Affiliate Tools - Part 2

Banner ads are a popular tool used by affiliates, but they can be complicated to create and to utilize. Creating pre-made banner ads that affiliates can use on their own websites is an easy way to provide something helpful for affiliates. The banner ads can simply be copied from a page on your site and pasted onto the affiliates’ site. Make sure to provide some instruction about to how to set up the banner ad and how banner ads can bring in targeted traffic for the product. Banner ads can of course be placed on other sites, and instruction on how to go about using them as paid advertising should be offered. You might also offer customized tools to affiliates that ask for them such as different banner sizes.

One way that is even easier for an affiliate to interest people in your product is to use simple signature files. Putting a signature file in all outgoing emails increases the amount of people who will see information about the product. A signature file can even be a variation of the email ads or classified ads that you have already provided. There will be affiliates who are already well-versed in signature files for promotion, but there will also be some who have never thought of it as a promotional tool as well as those who simply don’t know how to set one up.

Offering the information about how to set up an email signature file makes it even easier for an affiliate to utilize this as an advertising source. This information should of course be provided with a warning about using it for illegal spam, but there are many, many ways that it can be used legitimately and still be sent to hundreds of potential customers, if not more. Most people send email daily, so as simply a numbers game there is a possibility that some of the people receiving legitimate emails from the affiliate will then purchase the product. This may even be a fun way for an affiliate to market the product, as it is easy to set up and is a simple way to get the promotion started.

Once an affiliate is underway in their promotion of the product, it is helpful to have some content that they can put on their website, blog, or in email or direct mail to promote the product. One type of content that will be welcomed by affiliates is positive reviews of the product. Getting a glowing third party review is a powerful selling point for any product, and if there are reviews available, providing them to affiliates for their use is a great way to give them something that you already know will be an effective promotional tool.

Supplying interviews are another way to do the same thing-provide some content that will be useful to affiliates, and garner a little control over the quality of the promotion. This may be interviews conducted of you, providing the vendor’s perspective of the product. This may also be interviews with people who have used, or read in the case of ebooks, the product.

In the case of ebooks, it is also a good idea for affiliates to have access to an interview with the author. Interviews are easy to read and are useful in web promotions. Having interviews available is slightly different from testimonials, and provides quotations that are useful in many types of promotions. Anyone writing a press release about your product would be interested in having the interview format to provide the needed quotations. Interviews, reviews and testimonials are all effective ad staples, and will give affiliates a way to advertise right away instead of enduring a wait time to come up with their own copy.

In addition to the training provided for the affiliate to use web tools such as pay per click sites, providing training in the use of the other promotional materials may be just as helpful. Putting together some materials about ad copy, how to use it, where to use it, etc., will make it more likely that an affiliate actually will use it. It may also cut down on the use of spam by affiliates, as they will see other avenues in which the provided materials can be used. Providing training is going the extra mile- showing the affiliates that they are part of your network and truly work with you, not just for you.

Jim Musselwhite is an internet marketer with a wide array of diverse, authoritative information sites including http://www.affiliatemanagementformula.com/ and Affiliate Tools

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