"You want to do everything you can to take the thinking part out, to take the hard work out. And, if you do that, they'll be much more likely to continue promoting your products month in and month out and that's what we're really looking for, that on-going activity from our affiliates."



Stu McLaren

When you provide your affiliates with effective tools, straight out of the gate, they can focus on marketing your products as opposed to creating marketing tools to market your products. Some affiliates will simply get frustrated and give up if they don't have the right tools.

So here are the recommendations of expert Affiliate Manager, Stu McLaren regarding the basic tools to provide your affiliates in produce maximum sales.

1. Email Templates

Provide your affiliates with at least three (3) email templates - one short and two longer emails.

The short email will get more or less straight to the point and direct the reader to a call to action. Whereas the longer email templates can provide more of a story and give more background, etc.

Choose two different angles when crafting your longer emails to give your affiliates more options. The longer emails also provide your affiliates with greater scope to add their personal touch to the content.

2. Blog Reviews

Provide your affiliates with 2-3 blog reviews. These should be written as though coming from a third party.

Your reviews should be balanced. So give the pros and cons without belabouring any negatives that your product or service might have. At the end of your review you should provide your conclusion or summary.

3. Articles

Provide about 3 articles. These can be used by affiliates in multiple locations, for example on their websites, blogs and newsletters. They can even be used offline in magazines, newspapers and in direct response mailings.

The articles can also be recorded to create podcasts. In fact, the number of ways in which the articles can be used is down to the imagination and creativity of the affiliate.

4. Banners

There are a variety of different size banners that you can use in affiliate marketing and they should be created so that your affiliate's code is automatically embedded into the banner. You want to provide the html code for your banners so your affiliates can simply copy and paste the code onto their website.

Some affiliate programs provide banners that are no more than pictures and it is left to the affiliate to work out how to link their affiliate code to the image. Remember, you want to make the life of your affiliate as easy as possible. If you take care of the technical aspects then they can take care of just marketing your products and services.

Common banner sizes are as follows:

Standard 468x60 px

Skyscraper 120x600 px

Box banner 125x125 px

Very Small 120x60 px

Banners which are 125x125 or 120x60 are very popular with bloggers because they are small and compact and can easily be integrated into a blog template or a blog post.

5. Video

Videos are more advanced tools. However, with the rate at which the Internet is evolving and with the increasing popularity of videos they will become more and more commonplace. So while videos are not expected as part of the basic package of affiliate marketing tools, they are a great asset and definitely something to consider for the future.

A short video which redirects through your affiliate's link can be a very powerful marketing tool.

So provide these tools to your affiliates and you will have a very well equipped affiliate marketing sales force indeed.