affiliate reps... your opinions?

[basschick]

i've seen threads pop up at various boards about affiliate reps, mostly complaining that the reps at various programs don't seem to know anything about the sites in the program they rep for or anything about the adult industry. i admit that it's always interesting when i write to a rep to ask a question about the content in a site member area only to hear back that they have no idea. or when they have no idea what a fhg is - that's happened to me twice.

i want to be fair to those reps. the programs that hired them threw them out there without any specific knowledge. but even if it's not the actual fault of the reps, for me personally, i don't see how effective a rep that doesn't seem to know much about the industry or the program they work for can be.

but there does seem to be another point of view. some programs simply want reps to get out there and get more affiliates. they give them a minimum or quota, so in a way they're not really reps, although they are expected to do repping - they're mostly paid for being sig whores.

do you think that is particularly effective? i mean, it doesn't really tempt me to promote a program when the rep seem to know anything. it doesn't lead me to believe that that company is going to have their rep spend time helping affiliates.

am i missing something? is there a reason to have reps who aren't familiar with our industry?

[abostonboy]

In all actuality this happens quite a bit. I don't really understand it at all.

If an affiliate wants to know something about anything in the site that I work for, I would be ashamed of myself if I couldn't answer the question. One of the very first things that I did was pull referring urls from the past six months to see what videos made the sales.

Getting affiliates is easy. Convincing them to promote you once they signup is a little harder. Working with them once they decide to market your site is where the fun begins.

The hardest part that I have with affiliates is actually opening a line of communication where I can actually get to work with them on a more personal level. Usually a random email like "Regarding your BlakeMason account" gets few replies. But a quick thank you for the sales can start a nice conversation. As can asking a crazy question on our affiliate newsletter. When I mentioned that the newsletter was delayed due to IE8 at least 5 affiliates i had never been able to get to reply to my emails suddenly replied.

For me being an affiliate rep is helping the affiliate close the sale. If our site is not working on a spot for an affiliate, I will tell them that maybe a different site will work better. They respect that.

Getting affiliates was pretty easy. I just went down my icq list around the holidays and gave everyone a pw to the site as a "gift". Half became affiliates.

To me it's all about knowing the industry, knowing your site, establishing a connection with the affiliates, and earning their trust. If they trust you then they are more open to "crazy" ideas you may have that may help them close the sale.

And a little thank you once in a while goes a long way!