"The biggest thing commonly missing in affiliate programs is a feeling of community between webmasters," said MensNiche affiliate director Scott Trimble July 5. And with that, the company announced a focus shift toward building its business around the idea that all affiliates benefit from a community-based and cooperative program.
"While it’s true the affiliates within the same program compete with each other for traffic, each affiliate also benefits from the efforts of their brethren," said Trimble, whose company focuses on male-enhancement products. "The more a surfer sees a particular brand, the more they begin to trust its integrity and the more likely they will be to buy it. Each individual affiliate benefits from the collective’s promotion.”
The new shift, MensNiche said, includes programs like Affiliate of the Month recognition, based on a combination of affiliate webmasters' participation in the MensNiche's forum, advice given to other affiliates, and unique promotion styles and approaches, as well as the number of sales the affiliates send.
MensNiche is also pushing participation into what they like to think is the male-enhancement industry's most active affiliate forum, featuring "free flowing ideas, helpful advice, and fantastic motivation from other affiliates." And they are also emphasizing their "always accessible, always helpful staff."
If one word applied to the entire new focus shift, it could be teamwork. "We want our affiliates to feel and act as a team," Trimble said, "because, as they say, what's good for the goose is good for the gander."
