Tips to increase referrals
The affiliate programme is designed for people and organisations that care about sustainability, like our products and want to earn some money telling their personal and professional network about us. The following outlines some ways that you can easily tell people about our products as part of what you’re naturally doing anyway. The more people that click through to our website using your referral link, the more money you earn.
Writing Blog Posts
Text Ads
If you don’t want to run banner ads but don’t fancy generating content to promote your referral link, you can drop a text ad into your site sidebar, or before or after content sections. These should be brief, but clear and descriptive. Remember to include a call to action. For instance, you could advertise the Sustainability Policy Wizard as follows:
You should highlight your text ad by including space above and below it, or using a different font or style than is used for the text on the rest of the page. Highlight the call to action (eg. ‘click here’) within the ad. This can be easily done by including the call to action in the linking text for the referral link.
Forum Participation & Signatures
If you frequently contribute to a relevant forum (such as a group within LinkedIn or some other industry forum), then you could include your affiliate link in your forum signature, or if relevant in a post.
If you are going to post in forums and include your referral link in a post then:
If you’ve got an idea for a post on blog or you’ve been invited to guest blog that is related to our services then include a referral link to our website in the post. Remember the link doesn’t have to go to an actual product page, it may be a link to a posting on our blog (just ensure your affiliate code is included in the link).
For example you may be writing a post about the pros and cons of carbon trading schemes, and you could link to the page on the SEMS Measurement Module as an example of an online tool that enables you to measure carbon.
Remember, if the site you’re posting on is not your own, be sure to seek permission to insert an affiliate link beforehand. Some site owners will prefer that you don’t do this, and others might just be annoyed that you didn’t let them know explicitly.
Tweets
Are you a tweeter? Here’s a great summary of how to structure your tweet for maximum click throughs - .
As always relevance is key to success. If you normally tweet about 80’s boy bands, then you’re unlikely to get many click throughs ifyou suddenly tweet “Save the world! Go to bit.ly/qBRgIH for the best sustainable event management tools!”
Banner Ads
Banner ads and buttons on your website can be an effective way to refer visitors and potential sign-ups. You can find banners for all of our services on our Referral Program page.
Some basic rules for maximising clicks from banners and buttons:
For example you may be writing a post about the pros and cons of carbon trading schemes, and you could link to the page on the SEMS Measurement Module as an example of an online tool that enables you to measure carbon.
Remember, if the site you’re posting on is not your own, be sure to seek permission to insert an affiliate link beforehand. Some site owners will prefer that you don’t do this, and others might just be annoyed that you didn’t let them know explicitly.
Tweets
Are you a tweeter? Here’s a great summary of how to structure your tweet for maximum click throughs - .
As always relevance is key to success. If you normally tweet about 80’s boy bands, then you’re unlikely to get many click throughs ifyou suddenly tweet “Save the world! Go to bit.ly/qBRgIH for the best sustainable event management tools!”
Banner Ads
Banner ads and buttons on your website can be an effective way to refer visitors and potential sign-ups. You can find banners for all of our services on our Referral Program page.
Some basic rules for maximising clicks from banners and buttons:
- Keep the banners ‘above the fold’ (this means locate them in that part of the page that is visible when the page first loads without having to scroll down).
- Don’t clutter the page with too many ads. You’ll generate more clicks running one or two ads per page than if you run ten. Too many ads means the visitor’s focus will be drawn in too many different directions.
- Change the look of the banner or button frequently. Banners on your website are likes bits of furniture. After you’ve seen them a few times, you get use to them and ignore them if you don’t need them. Change the furniture around, and suddenly people pay attention again.
Text Ads
If you don’t want to run banner ads but don’t fancy generating content to promote your referral link, you can drop a text ad into your site sidebar, or before or after content sections. These should be brief, but clear and descriptive. Remember to include a call to action. For instance, you could advertise the Sustainability Policy Wizard as follows:
"Do you need a sustainability policy for your event? Click here for an easy to use online tool to generate a custom sustainability policy."
You should highlight your text ad by including space above and below it, or using a different font or style than is used for the text on the rest of the page. Highlight the call to action (eg. ‘click here’) within the ad. This can be easily done by including the call to action in the linking text for the referral link.
Forum Participation & Signatures
If you frequently contribute to a relevant forum (such as a group within LinkedIn or some other industry forum), then you could include your affiliate link in your forum signature, or if relevant in a post.
If you are going to post in forums and include your referral link in a post then:
- you must not represent yourself as being an agent or authorised to speak on behalf of Sustainable Event Solutions,
- check the forum rules and ensure you are allowed to promote products and include links,
- make sure your post is relevant to the forum conversation (if it’s not your post is just spam and you’re damaging both your own personal brand and ours),
- spend some time getting to know the other forum members before you start talking about a product (it’s just good etiquette and you’ll find people will be much more willing to listen if they know and trust you first).