Another beautiful summer is upon us, signified by long sunny days, BBQs with friends, fun on the beach, and affiliate program success. If your sales are lower than average during the summer, it doesn’t have to just be “the way it is.” It’s normal to see a drop in sales when everybody’s on vacation and not thinking about buying digital goods. Speaking specifically about affiliate channels, we see on average a drop of about 20% in the summer months compared to the rest of the year. The good news is; this trend can be changed.
Here are 6 tips you can implement during the summer months (June – August) to prepare for a strong rise in affiliate sales starting September:
- Run summer campaigns with your affiliates. Engage them in various marketing activities to keep them on their toes and motivate them to keep up with sales. Here are some examples of things to leverage: product end-of-life sales, new product launches, network contests, etc.
This will bring you some incremental sales as well as build awareness for new products. - Attend affiliate marketing oriented conferences. In June there is PMI Europe and in August there’s the well-known Affiliate Summit East. Speaking of Affiliate Summit East – are you coming to New York this August? We’ll be there – booth #113 in the Meet Market, and I will also be presenting on affiliate retention techniques.
Great opportunity for networking at these events with the participant mix being on average 50% agencies and networks, 25% affiliates/publishers and 25% merchants/advertisers. - Monetize the Back To School season. Back to School season starts in August, and, if you’re selling B2C products and services, it’s a great time to leverage their need this time of year and run campaigns on your affiliate channel. Think coupons, academic type licenses, bundles and dedicated creatives as marketing tools.
You should see incremental sales from these timely-ran, seasonal activities. - Communicate with your affiliates. Don’t just use trade shows for your networking and communication outlet. If you’re not in touch with your affiliates on a regular basis, create a survey and find out what your affiliate partners are looking for from you to promote your products and what new ideas they might have to help.
Maintaining communication with your affiliates leads to greater brand/product awareness with your partners, making it easier for them to sell, which translates into more sales for you. - Localize products with the help of affiliates. To penetrate certain markets, best practices state that you have a higher chance if your product and website are localized. Use affiliates to help localize your products/website (and motivate them accordingly) so that the autumn season finds you prepared for new audiences in new locales.
This will help your local SEO efforts, as well as the visitor-to-purchase conversion rate. - Take a step back and look at your overall affiliate program performance. Use these long days of summer to review your sales trends, understand your exposure, and analyze the profiles of your top affiliates. Revisit your affiliate program terms & conditions, understanding that in order to maximize your earnings, you may need to adjust the terms for particular industries/verticals. For example, if you don’t see a lot of SEM affiliates promoting your products/services, you may want to look over your SEM policies and adjust them to be more inclusive.
Understanding where your sales come from, who drives them, and the terms that best support you and your affiliates will give you a better idea of the health of your affiliate program as well as highlight opportunities for you to better align the program to your business objectives.
Summer is in full swing, so take the time to implement these 6 tips.
Remember to keep your affiliates active and engaged during the summer. Ping them about conferences and events they might be attending and consider meeting them so you can discuss program goals together.
Make the most out of the soon-to-be-upon-us Back to School season and drive sales and interest with timely activities. Localize products and websites for maximum market penetration and seek out your affiliates for help and best practices.
And finally, take this opportunity to assess the overall health of your affiliate program. Try these 6 tips and see your sales and your affiliates succeed.
Let me know some of your favorite summer-time affiliate wellness activities. Comment below.
