Affiliate programs can be a lucrative advertising strategy for your business.  Getting others to advertise for you in more places will increase your traffic.  But, affiliate programs can be time consuming when you have a million other things to do.  Maybe hiring an affiliate manager would ease the load.  Read on to see for yourself.

You create ads that will be used on these sites by your affiliates.  The ads will complement the sites that they run on so they have a better chance of being clicked.  The ads click directly to your website page featuring the product you are selling.  It sounds easy but there are many steps to keep track of. 

An affiliate program requires your time every day.  Affiliates will have questions or concerns on a regular basis depending on how many affiliates you have.  If you decide to have the type of program that implements an application for potential affiliates, that will have to be monitored as well.

It is not uncommon to spend up to two hours a day dealing with affiliate issues.  Setting up your affiliate website will include a FAQ page, answering emails from affiliates (if that is how you choose to communicate with them), checking for each affiliates click rate and sending out payments on a regular schedule.  This can take away from other needs that warrant your attention.

It could be time to hire an affiliate manager.  As your number of affiliates continues to grow, so will your time spent with the affiliate program.  If you can’t manage the operation by yourself, give an affiliate manager a try.  You don’t want unhappy affiliates.  There is nothing worse than bad press on the Internet.  It spreads like wildfire.

Affiliate managers can be found online by searching for “affiliate managers” or your affiliate manager could be part of the role of a virtual assistant.  Many have expertise that includes website management and support.  

Affiliate managers need to be available a certain number of hours per day to oversee the program.  They must have good organizational skills, customer service skills, knowledge of marketing techniques, website expertise and be flexible.  They will be an extension of you and your business personality when dealing with affiliates.

Their duties will be wide and varied.  Basically anything that has to do with your program will fall under their jurisdiction.  That includes:  answering affiliate questions, recruiting affiliates, tracking how well each affiliate is doing, pay affiliates, develop ads for affiliate use, be well versed in the latest competitor strategies, teach affiliate training (if you want to offer it) and keep affiliates interested in working with you.

Affiliate managers are not as costly as an affiliate network.  As a freelancer, they can be paid by the hour for work that they do. 

Hiring an affiliate manager frees up your time and leaves your affiliate program in good hands.

Hotel Traffic Builders

www.HotelTrafficBuilders.com

Hotel & Resort Internet Marketing & Website Development by Hotel Traffic Builders

Have you heard of pay per click (PPC)?  What about affiliate marketing?  The two work well as a part of a marketing strategy to increase traffic and sales.  What about putting both of them together for a double whammy?  Learn what PPC affiliate marketing is and how your affiliate programs can benefit.

The basics of affiliate marketing are simple.  A site implements an affiliate program to increase sales for their products or services.  As such, they partner with other website businesses to gain visibility.  The website business is looking to reap some financial reward from the partnership as well.  Top affiliate programs generally pay well for sales and provide incentives for top sellers.

You can advertise on a website that you have set up especially for your affiliate marketing purposes.  Besides the product ads, you will need to add other content to the site that will interest potential clients.  Many affiliate marketers use SEO content, product reviews and testimonials to keep customers coming back.

Another marketing strategy some affiliate marketers have employed is pay per click.  Search engine ads have become popular.  When search results are displayed, appropriate keyword ads are listed in the sidebar area of the page.  Buying keywords and the chance to be ranked here can be a bit costly as a business owner.

Pay per click affiliate marketing uses some of your profits from affiliate marketing and invests them in advertising to bring more traffic to your affiliate site.  You create ads for the affiliate products using keywords that would be used when searching for that type of product.

There are some pros and cons to this strategy.

Pros:

* You are making money in two ways.  One, you are earning commissions on every conversion that results in a sale for the affiliate program.  Secondly, with the search engine PPC ads, you pay to rank and bring more traffic to the site for increased affiliate sales.

* If an affiliate allows you to use their product names in your ad and to use other programs to advertise, PPC affiliate marketing is perfect.

Cons:

* You could be losing website ranking to the affiliate site.  If your PPC ads link back to where the ads exist on your website for the customer to click on through, this can boost their website and not yours.

* Using programs like Google AdSense along with other affiliate ads on your website can reduce the performance of all of your programs.  This means fewer sales and money for you.

* PPC affiliate marketing can be expensive in the beginning and not pay off as much as you think if you don’t have the proper keywords to do the job.

What are your goals with affiliate marketing?  Pay per click affiliate marketing could be an option for you to increase traffic to your affiliate website.

Hotel Traffic Builders

www.HotelTrafficBuilders.com

Hotel & Resort Internet Marketing & Website Development by Hotel Traffic Builders

We’re visual people and we often make purchasing decisions based on an image alone.  Our vision is our primary sense and we rely on it to make quick assumptions about people and products.  This means image can play a strong role in both the branding of your business as well as your profitability.  Here are a few ideas on how to use great visuals to market your business and your products.

Tip #1  Keep it simple.  Think about the Nike swish or the golden arches.  Those two visuals represent huge conglomerations and yet they evoke a personal experience, emotion, or thought.  Logos do not have to be complicated to be effective and too much going on will detract from the effect and power of your visual.

