Having racked up experience at affiliate management firm PartnerCentric, as well as serving as a contractor for Microsoft’s iSEM team, Heather also sits on the boards of the Affiliate Summit and Affiliate Classroom.

During our discussion, Heather talked about:

• Issues and considerations for merchants adding affiliate marketing as a new component to their marketing strategy
• Advantages and disadvantages of using an outsourced affiliate program agency compared to hiring an in-house affiliate manager
• How affiliate managers can enhance programs they manage with some best-of-breed industry practises
• Tips for better affiliate project management (from the affiliate and affiliate manager perspective)
• An insight into how super affiliates operate and key strategies and techniques they use
• How affiliates can get more out of working with their affiliate managers
• Resources for affiliate marketers and tips for growing and scaling your business

Check out the podcast below:

Links:

• Paulson Management Group
• Heather on Twitter

Heather Paulson

Affiliates are constantly bombarded with the “highest payouts, best offers” line that too many affiliate managers fall into using whether out of habit, laziness or a combination of both.

So it’s a breath of fresh air to get useful information to enhance my network of sites from Heather at the sidelines of the recent Affiliate Summit West 2009.

Here’re some hallmarks of a successful affiliate recruitment and management campaign:

• Step 1: Get to know the affiliate – Paradoxically for some managers, the first step should not be an email from the contact me page, with the opening line “Would you like to make thousands of dollars a month from our highly optimized and proven affiliate offers?”. Wait a minute, I don’t recognize your name nor the merchant. Most of all, your product or service isn’t even one that I’m in. You’ve just wasted your time in mailing me and my time in skimming over and deleting your email.
• Step 2: Do your homework – Unless you have a stealth/underground affiliate on your hands, everyone leaves virtual “footprints” whether it’s through their blog, forum participation or social network profile. Even if they don’t have any of these, you can still recce the affiliate IRC channels or platforms like twitter, or even hearsay from other affiliates. During my past life as a journalist, I was able to sniff out the dotcoms teetering on the edge of collapse by keeping my ear to the ground. I didn’t have tools from the likes of Syntrx to aid in my research.
• Step 3: Engage the affiliates: Building friendships with affiliate is not mandatory, but it will go a long way in creating a long term business relationship. Most of us are more willing to stick up for and help a friend, rather than an “associate”. I haven’t had a need for this yet, but I have heard some affiliates even approach their affiliate manager for dating or relationship advice (maybe a consequence of too much time working on your campaigns and ignoring your significant other?).
• Step 4: Equip your affiliates with the right tools: A number of forward thinking networks and agencies have in-house creatives teams which create custom graphics, landing pages for their affiliates. Some even offer the use of high end multivariate testing tools to their affiliates during the affiliate’s campaign optimization efforts. I mentioned in a recent interview that affiliate marketing has matured a great deal since it’s inception in the 1990s, and affiliate managers need to engage affiliates because at the end of the day, it’s going to be a win-win relationship all around.

The speakers for the workshop element of the Affiliate Summit have been selected, and I’ll be moderating a session “Affiliate Bloggers Speak Out: Tips on SEO, PPC and Sales Conversion” at the upcoming Affiliate Summit which is from Jan 11-13 in Las Vegas next year.

Together with me for the session will be the panelists:

Affiliate Bloggers Speak Out Panelists: (Left to Right)Nickycakes, Geordie Carswell, Miles Baker

This’ll be a great session not only because the three panels are highly skilled affiliate marketers, but they have very different strengths too. Although Nickycakes and Geordie (former affiliate network Revenuewire CEO turned affiliate) use PPC (pay per click) in their traffic generation efforts, there’s a number of differences in their methods, while Miles Baker uses powerful SEO techniques.

We’ll likely be collecting questions for the session a couple of weeks before the summit, so you can get your burning questions answered.

Stay tuned!

PS: I’ve also heard that the other speakers at the summit include affiliate management firm’s Paulson Management Group founder and president Heather Paulson will be presenting a session on “Advanced Affiliate Management Strategies”, while top affiliate John Hasson will be “Automating Websites and PPC Management” (a technical session which will provide you with massive leverage in your business).

The Affiliate Summit continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Be sure to check it out.

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If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out these Friday Podcast sessions:

• NickyCakes
• Miles Baker
• Geordie Carswell
• John Hasson