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The following is a past issue of
The LinkProfits Report
written Jim Gribble:
Dump
'em and focus on real partnerships!
Dear
Subscribers,
It's been a couple months since my last
post. I hope you've enjoyed
the summer. I personally, have done a
lot of `soul searching',
especially related to this ever-changing
business channel we're all
involved with.
Did you read Declan's ClickZ article
last week: "Reports of Affiliate
Programs' Death Are Greatly Exaggerated"?
Here's a link to the full article:
http://www.clickz.com/aff_mkt/aff_mkt/article.php/1451111
Among the great points he made, I'd like
to highlight the following:
"Affiliate programs are not dead; they
are simply growing up to be
business development and partnership
channels that pay for
performance from partners who qualify."
"You have to look for the right partners
and manage smaller affiliate
networks. It is not enough to post your
program on every affiliate
channel and wait for the masses to sign
up. Those days are over,
because it is ineffective and random."
"Smart, effective partners are always
hard to find. This is the
central focus of today's successful
affiliate programs. Now the
affiliate network has to take
responsibility for finding and
maintaining good partners, instead of
expecting the partners to find
them."
Recognizing these trends, LinkProfits is
now recommending the
following to its clients. (And if this
involves dumping your current
solution provider, then do it!)
Recommendation #1: Use DirectTrack to
provide the infrastructure you need to
manage your `partnership channel'. After
months of research, this is the
solution I choose to recommend for the
following reasons:
* They ONLY charge for bandwidth each
month, usually around $50. No more
paying a solution provider a percentage
of your sales or
commissions when they don't deserve it.
* Their system is quite functional. It
provides me, the Program
Manger, with everything that I need to
be effective. Of course,
there's some room for improvement. The
difference is, the folks at
DirectTrack truly appreciate my
suggestions and have been extremely
responsive to make the necessary
enhancements. (Unlike the big
solution providers who move like snails
or want to charge their
clients for everything.)
* You own your relationships and all
your data. Want to email your
partners? With DirectTrack, it's no
problem and no charge! Want to
call them? Again, no problem. In fact,
with one click you can
download all your partner data (contact
info as well as performance
stats).
* DirectTrack also comes with a
publisher network: DirectLeads. No,
there aren't 200,000 members, there are
actually around 16,000.
That's because DirectLeads has already
`screened' applicants to their network
(e.g. no geocities members). As a
DirectTrack user, you have the option of
promoting to this network or not. It's
$50 if you want
to – obviously well worth it.
I formed an informal alliance
with DirectTrack for these
reasons. Here's a link to learn more
about this alliance and DirectTrack's solution:
http://www.linkprofits.com/dtrelease.htm
BTW, another very cool tracking
innovation has come from the mind of
JB McKee. His new, patent-pending
technology related to his "Ultra
Links" allows you to realize search
engine benefits from your
partnership links. Go here to learn more
about this solution:
http://www.freefiliate.com/?details
Recommendation #2: Invest in partnership
outreach. Obviously, this
is very self-serving since we are in the
outsource program management (OPM)
business. But even we have stepped up
our investment in this area. We now have
two individuals on staff whose entire job is
to search the Web for partners for our
client's programs.
One of our clients recently left a major
affiliate network solution
provider, switched to DirectTrack, and
now they have $3,000 per month freed up
to invest in optimal program management
and partnership cultivation. They simply
couldn't justify the expense any longer.
Sure they had 23,000 `affiliates', but
only a small number were
producing partners.
I encourage you to do your own `soul
searching' and don't be afraid
to leave the `friendly confines' of your
overpriced solution
provider. It may be the best long term
decision you'll make related
to your pay for performance partnership
initiatives.
Best regards,
Jim
Jim Gribble
jim @ linkprofits.net
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all rights reserved.
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