With the buzz surrounding social media, affiliates might overlook about good ol’ fashion email marketing. However, email marketing for affiliates remains one of the top converting marketing tools. If affiliates do not take advantage of this powerful one on one communication, affiliates will be missing out on great commissions.
55% of companies generate more than 10 percent of sales from email – Econsultancy “Emailmarketing census”(2014)
Build Your List
A solid opt in mailing list is essential for success with email marketing for affiliates. You have twitter followers, Facebook followers and are loyally updating your Pinterest and Instagram accounts. All these tools work to gain followings to your site. With brands constantly vying for consumers’ attention on line, you need to ensure your hard earned visitor comes back. Below are ways to build your list.
Newsletter Sign Up. A simple plug in on WordPress can make data capturing a breeze. You create unique and compelling content and people will want to come back. Signing up for a newsletter, reminds them to do so. Don’t just put the sign up in your right hand side bar and move on. Promote it on your Featured Box, at the end of a post or in your footer as well.
Free Download. There are those who need an extra push to give our their coveted email address. Provide a free download is a great way to gather qualified email addresses. The download can be anything from a quiz, checklist, recipe or eBook.
Request sign up on your social media. You are engaging your followers on a regular basis. Don’t be afraid to ask them for their email address. After all, your brilliance cannot be confined to 140 characters.
In-Person While social media and online connections are wonderful, we still meet people face to face. If you are gathering business cards, don’t forget to ask permission to include the person on your mailing list. I usually do a second permission request via email as well.
Now that you have a list, start using email marketing for affiliates! With inexpensive and user-friendly email campaign tools, your investment and risk is minimum. Here are some things to keep in mind when sending out the email.
Get Your Email Ready
First Impressions Count. The subject line is your first impression. You need to be direct and stand out from the crowd all in less than 130 characters. For consumer emails, I recommend no more than 5 words. Be creative but also make sure you are being direct. When I work on subject lines, I always refer to magazine covers. What catches your eye in the supermarket line may also catch your eye when scrolling through emails.
Don’t Bug Me. Be careful with how many times you email Depending on your follower and the time of year, email between once a week to once a month. For instance, during the holidays, it is ok to promote weekly based on short term promotions. However, subscribers would be become wary of you, if you continue this method all year long.
But I Trusted You. Do not sell your list, overuse your list or in general abuse your list. The subscriber opened his/her email life to you. With one abuse, you could not only lose your subscriber but also a follower.
Keep It Short. Mobile email will account for 15 to 70% of email opens, depending on your target audience, product and email type. – eMailmonday “the Ultimate mobile email stats” (2014) Make sure your email is mobile friendly as well the referring site. Also keep the content short since users are reading on the go more and more.
Getting Affiliate Links In Your Email
Email Campaign Tools Do Not Hate Affiliate Links. Let’s clear this up first. Email broadcast tools DO NOT hate affiliate links. Now, they do hate urls that are blacklisted. If you are using a url shortner, please check to make sure it is not on the violation list. At one time, bit.ly was on this list but it was temporary.
Link to Up. Use tools like the Custom Link maker in Shareasale to make your affiliate link user-friendly or cloak your link.
Be Up Front. Just like on your website, the FTC expects full disclosure in your emails. If you are perceived as ‘misleading’ your subscriber, you will get suspended from your email broadcast tool.
Do Your Research. In addition to being SPAM compliant, each email broadcast tool has their own specific guidelines. For instance, MailChimp does not allow you to include affiliate marketing links for ‘get rich” or “work from home” campaigns. Sexual explicit campaigns are also a sure way to get your account suspended. Of course, if you are working with Robbins Interactive affiliate programs, you have nothing to worry about here.