Christmas is Coming, Whether you Like it or Not!
We’re not even a stone’s throw away from November which means Christmas is quite literally just around the corner.
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly Christmas comes round once you’ve passed the age of receiving toys and when you actually have to start buying gifts for family members, who soon start to produce more members!
Christmas is paramount for every retailer that’s when the majority of them take the bulk of cash for the year and that’s when they need to sell the most. That’s why they have to use every part of the retail mix to ensure they maximise their revenue.
One of the easiest and most cost effective ways is through their affiliate marketing programmes and planning for Christmas means knowing what your key products are for the season – both in terms of gift buying and personal shopping for the party season – understanding who is buying them and giving them the help and encouragement to buy from you and ensuring your affiliates want to help you do well.
Happy affiliates mean a happy Christmas
Here are a few tips, they’re not mind blowingly groundbreaking just common-sense tips which we all should be following.
What are your top products?
You must know what your top sellers are, or at least what you expect them to be. Tell your affiliates. They aren’t working just for you and they don’t have access to all your stock information. Tell your affiliates why these are your top products and tell them what accessories, additional items they may want to push alongside these products. Affiliates aren’t stupid but they’re not mind readers either – give them the info they need to push your products.
What promotions are you running for customers?
Not everyone’s cup of tea but if you’re doing any promotions or offering special services for Christmas such as free delivery or returns or a special courier service which will allow them to order right up until the day before Christmas eve tell you affiliates. These guys give your brand and products so much more reach and will have new customers who might just try your product because of the service you are offering. If you want people to buy you have to tell them what you’re offering and this extends much further than your own site!
What are you doing to encourage your affiliates to push your site?
As we’ve said before, affiliates are working for more than just you and just like anything else they will work harder for the people that offer them the best deal. That doesn’t just mean the highest commission but the highest conversion, additional incentives such as competitions where they can win a prize or extra commission for improving their sales, or just giving them the tools they need to push your products as simply and easily as possible!
The point of all this – use all your channels effectively otherwise you are just wasting the money you spend on setting them up. As with everything in life, you only get out what you put in!