Skim Off Christmas Incentives & Help Sponsor New Affiliates?
Posted under: How much money do you think Christmas incentives are costing merchants and networks this year? All in all it’s going to amass to tens of thousands of pounds! Now, this blog post isn’t about stopping those incentives, but a suggestion to skim them a little to help and/or reward newbie affiliates in the coming year.
It’s often easy to forget that many newbies starting out don’t have a pool of cash for travel, hotels etc and that can put them off taking important steps into industry. Now some may argue that if new affiliates seriously want to get involved they should pay their way, fair enough, but surely a little bit of assistance for those who are worthy of it could be beneficial?
Now the counter argument is that any affiliate could and should write off travel and hotels as expenses, but even so initial outlays for travel and accommodation can be expensive once tickets are bought. And hey, what’s better than attending an affiliate event? Attending an event for free!
It’s great that a merchant is perhaps sending several of their affiliates off on a holiday, but what if that merchant stuck a few hundred quid in a pot to help support one of their up and coming affiliates rather than load up the same old folk with iPods and Wiis?
Similarly it’s generous of networks to offer cash prizes or parties or send out gifts at this time of year, but again what if they stuck a few hundred quid aside from these budgets to help give a new affiliate a bit of help?
Even if 10% was skimmed off all the value of the incentives put on offer at this time of year alone it surely could amount to a couple of thousand pounds. That may not sound much, but that money could then be useful in helping new affiliates attend events like A4UExpo. Call it an investment in the future affiliates if you like.
Many new guys and girls are part time, often with families, and attending affiliate events, like Expo or even just attending meetings in London, can be costly for them in terms of overheads and in days off work. Even with something as basic as supplementing some travel or hotel costs (they can buy their own ticket perhaps) may be the difference in an up and coming affiliate attending or deciding to leave things for another year.
Surely it’s better for the industry to pay for a newbie to win the chance to attend an event than for the same old people to get even more gadgets and gizmos (which let’s face it some of them can afford to buy multiple times over).
Could this be something added to Christmas incentives next year perhaps?