Affiliate Marketing Strategist. Owner of Affiliate Insider (An Affiliate Marketing Agency, Media Hub + Training Business).
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No matter what you’re doing, there are probably tools that can help you do your job better, faster or smarter. Over the past year, remote working has affected many people and their overall well-being. I think affiliate program managers need to find ways to do their jobs more effectively until we get back to normal in-office working. Here are my suggestions.
Take Breaks From Screens
You’re likely spending a lot of time staring at screens. With remote working still in play across much of the globe, you’re also probably spending much longer hours attached to your computer and other digital devices while keeping yourself connected to your partners, family and friends.
All of this time spent in front of screens can cause eye strain and other issues. At night, the blue light from screens can adversely affect your circadian rhythm and melatonin levels, making it harder to get a good night’s sleep. These effects can take a toll on your performance and productivity.
My advice is to take regular “comfort breaks,” which you’d naturally experience in an office environment. I’ve also found that wearing blue-light-blocking glasses helps keep me feeling alert and ready to tackle the increased challenges that working from home currently presents.
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Leverage Tools To Elevate Your Program’s Performance
Events and networking that typically drive affiliate engagement may remain offline for a while longer as countries loosen their pandemic restrictions. We’re all trying to do more with less to engage new partners remotely. Think smart when it comes to the day-to-day operations within your affiliate program by using tools to help with some of your marketing functions. For example, you can tackle design requests that come in from affiliates using graphic design platforms such as Canva and Snappa. These tools allow anyone on your team to do things like resize banners and create logos in custom sizes, which can help affiliates go live with promotions quicker.
Consider tools that can help smooth your affiliate program’s onboarding and engagement processes. You can use customer relationship management tools to automate and overhaul your affiliate communications and welcome sequences. There also are tools specifically designed for affiliate marketers that can aid in keeping your affiliates compliant, growing in size and delivering the right results and customers to your site.
Getting the right tools in place can help you save time and drive increased revenue.
Use Time Wisely, So It’s Time Well Spent
At this point, your team might already be well-versed in remote task delivery and team project management, but that does not mean that they are necessarily using their time during the workday wisely. There are always improvements that can be made, so look for tools that could help with time and team management. Asana and Trello are great tools to use for setting out shared team tasks or managing a project from multiple time zones and locations.
Using team management tools like these allows you to stay in sync with each other while working to ensure that you’re always meeting the three A’s of affiliate marketing (attention, ambition and attraction).
Automate Your Partner Discovery And Outreach
An affiliate program is nothing without the right partners driving traffic. Finding new publishers and contacts to work with can be incredibly time-consuming. With the right tools, your team will be able to find the publishers and affiliate partners that bring valuable customers into your program. Consider using platforms that can help you with contact discovery, outreach and automating the recruitment process. Snov.io is one option. Similarweb is another tool that you can use to track competitive traffic sources and analyze keyword performance.
Then there’s always LinkedIn. With add-ons like Sales Navigator and Smart Links, LinkedIn is still a great tool to help you find and engage new partners, start conversations and expand your program outreach. This is an incredibly powerful platform that you can use to your advantage. Focus your time not only on outbound mass mailing and cold calling new publishers but also on other social content practices that can actually drive results and bring partners to you.
True brand engagement and a focus on social selling are great practices for affiliate managers to follow when searching for partners and leads that can help them further their program reach and drive consistent sales.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few of the things affiliate program managers can do to make small improvements to performance. Put these tips and tools into practice to start optimizing your daily delivery.
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Author: Lee-Ann Johnstone, Forbes Councils Member
