Recruitment outside of networks & promotional speak

[justgowithit]

I'm tasked with getting an in-house affiliate program off the ground.

I'm looking to bypass the recurring expense of networks, but am hitting a roadblock when it comes to recruitment. I've gone the route of paid listing with prominent directories but those seem to be somewhat useless. I think my next step will be a paid post over at ABestWeb.

We've got a great program going as far as conversion rates and commission, but our literature is not full of “we'll make you rich overnight” B.S. promotional speak. I'm starting to think that's what brings in affiliates.

Anyway, without further ado – I've got a couple questions and I'd really appreciate some input from you affiliates out there.

Do you view in-house programs less favorably than those through networks?

Outside of networks, how do you find advertisers to work with?

Do you prefer a pragmatic program presentation or one with marketing speak?

[succeedemail]

Do you view in-house programs less favorably than those through networks?

No, and in fact sometimes more favorably. Under the thinking that a company running their own affiliate program is larger, more reputable, etc. That is as long as it passes a quick smell test when you take a look around at their tracking and everything else.

Outside of networks, how do you find advertisers to work with?

Depends on the niche. Sometimes just Google a product/niche/service and start checking out companies. Or make that easier by searching widgets+affiliate and see if anything pops up.

Also by looking into competitor's websites, seeing who is advertising from and where those ads come from.

Do you prefer a pragmatic program presentation or one with marketing speak?

I like someone to keep it real. But of course, to sell anything you need to talk yourself up, point out some great examples of success, use testimonials, etc. You can do all of that and preface it easily to tone it down "Now this isn't guaranteed, but if you put the hard work yadda yadda".

[justgowithit]

Thanks for the response. You've made some points that I hadn't fully considered and caused a few mental sparks.

Until now, I've been the affiliate - not the advertiser. While my experience as an affiliate has helped tremendously, there's a lot to learn on this side of the coin too.

I'll look into your suggestion of reverse engineering the competition. I've considered it along the same lines of keyword mining, but we're in a highly competitive service-based industry where I've got doubts about the effectiveness of such an approach. With any luck, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Like many things in business, the hardest part is building the momentum from a stand still and gathering those first producers to use in marketing media such as testimonials.