#20. Recruitment & Promotional Ideas

A great way to get people familiar with your site is to give them the opportunity to shop on the site. Affiliates will most likely be more willing to be excited about a product or company if they have gone through the process of being a customer. What better way to back up your “Great costumer service” claims than by having people live through your shopping experience first hand.

Similarly, if you will have space in your bag, or if your company is exhibiting where you will have an area at the conference to lay out or display product, bring some along! Often times, there is no better spokesperson for the program than the product itself. This is especially true if you have a product that is unique or that can be best explained in person. Tangible products have a way of adding a nice wow factor.

This image is from a promotion we did years back, but I still think it was a fun idea. Basically, we did a fish bowl drawing where Affiliates had the chance to win one of five prizes that included various commission rates or a product giveaway.
Remember, increased commissions can be automatically managed using personalized commission rules. If you would like to set up special commission tiers like those listed above, you would first utilize the auto tag system to create a special recruitment link for new Affiliates you meet at the conference. This link will automatically tag Affiliates that click through that link provided. Second, commission rules can be made to provide an increased commission for Affiliates identified with a specific tag. Some examples could be:
– 5% increased commission for first 30 days.
– $2 Bonus on every sale through the end of the year
– Double commission for the sale of seasonally relevant or best sellers.

Some other ideas for a competition could include a QR code to direct Affiliates to a prize page, candy wrappers (que Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), scratch off cards, games (high score winners), stuffed animals with prizes tucked inside.

Another nice way to offer high potential prospects a compelling reason to partner with you is to provide them with exclusive creative. Something that will be special just for them which will give them a leg up on the competition. Inside your ShareASale account, you’ll notice an option to make creatives either public or private. If you would like to extend a private creative, just select that Affiliate’s user ID number under the private option. Some ideas for exclusive creative include:
– Coupon codes
– Personalized banners
– Text links (text links could also be used as long form content)
– Gift guide widget
Some additional ideas for creative that would be independently created (outside your ShareASale account) could include:
– Custom landing pages
– Product storefronts
– Keyword lists

Muster up some exposure for business through conference participation. Morgan previously talked about some ways to find networking opportunities . Depending on your budget, it might make sense to explore sponsorships or exhibiting options as well. The idea is you want to generate some buzz and brand recognition. If you are active in pre-conference conversations, people will most likely remember your name when they meet you in person. Or you can use your own newsletter and blog to announce your conference promotion to build some anticipation. Another idea would be to get your product to conference attendees ahead of the show – this is especially helpful if the product is something they could use while at the conference. A great example of this: one of our merchants had bloggers design their own personalized phone case prior to a show. The bloggers in turn were very excited about their new design and not only wrote about it on their blog, but discussed them with other bloggers once they were at the show in turn causing a lot of exposure for the brand.