Tip #2  Place your logo consistently and continuously. Use your logo in all of your marketing materials from advertisements to emails it’s how people will begin to associate and identify with you.

However not all images are logo images.  If you’re selling products then it pays to display those products in photos.  You aren’t likely to buy a product without seeing it and your prospects aren’t either.  However, simply placing a photo of your products on your website or in your catalog may not inspire a purchase.  Sometimes you need to finesse it a little bit.

Tip #3  When displaying products, make sure they’re prominent in your photo and use good lighting.  That means there are no other items in the picture distracting the eye and no shadows obscuring the image.  If you’re selling clothing, sometimes it helps to have it worn by a model so people can see how the item fits a real person rather than a two dimensional photo.  An attractive model also taps into your customers desire to also be attractive and can actually influence a purchase.

Tip #4  Show people enjoying your products.  Hot tubs are a great example of this strategy.  Instead of showing an empty hot tub, show it with an attractive couple holding hands or show it full of smiling people – depending on your market. 

Tip #5  Show people using your products.  Yes, a great set of colorful kitchen bowls may sell quite well with a photo of them sitting on a black marble table however what if someone is using those bowls or serving dip to a friend at a cocktail party or mixing a cake with a cute child?  Your audience and prospects are an important part of your graphics and your decisions and should represent their hopes, dreams and desires.

Images can tell a story, they can highlight the benefits and features of a product without saying a word.  They can brand a company, evoke emotions and inspire purchases.  Take the time to create a strategy with your visuals, logos, catalog images and website graphics, and reap the rewards.

Hotel Traffic Builders

www.HotelTrafficBuilders.com

Hotel & Resort Internet Marketing & Website Development by Hotel Traffic Builders

Happy About Online Networking: The virtual-ly simple way to build professional relationships
Where to buy: www.amazon.com
In her book “Happy About Online Networking” Liz Ryan explains the art of successfully creating and cultivating a professional network online. With more and more people conducting business online, the importance of online networking is growing steadily. The book introduces the importance of online etiquette to benefit from online professional relationships.

This book is for anybody, from beginner to advanced online networker. In 124 pages, the book outlines methods and tips on how to create online networks, how to benefit from online networking, how to develop your network, online network etiquette, how to cultivate your online network, how to take it “off”-line, and much more.

The author also talks about email groups, list-servs, Linkedln and social networking. The book will teach you how best to introduce yourself online and how to create an online persona as well as how to deal with problematic networking relationships. Each chapter is summarized briefly with the important key points.

The book teaches the reader how to successfully incorporate internet networking in our modern everyday business. It is a must-read for anybody conducting business online.

Hotel Traffic Builders

www.HotelTrafficBuilders.com

Hotel & Resort Internet Marketing & Website Development by Hotel Traffic Builders

It has been said that employees that are appreciated work better.  What separates these businesses from others?  It could be that they are motivated to do their best on their job.

Motivation can spur us on to do a number of things.  Kids are motivated by the big man in the red suit to be good all year in anticipation of his Christmas Eve visit.  Teens are motivated to do well in the driver’s education class by the possibility of getting to drive a car.  Many are motivated to get a job by the fact that they get a paycheck.

On the job, lack of motivation can lower the productivity of your employees.  Issues with co-workers, morale, or working conditions can outweigh the need to get a job done in the most efficient way or timeframe.  How can you change this scenario if it exists within your company?

One idea is to offer incentives.  Before you have a coronary, incentives don’t always mean money.  You might have to spend some money, but what you offer to your employees to show your appreciation could be worth more than a little extra in their paycheck.

Incentive #1 – Institute a company fitness program.  It doesn’t cost much.  The American Heart Association has a program called Start! At Work that is geared towards getting employees off their chairs and onto their feet.  Getting out in the fresh air does a lot to change a mood.  Don’t count their walking time as a break or their lunch.  Offer a walk break separate from that in the name of good health. 

Incentive #2 – Offer employee recognition.  If an employee has been working at or above standard or going the extra mile with their work, let them and the entire office know.  A monthly recognition program goes a long way towards showing your employees that you appreciate all that they do. 

Incentive #3 – Hold monthly meetings.  Meetings are for more than talking about the status of projects in the office.  Set aside time for employees to openly talk about concerns that they have.  You may have to set rules for these meetings such as confidentiality of everything said.  If you have several departments in your company, the meetings can be a departmental exercise to keep it small and private.

Incentive #4 – Be flexible with employees.  We all have issues that come up at one time or another.  For example, if an employee needs to come in an hour later due to a childcare issue, instead of reprimanding them for it, offer another schedule that they can work with.  You might find that these conditions allow for more to get done during the day when some are in the office early and some later in the day.

It is the little things that mean so much.  Employees that feel their work is commended and their efforts appreciated will go above and beyond to get the work done for their employer.

Hotel Traffic Builders

www.HotelTrafficBuilders.com

Hotel & Resort Internet Marketing & Website Development by Hotel Traffic Builders