Twice a week affiliate managers at JEBCommerce have collaborative “water cooler talk” to ask questions, discuss concerns and brainstorm new ideas. In the following video, Jamie Birch shares a team conversation on how to get the attention of non-traditional publishers.
Non-traditional publishers would be any content or media publishers that use traditional advertising and are not responding well to your affiliate recruitment outreach.
Editors at major media conglomerates may not know how well affiliate marketing can benefit their business and are generally turned off by affiliate marketing language – dismissing any attempts at outreach as unwanted spam.
The key to attracting media affiliate publishers is to recruit using the language they naturally use, through the channels they commonly communicate with.
What language do media publishers use?
Media publishers operate using terms like CPM (cost per thousand), CPA (cost per action), CPC (cost per click) etc.
So you will need to break down affiliate commissions into CPM. Use metrics from your affiliate program to calculate these terms for your programs as a whole.
When you talk to new potential affiliate partners that have yet to engage, turn it around and speak their language.
When you get interest from them in this regard, then you can show them the potential commissions they can earn.
You have found a really great potential media site for your affiliate program, time to recruit!
We help many clients recruit new affiliates successfully! Schedule time here to find out about how JEBAccelerator can help you recruit new affiliates and grow your program with a short term engagement.
Video: How to Attract Media Affiliate Publishers.
Transcript of “How to attract media affiliate publishers” video:
Hi, this Jamie Birch with JEBCommerce!
At JEB, one of things we instituted while working from home is “Office Hours.” Twice a week, we have an hour where anyone on the team can come to myself and our director of affiliate marketing (Stephen Robinson) via Zoom to ask questions and discuss concerns. Our staff brings unique problems or challenges they are currently having with programs. If you aren’t doing something like this, I encourage you to set it up. One thing that is hard to replicate is “water cooler talk” – the unplanned collisions of individuals in the office. These opportunities don’t exist right now. Set up a time where you employees can pop in to ask any questions they have via Zoom. We have been able to brainstorm some great ideas!
One of things discussed most recently is the question, “how do I get the attention of non-traditional affiliates?” These are media or content publishers that aren’t responding to affiliate messages. They most likely don’t know about affiliate marketing and if they do, they have probably heard that it’s full of scams or they have an overall negative view of the industry. Use the tool of empathy, and put yourself in their shoes and think about “what do they need to make this decision?” Start talking about how this opportunity could affect them, and answer these questions in their language. Many of these media or content affiliates have websites that use traditional advertising. They hear “sales” or “commissions” and may shy away. They don’t know the benefits that you do as an affiliate manager.
What do they know? They most likely know terms like CPM (cost per thousand), CPA (cost per action), CPC (cost per click) etc. You need to break down commissions for a particular client back into CPM. Use the metrics in the program and calculate these terms for your programs as a whole. When you talk to new media or content affiliates that haven’t engaged in the past, turn it around into their language. When you get interest from them in this regard, then you can show them the potential commissions they can earn. Many times you will have to test, and give them a CPM short-term test. This will allow you to compare CPM vs. commission rate and then you can negotiate from there.
Talk to them in their language and give it a test, and you’ll find more doors will open with non-traditional affiliates. You need to go where your audience is. Make sure you’re talking in the right language!
If you’re having trouble figuring out how to communicate with non-traditional affiliates or how to figure out your CPM, set up meeting with me. We can come up a plan together.
Feel free to share this video directly with anyone who may find this video valuable. Have a great day!
