Working in affiliate marketing, it may be rare that you see your customers, clients, or team members face to face. Connections can be harder to establish and harder to keep when your customers are far away. While this can be daunting for some businesses, affiliate marketing can still thrive even if you’re not meeting with people in-person. Here are tips to manage and leverage long distance communications for affiliate marketing success.
Frequent Communication
Frequent communication is an important way to nurture business relationships from far away. Thanks to all the options available for instant communication these days, frequent communication doesn’t have to be a scheduled phone call. Consider reaching out with weekly personalized emails. Schedule a monthly conference call with your team using free conference call services. Depending on your relationship, texting may also be a good option to stay connected with some of your clients and team members. Also consider a Facebook or LinkedIn group to connect with many people at once. Well-timed posting on these social media sites and groups lets your customers and team members know you’re there for them and engaged with the business.
On-Call Availability
Communication is a two way street and that means that you won’t always be the one putting out messaging, sometimes your client needs to talk to you. A good way to make sure you’re available for your client is to set up on-call hours. These are blocks of time where you will be near your phone and available to take a call from clients or customers about anything. These on-call hours ensure you can give your client or customer the time they need and promises to them that you’ll be there. You can offer these hours once a week, or daily, but do try to offer them more frequently than once a month.
Video
Video is a powerful way to build connections when you can be in the same place as someone. Consider using video from the start of your interaction with a new customer. Do this by creating videos that share more about your product or offer tutorials on how to use it. Once you’ve established a relationship, consider video chatting tools like FaceTime or Google Hangouts. These can easily replace phone calls and allow for a more authentic feel for interactions. This can also be helpful to show a client or customer how to use a product in real time.
Strong Product
A strong product always makes building connections that much easier. If you sell a strong product or rely on it for referrals, people will have a great sense of trust in you right away. This also means your interactions are usually positive as opposed to negative phone calls complaining about the product. Choose the right company with the right offerings to ensure a strong product helps you build a strong relationship.
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