Give Your Affiliate Program A Lift With A New Or Improved Product

If an affiliate program is an important part of your business,your profits are only as good as your affiliate members. Salesdrop like a rock when they get discouraged or lose interest.You will see the dreaded signs if you frequently visit youraffiliates' sites. The banner or enthusiastic endorsement theyonce had on their opening page is now relegated to a link on thesecond or third tier of their site. Something as simple as thatcan cut the number of hits you get by a factor of ten or twenty.Two things usually account for members giving you the back burnertreatment: Your product or service isn't selling as well as itonce did for them. Or members are simply losing interest becausenewer, more exciting affiliate programs are grabbing theirattention.You can immediately solve both problems by offering a new orimproved product or service. Spend time to make sure your newproduct is a big improvement over what has come before. The moreyou can insure your product is a big deal, the more excited youraffiliates will get.Make your roll-out a big production. Give your new creation awhole new area with a fresh new look on your web site.Two weeks before you unveil your new product, start sendingannouncements to your affiliates. Let them know somethingimportant is about to happen and they will be the first to hearabout it.After you bring out your product, do a quick follow-up withmembers. Get comments on how they expect the new product tosell. Harvest early accounts of how some members are doing wellwith the product. Include these comments in your weekly emailupdates to members.A word of warning--try not to veer completely away from what hasworked for you before. If you have always sold software, don'tbring in a new line of office furniture as your new product foraffiliates. An exciting new software application will workbetter and will not dilute the brand identity your business hasenjoyed.Got a major product you don't want to ignore? Good! It'salmost always easier to get affiliates and customers excitedabout an improvement to an old favorite than it is to make afavorite out of a completely new product.Keep a file of customer complaints and ideas about your product.Over time you can use these as ideas starters for ways to buildimprovements that customers and affiliates will appreciate andvalue.When interest in your product or service starts to diminish, pullour your file and make requested improvements. Add in enoughimprovements and you have a new issue, a next generation, or afresh edition you can sell as a replacement or upgrade to yourlong list of previous customers.Affiliate programs are still the number one way to market on theWeb. It pays to keep your program exiting and top-of-mind. Formany companies, it is unlikely that a better way to boost profitswill come along any time soon.