and hands-free option for growing your affiliate results.
We take care of:
- Recruiting
- Training
- Motivating
…and ensure your affiliates have plenty of tools to get the job done.
Take a look here and let us take care of everything. Now you have NO more excuses for not being active with your affiliate program. 
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Free Download: Affiliate Management Promo Tools Ideas
With the Mom’s Affiliate Expo starting next week, there’s going to be a ton of work at home moms honing their affiliate marketing skills. As an affiliate manager, you can become an expo exhibitor and have the opportunity to put your affiliate program opportunity in front of all these savvy women.
Is Your Affiliate Program Up to Snuff?
A few days ago, I shared 3 thoughts on creating better affiliate promo tools. As I mentioned, one of the easiest ways to get affiliates to take action is to have plenty of ready-to-use materials that make it ultra-simple for your affiliates to start promoting right away…and to keep promoting long into the future.
But what do you give them?
There are tons of possibilities and this week’s Free Sweetie Saturday Download will certainly help you get started. Just download and print this short PDF and start building your promo tool library:
Click here to download 29 Affiliate Promo Tools Ideas (PDF)
It’s yours…totally free…no strings attached. But if you do need more help managing or even getting started with your affiliate program, check out the Affiliate Manager Sweetie course to cut your learning curve.
Want to Give Away Your Product or Offer a Sweetie Saturday Discount: If you’d like your product featured on the Sweetie Blog, consider offering your product for giveaway or discount. To offer your product for giveaway, click here or to offer a discount, click here.
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