Managing Affiliate Programs

A recent post at Inside Poker Central was dedicated to the benefits of being an Independent Marketing Representative ("Affiliate" in the online world), and making referral commission income based on your ability to effectively promote other's products, services, events and membership programs.

And there's yet another way to profit from Affiliate Marketing, that's reserved for only a few of the best "people managers."

The position is referred to as an "Affiliate Manager," and it's not about doing Affiliate Marketing yourself. It's about managing an entrepreneur's or a company's Affiliate Program on behalf of that entrepreneur or company.

Affiliate Managers can be compensated by hourly wages, salaries, and/or by earning a portion of the Affiliate Income that can be directly traced to their performance as a manager of the Affiliate Program and the team of Affiliates.

How much you might expect to earn will depend on everything from your experience in managing people and in dealing with the online technologies associated with managing any particular Affiliate Program, to how much time is expected of you, to how many Affiliates are in the program, to how much income you help generate or the amount by which you increase revenue by virtue of your management of the Affiliate Program.

In essence, there are four basic duties of an Affiliate Manager:

1. Find qualified affiliates (“independent marketers").

This is an ongoing process, and there is often an initial “push” that needs to happen to get the Affiliate program moving more swiftly if it's new or needs a boost.

2. Consistently teaching and training affiliates to make more money by promoting more of the entrepreneur's or company's products, services, enrollments, etc. more often.

Some Affiliate Managers do their training "live" via teleconferencing and/or Webinars. Affiliate Managers are often called upon to develop and do their own training, but other experts can be called upon to add value to an in-house training program."

Much training can be automated, but in order to make this happen there is time early in the process that must be devoted to set-up, and then time that must be devoted to keeping up with automating the training process as new things are added.

3. Creating and maintaining an Affiliate “resource center.”

As with automated training, once built, an Affiliate Center should run automatically, but some time will need to be devoted to keeping it updated and current.

4. Consistently creating ideas for new ways to promote.

Affiliate Managers must often follow the promotional schedule created by other people in their organization who are responsible for marketing. But a good Affiliate Manager will also be suggesting and creating new promotional opportunities based on upcoming events, “holiday” and “special event (e.g. the World Series of Poker in the poker world) promotions, etc., in order to keep up the energy for Affiliates throughout the calendar year.

For many Affiliate Managers, thinking up, developing, and managing creative promotions is one of the most fun and rewarding parts of playing this role.

Although much is happening in the poker world because of its recent rise in popularity, there remain rather few opportunities to become an Affiliate Manager. With changes in the law regarding online gaming / poker, there are many fewer opportunities to become an Affiliate Manager for those kinds of companies.

This post is not without a self-serving purpose…

As of 18 March, 2008, Inside Poker Central, the International Poker Institute and the International Poker Education Network are currently seeking a highly motivated Affiliate Manager to put together a team of Affiliates to promote "virtual" and on-site poker education and entertainment products, services, events and membership programs.

This program is unique in that it represents an opportunity for poker affiliates and other Affiliate Marketers to promote non-gaming, non-gambling poker-related products and services, for which there is currently little competition in the marketplace, making this a desirable add-on to what poker Affiliates and Affiliate Marketers are already promoting.

Visit www.My-IPCentral.com/affiliates for more information or to apply for this exciting opportunity.