Heya! You've landed on the internet business blog of Angela Wills. I blog about solopreneur-ism, small business, affiliate marketing and more! 
How Not to Recruit Affiliates
I recently received an email titled ‘JV Proposal’. Now, the idea of someone looking for affiliates and putting JV in the subjectline doesn’t overly offend me since an affiliate program is in fact a type of joint-venture.
The person who emailed me went on to suggest I snap up this offer quickly because they are partnering with a ‘exclusive’ group in order to give ME the greatest return on my endorsement. It’s pretty insulting to my intelligence of them to assume I don’t realize I’m not the only person they contacted for this ‘JV’ Request.
JV by the way, stands for Joint Venture if you haven’t heard this term before.
The email was long and drawn out. It covered a lot of information and wasted a lot of time talking about information I didn’t need to know. Of course it did provide a great example for an affiliate manager of what not to do.
Here are some things I would consider not appropriate for the first contact with a potential affiliates:
No mention of how he knows me – The email was obviously a form message that was being used for everyone. There was no indication of my name or my website name and how this product could provide REAL benefit to my subscribers and visitors.
Exclusive Offer – As I mentioned above it just insults my intelligence to assume I don’t already know he’s contacting other people about this.
Taking About Cookies – In the email I get a little lesson on what cookies are (and they’re not made with chocolate chips!) and how they’re used to track affiliate links. When you’re emailing a potential prospect about joining your affiliate program it really isn’t the time or place to try to educate them on how an affiliate program works.
Links to Website or Program Too Many Times – Look, if I’m interested in this JV Proposal I can find the link. He’s linked to either the salespage or the affiliate signup link four times in one email. That’s just way too excessive and simply annoying. If you email someone about your JV a single link in the appropriate spot is all that’s needed.
Free Money – Now something that really made me wonder ‘what the heck’ was an offer of free money. In the email I was told that just for signing up I’d get an immediate $20 in my paypal account. This is actually an interesting strategy and could be effective if implemented the right way. You certainly don’t want to just pay anyone and everyone $20 to sign up to your affiliate account as that could end up costing you a lot of money. A little $20 bonus into the affiliates paypal account could go a long way to motivate a select group.
If you’re going to email total strangers asking them to promote your product you need to make it personal, get straight to the point and don’t waste their time.
Great post Angela. Sounds like a really slimy proposal!
Thanks Christie! Yea I mean it’s not hard to understand there’s a real person on the other end of those affiliate recruitment emails you’re sending.
I know this is a pretty extreme case but still some things to think about when sending out requests.
Amen! You tell ‘em Angela.
I mean….ICK! Shower anyone?