How to Effectively Alienate Affiliates

by Shawn Collins on January 18, 2009

I came across a post on the Kikabink News blog, “How NOT To Treat Affiliates (You Won’t Believe This…),” that serves up a great example of poor communication from an affiliate manager.

In this case, the affiliate received an email regarding trademark bidding on DISH Network and related terms.

It’s a fairly typical message that affiliate managers have to send out to remind affiliates of the terms of their affiliate program.

Example of poor communication by an affiliate manager

But the execution here is so poor that it runs the risk of alienating affiliates. Some issues that should be addressed by this affiliate manager, in my opinion, are…

The tone – these terms don’t apply to all affiliates, and you’ve clearly offended one or more affiliates
Lack of salutations – you have their names in your database, so use them and include a little greeting like “hi”
Subject should include company name – affiliates get volumes of email from affiliates programs
Format the email – you didn’t send a test to yourself, did you?
Content – opening and closing with… “This is a mandatory communication regarding contractual DISH Network updates” – is that a message from your boss to you?

I would urge affiliate managers, and really all affiliate marketers, to read Words That Work by Frank Luntz.

The subtitle of the book says it all: “It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear.”

{ 9 comments }

Shawn Collins January 20, 2009 at 4:54 pm: I think it's short-sighted to dump low activity affiliates – clearly, they are engaged, so they should be concentrated on to see how they can be ramped up, rather than chased away.
Paul January 20, 2009 at 4:16 pm: Hey Shawn,
I agree with Jonathan. Why do affiliate managers dump affiliates who has not shown sales in the last 3 months? That is very irritating to me. My opinion is that when you post a link, it is with the hopes that you can make a sale. You just cannot force people to buy from your links if they don't want too.
Matt January 19, 2009 at 10:11 pm: The problem I seem to have with merchants is lack of effort on their part, which is apparent when you apply for their program and they do not approve or deny your request for months… very frustrating.
Affiliate Advice January 19, 2009 at 6:40 pm: Hey Shawn,

I'm seeing a lot of this lately from affiliate managers. And I still haven't been able to get one to respond to why you would ever completely dump a non-producing affiliate, rather than segmenting them into a "non-productive affiliates" category.

http://www.affiliateadvice.us/affiliate_philosoph…

Any thoughts on why an affiliate manager would dump an affiliate who's not shown sales in the last 3 months?

As always Shawn, thanks for being a great voice of reason, and thanks for the book recommendation as well. Have heard about t a couple of times now… so I guess it's time to pick it up.

Warmest,

Jonathan
Aamir January 19, 2009 at 5:59 pm: This is the way I see it. An affiliate is is doing you a favour (I know they are getting paid for it) but they are under no contractual agreement to push your program. They are not employed by you, and at the same time have the option to run 100s of different programs.

I have found where possible, ask you affiliates what they want, and I agree with the post above, with good news tell everybody, bad news tell those who are effected.
vince_virzi January 19, 2009 at 2:51 pm: The problems with programs like these are thinking they are the center of the universe. Affiliate Managers need to reach out to these individual affiliates and express there concern. The biggest mistake and affiliate manager makes is using words like you, I, never, do not or removed. If a problem is that bad then it is addressed to that particular affiliate and not to all of your affiliates. I have always found that is never a good idea to address all of your affiliates unless you have something good to say. You grow a program by having great communication and understanding YOUR affiliates GOALS, never assume anything and listen you might learn something from your affiliates.
Heather H. January 18, 2009 at 9:57 pm: One of my mantras in life is, "There are a thousand ways to say anything." That particular communication is hovering around #945. Goodness.
Shawn Collins January 18, 2009 at 9:33 pm: See the post I linked to above – http://www.kikabink.com/news/806/how-not-to-treat…- you can see it full-sized there.
jtGraphic January 18, 2009 at 9:26 pm: I can't read the email. it's too small