Your affiliate program’s success depends on a variety of aspects: your products, your affiliates, and their skills. The program’s performance also depends on the type of promotional materials your affiliates have at their disposal.
While affiliates usually know what sort of topic-related content their audience likes, creating quality materials to promote your products can be challenging and take up a lot of their time. Wouldn’t affiliates’ work be so much easier if they could be given branded materials to use on their social media or blogs?
Sadly, some affiliate product owners are pretty slow when it comes to making and sharing promotional materials. They either leave the creation of promo materials to affiliates or only provide basic product information and add a few photos.
Meanwhile, having one place where affiliates can find high-quality, branded marketing materials is a great way to improve affiliates’ productivity. But which affiliate marketing materials are the most useful for your marketers? Have a look at our list of the top six promotional materials that will benefit your affiliates.
1. Images and graphics
Using images and graphics in blog posts or reviews is a proven way to catch people’s attention much faster compared to a long wall of text. But what types of images? Stock photos? While companies use stock photos often and find them useful, website visitors can quickly spot them and then ignore the rest of the content. Having original photos or branded graphics, on the other hand, allows you to show your product or service from the best side possible and gives your visitors the information they need.
The question is, where should your affiliates get these photos from? While it is a widespread practice for affiliates to create photos or screenshots of a product themselves, it’s not always the best idea. Spending time on this task or looking for good graphics online might mean less time for affiliates to create content for their page and even less for building relationships with their audience.
That’s why it’s worth thinking about creating an inventory of product images and graphics. By having an inventory of ready made graphics your affiliates can put them to use on their blogs or social media straight away. With such assets available at their fingertips, your affiliates can focus on promoting your products.
And thanks to that, you can also be sure that the promotional materials your marketers use fit your brand image. And how does it benefit you? You won’t have to spend time reviewing and approving affiliate materials before they’re published
2. Various types of banners
While “banner blindness” has caused banner ads to lose some of their power, they are still among the most popular types of affiliate assets. Why?
Banners can be created quickly, and there are countless ways in which they can be customized. Adding affiliate links to them is a breeze, and if made well, they can quickly catch the attention of website visitors. If you want to present information to your users in an eye-catching way while also encouraging them to take action, banners are a good choice.
There are many types of banners you can use for your marketing needs. For example, Post Affiliate Pro offers unique types of banners such as Lightbox banners (which automatically appear on top of the page) and Peel banners, in addition to basic HTML banners.
And to avoid making your visitors or followers tired of seeing the same banners, you can use Post Affiliate Pro’s Banner Rotator feature. With it, you can keep changing the banners every time a blog reader or visitor lands on your page so that they won’t be shown the same banner more than once.
3. Case studies, testimonials, and other forms of social proof
Who are you more likely to believe when looking for a product recommendation, a company’s ad, or an unbiased customer review? Probably the latter. 92% of consumers are more likely to trust non-paid recommendations such as reviews than any form of advertising.
Testimonials, reviews, and case studies can be incredibly useful for helping potential customers make the right decisions. They are invaluable sources for information about the product from people who have already used it. Such content explains how the product works, what it can be used for, its main highlights, and shortcomings.
So why not use positive reviews to promote your affiliate program? Suppose you have reviews, testimonials, or case studies about how your customers solved various problems using your product or service. In that case, they should be added to the list of promotional materials for your affiliates.
4. Video content
Internet users love all types of video content – whether it’s a review, vlog, or tutorial. Through videos, they can see how a product works, what others have used it for, and how they can use it themselves to solve a problem they have. No wonder videos are one of the most popular content types across the globe And they can be especially helpful for SaaS products.
Through a tutorial video, followers can quickly learn how to use an app or software to complete a task or solve a problem step-by-step. Showing your viewers how specific options look like and where they are located will also make it easier for people to find and use later on.
Moreover, videos can also be shared easily. If you post them on a video platform like YouTube, Vimeo, or social media channels, you can expect them to be shared by your followers. This way, you can show your video (and your product) to far more people and potentially find new customers.
5. Coupons
Coupons are one of the most commonly used incentives simply because people love feeling like they are getting a great deal. Affiliate program owners use coupons very often since they are easy to create – either as banners or as graphic coupons to be used on social media. Coupons can also be quickly distributed among affiliates and tracked even without affiliate links or cookies. Elements like QR codes with logos can be used on the coupons to drive leads from affiliate coupons to your webpages, enabling acquisition, along with associated customer and campaign data tracking.
Once a customer uses a coupon, you’ll immediately have the most essential information about the purchase. You’ll know which affiliate they were referred by, what promotion the coupon is for, and even precise details about when the purchase was made. And there’s no limit to how many sets of coupons you can create. With Post Affiliate Pro, you can create exclusive coupons for each of your affiliates or have a different set of coupons for each current discount sale.
6. Brand guide
One of the best things you can give to your affiliates at the start of their work is a brand guide. Such a document covers all the basics they need to know before promoting your products. While it’s impossible to cover all possible topics, questions, and issues, a brand guide is a great place to describe your business and products, address frequently asked questions, or to provide a short tutorial for the tools and widgets that your affiliates will use.
A brand guide is also an excellent place to include content-related guidelines for your affiliates. Guidelines may cover concepts like: the colors and fonts you use, keywords affiliates should include, how to use brand logos, plus the main rules for creating and using affiliate links.
Conclusion
The results of your affiliate marketing depends on the assets your affiliates have access to. If they have to find and create promotional materials from scratch, they are wasting a lot of time that they could use for promoting your product. What’s more, they also have no guarantee whether their materials will fit your brand.
Meanwhile, providing them with high-quality marketing creatives will not only empower them to do their best and improve their marketing results, but it might even convince new affiliates to join your program. With Post Affiliate Pro, you can give affiliates a variety of assets while protecting them against fraudulent use.
So, what’s holding you back from getting creative with affiliate promotional materials? Try it today!
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