Posts Tagged ‘Team Members’

Areas to Cover During Affiliate Training

January 10th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Affiliate Marketing

If you want to start an affiliate program to increase product sales, you have a big task in front of you. It isnt necessarily getting a program up and running that is the hard part. There are third-party affiliate hosting websites and affiliate tracking software that will do the work for you. Your biggest challenge will come with training new affiliates.

Even if your affiliate program website is properly setup and easy to navigate, it is still important to train your new affiliates. Dont assume they are masters of affiliate marketing and promoting. They may be new the world of making money online; your program may be the first opportunity they came across and decided to try. Plus, even seasoned internet users run into problems or complications that require help. To reduce complications and confusion later on, take the time to train your new affiliates.

What is nice about affiliate training, is the options you have. You do not need to host an in-person seminar. In fact, that may be impossible to do. You likely have affiliates from all across the country. Instead, rely on instant messaging programs, email, video conferences, and the phone to train your team members.

When it comes to training new affiliates, you want to cover many topics. One off those is finding graphics to use. With most affiliate programs, you give your affiliates code embedded links, banners, and product pictures. They find these on the program website then copy and paste into their website. It is a very easy process, but one that affiliates may not understand. Walk all new affiliates through the process of browsing and searching for these graphics, talk them through the process of getting them to show on their websites, and so forth. You only need to do this once or twice for each new member. Overtime, they will be able to perform this task easily.

Next, it is important to cover the rules and restrictions of your program. In fact, if you do not have a terms and condition contract that all affiliate agreed to, create one now. This is where you will highlight any restrictions you have. Are affiliates prohibited from using their links to make personal purchases? State so. Do you prohibit your affiliates from discussing compensation with others? State so. Make sure this information is always viewable on your website, but clearly state the rules and restrictions of your program for all new members.

As you know, there is much more to making money with affiliate programs than putting affiliate links on a website. The best way to make money with affiliate links and products is to have a well marketed website. If your affiliate has banners bearing your company image, will anyone see them? Not if they dont do some marketing. A well-marketed website also increases your profits, as it should lead to more sales. Incorporate internet marketing into your training. Talk your affiliates through a few marketing tactics and emphasize the direct connection between internet marketing making money.

Most importantly, cover payment in your training. This information should also be clearly outlined on your website. Dont give your affiliates the chance to be confused or start a fuss. In training, tell and show your affiliates how they make money. Then, explain how much money they make, when they can get paid, and so forth.

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How to make customers stick with you – Part 2

December 11th, 2008 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Affiliate Marketing

How to make customers stick with you – Part 2

What’s next after someone becomes your customer? What’s next is to deliver on what you said you would. People expect you to deliver results. Surprise them by also going the extra mile over and over again.

You can also deliver it around meetings. In most organizations, its easy for you to deliver additional value around meetings because most companies run meetings poorly. Capture important notes during your meetings and deliver your neatly typed notes consistently with your customers format. Not only will it allow you to capture the main ideas and benefits of important discussions, but also your customers team members will almost always appreciate it. Send this as soon after the meeting as possible.

As soon as you get a new customer, thank them for doing business with you. Send them a thank you note, an extra report, or something of value. Let them know that you appreciate their business and show them that you care about them. It can have an amazing effect! One small act that shows how much you value your new customer can create a customer for life.

The formula for having your customers turn into raving fans is a good product and great service. Interestingly enough, a good product and bad service gives you unhappy customers no matter how good your product is.

But what is the best way to turn first-time customers into repeat customers? It’s to make sure that you really over-deliver! In fact, you should under-promise and over-deliver… just the opposite of what we often see. Tell people what you will do for them and then do it.

Over-deliver, but don’t over-promise. Most companies do just the opposite. They want that sale so they promise their customers the moon, but then they fall just a little short. They might have provided exceptional customer service, but excellent service loses its luster if it falls short of the promise. In fact, its worse than not promising at all. The bottom line is that you must organize your business so that you always exceed, but absolutely never fall short of a promise to a customer. By great service, you can make sure that your customers will stick with you.

A study has shown that it takes 16 times the effort to get a new customer as it does to sell to an existing one. So treasure them all and treat them like a $1m customer.

When you have satisfied customers, they will buy more and more from you. They have already experienced you, your services or products, and your quality of service so the decision process is so much easier for them. They will become your walking, talking sales force. They believe in you and your services or products so much so that they will voluntarily tell others about you.

Develop relationships with your customers so you can continue to discover what they want. Then provide offers that deliver what they want so they choose to do more business with you. This is another huge key to your success. It is the key to maximizing the lifetime value of a customer.

From time to time, do a customer satisfaction survey. Test to see if your customers are happy with your service and ask them for suggestions for improvement. Then act on these suggestions.

If you have a dissatisfied customer, you have an opportunity. People who are unhappy will tell other people and so on and so forth. Get the picture? So, when you have a dissatisfied customer, you have an opportunity to have them experience your excellent service and to build an even stronger relationship with you. Accept complaints graciously and treat them as though they are nuggets of pure gold. These are your opportunities to improve and increase loyalty. So sort their problems out quickly and they will then tell others good things about you.

Use these tips well and you can become successful with any product or service you have.

Treasure your customers and they will treasure you. Treasure your customers and more customers will be attracted to you. That is how it works!

In part 3 of our series, we will focus on rewarding your customers.

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