By Linda Woods

Create Motivated Active Affiliates

Use a variety of creatives (banners, text links, buttons, etc) drilling down to interesting narrow niches of your site for contextual selling opportunities that appeal to narrow niches of affiliates. Use all sizes of banners, many different kinds of text links, content oriented links & email links.

Offer Merchandising & Marketing Support

Give them good professionally written copy in the form of content links, HTML pages or testimonial type paragraphs to insert in their sites. Use innovative marketing ideas and site design tips to maximize CTR of your links.

Provide Useful Tools and Resources

Provide your affiliates with resources to use on their sites that they may not have access to or cannot afford. Chat modules, shared bulletins boards, contests, surveys/polls, search engine submissions, or even write a template newsletter that can co-brand with your affiliates.

Pay them Regularly, Accurately, Fairly

Nothing motivates like a paycheck. Make sure that no matter what tracking solution you are using that you offer affiliates a monthly payout, with a low minimum (no higher than $25 unless they are foreign and want a higher threshold to avoid high check cashing fees), and absolute regularity and accuracy.

Use Ongoing Communications to Motivate, Educate and Recognize

A monthly newsletter is essential! Fill it with practical tips for implementing and selling your products better, your company news & success stories of how other affiliates are succeeding with your program. (ask permission) It's also motivational to list payout amounts and new promotions and incentives. You have to be able to effectively communicate with your affiliates so that they want to hear from you!

Stay in Touch

Publish your name, extension, phone number, AOL chat name, ICQ chat number, email address - everything! Give your affiliates access to you. They will rarely abuse the access and when they do contact you, the question is usually pressing for their success. Be accessible!

Be sure to stay in phone contact (if possible) with your Top Producers. Stay abreast of what they are doing, if they slip, if they have sudden success or seem to be in trouble. Stay aware and help them!

Have a minimum policy of 24 hr turnaround on E-mail Questions or less. And be sure to have IT help available for technical problems.

Have a Compelling Offer for Affiliates

Offering a measly 5cents a click or 10% commission on a $10 item will get no one's attention, especially pro affiliates. Offer the highest payout you are able to, make it higher than your competition and then make it interesting! Create hybrid deals, blended offers, one time promos, and contests. Talk over ideas with other affiliate program managers and ask your best affiliates for ideas.

Constantly Work on Affiliate Acquisition

Ongoing affiliate acquisition strategies should be co-ordinated with marketing and business development. Target likely affiliates by category and make them custom offers to match their site needs. Having less affiliates that really produce and support you is MUCH BETTER than having thousands of unproductive ones. Think Quality not Quantity and hand pick them - don't just sit back and wait for them to find you.

Stay Informed and Participate

Read up on all the news and advice from Industry Influencers like Refer-It, Affiliate Advisor, Associate Programs, Revenews, AffiliateHandbook, ClickZ and AffiliateTips. Learn everything you can - look to other programs for ideas, ask affiliates what they want, read industry news, go to conferences like AffiliateForce, AffiliateSolutions and IIR-Online Allies, network with program managers on the USAMC forum on YahooGroups.com. Read Revenews and Cashpile's discussion boards regularly and participate with your own questions or successes.

Do it Right or Don't Do it At All

If you don't have sufficient personnel resources to manage this, or you have inadequate or low margins and can't pay out much to affiliates, or simply don't have the time or interest to implement the many kinds of innovations to your site that you will need to make this work, save your money. Don't do it - it won't work. Trust me on this.