We recently walked our new staff through Module 7 of our My Affiliate Coach training program – Effective Affiliate Promotions. We spent a great deal of time discussing common mistakes and horror stories relating to incentives. Providing an incentive for affiliates to promote your programs is a common tool affiliate managers use to encourage participation, acquire prominent placements and attempt to reach and exceed their internal sales goals.
But all too often things go wrong. Most of the time the reasons come down to the design and execution of the incentive. Below are three of the most common mistakes affiliate managers make (shhhh! don’t tell anyone, I’ve made these numerous times).
- Let’s Set Up Some Obstacles People! – If your promotion or incentive requires the affiliate to register, drive sales, dance a jig, refer a friend, submit paperwork, call their congressman and write a novel, well you may be requiring them to do too much. Make your incentives simple and easy to understand. If you require too much, good affiliates will get annoyed and go somewhere else. Keep it simple.
- What’s My Motivation Sir? – Too often the goals of the program are esoteric or unclear. Ask yourself this question – Would my mom (who still thinks AOL is the internet) understand what I’m trying to get my partners to do here? If not, go back to the white board.
- Way To Set The Bar High Buddy. – If your incentive is $5 bonus for reaching $5 in sales, maybe your threshold and bonus is too low. Many affiliates can generate enormous amounts of sales if incentivized correctly. Don’t limit their earning potential by either making the goal to easy to attain or not having a set of goals to reach so a number of different types of affiliates have something to reach for.
All in all, if you want to get a great promotion, make it simple and make it personal.
What say you?
