The content in your newsletter should be focused on helping your affiliates drive sales. With that in mind, these key components should be in your newsletter (where applicable):
- Marketing News & Advice - This should focus on your current marketing goals and efforts occurring at your site, so affiliates' messages can be synchronized with yours. Tell them what's working and selling the best. Notify them of pending changes or important dates.
- Consumer Promotions - Highlight your top consumer promotions on your site and provide the linking code for these promotions in various format (text, banner, combination). Be sure to include dates of promotions. Make it as easy as possible for affiliates to grab code and go.
- Linking Code & Link Examples - In addition to linking code for consumer promotions, provide code for top converting links, especially individual product, search box, and dynamic rich media links. These are used less than banners or text links, but tend to convert better. However, check your own Link Type report to see what links you should be providing.
For those of you who are more advanced that may have a re-distribution newsletter for affiliates to send to their users, provide the linking code and a link to a sample email.
- Affiliate Sales Promotion/Contest Information - A pro-active program will frequently feature sales contests or promotions for various segments of or its entire affiliate team. Use your newsletter to announce these contests, as well as to provide updates and results.
- Contact Information - Provide personal contact information for any questions or additional information. This should include your personal email address and a phone number. Providing both of these shows your personal commitment to your affiliate sales force.
- Affiliate Spotlight - Highlight affiliates have shown substantial success for a specific promotion mentioned in your last newsletter. This demonstrates that the content you're providing actually works. Avoid providing absolute data on sales, but instead consider providing relative figures, such as growth rates. Don't list your top affiliates, because it's easy for a competitor to use this information to target them or for these affiliates to bargain with you for private offers.
Creating the Newsletter
We have created various tools and several newsletter templates to create your newsletter. The following pages provide guidelines for using these tools.
In addition, we encourage you to use your own logos, color palettes, and creativity, as well as to consult with your LinkShare representative in developing the content.
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