Promoting Your Syndication Offers and Getting Affiliates
Congratulations! You've launched an internet TV channel and you are ready to syndicate. So where are the affiliates? We receive more questions about affiliate recruitment than any other topic. This Brightcove Primer will provide you with some basic recruitment best practices as well as some strategic guidance on how to effectively promote your affiliate program to prospective affiliates.
First, Cover the Basics...
There are some simple things you can do right away to begin attracting affiliates to your program:
- Optimize Your Promotional URL - When you enabled syndication for a player in the Brightcove console, you also generated a URL to a promotional web page that provides affiliates with key information regarding your syndication offer. You can use this URL to attract affiliates and encourage them to become a member of your affiliate program. It is important to make sure that you take every opportunity to optimize the content within your promotional link. When you created the syndication offer, you were given the opportunity to provide thumbnails, descriptions, and stills to describe your content and offer. These promotional descriptions could mean the difference between the success of attracting an active affiliate and the failure of turning away a potential distribution partner.
- Include a Call-To-Action on the Homepage of your Site - If you look at all the successful affiliate programs on the internet today, you will notice that all of them set aside some room on their homepage for a link to their affiliate program. Analysis has shown that prospective affiliates that are already familiar with your site and your brand are more likely to become active participants in your program once they have signed up. Take advantage of that and engage interested affiliates while they are exploring your site.
- Other Call-To-Action Ideas - Place your call-to-action on your email signature line and encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same. Make sure that your syndication offers are referenced in your monthly newsletter or bulletins. Your visitors are a great source of affiliates and the consistent presence of your offer will pay off. Finally, consider placing a call-to-action for your syndicated players on your own players. You'll enlist the power of your network to recruit new affiliates! But be careful. Affiliates won't always appreciate being used to help drum up their own "competition" and might be turned off if you go overboard on player-based promotion.
...Then Get Strategic
Once you have the basics squared away, it's time to think strategically about how you will recruit affiliates and grow a loyal network of partners.
- Refine Your Syndication Offer - Your syndication offer is hands down the most important part of attracting successful affiliates. A worthwhile practice is to take a moment and put yourself in your affiliate's shoes. Ask yourself, "Would I take time out of my day to participate in the offer?" Is the value apparent? Has it been articulated? Is the ROI clear? Have the players and content been managed well?
- Segment Your Customers - You know your viewers better than anyone else. Use that knowledge to strike strategic deals with those who influence or aggregate your target viewer.
- Segment Your Affiliates - You can segment your affiliates to help you address their needs. Consider developing players and content for different niches and site designs. You can provide different experiences based on an affiliate's target audience and goals.
- Take advantage of the Brightcove Syndication Marketplace - Today, affiliates will discover your syndication offer(s) through the Syndication Marketplace and your Promotional URL-based activities. Read our best practice document entitled, 'How Can Affiliates Find You?' for tips on optimizing these promotional methods.
