It’s that time of year. January is often the month when we pause, we plan and we look ahead. With 2010 having just begun, it’s an ideal time for merchants and affiliates to consider different approaches to improve their affiliate marketing campaigns. To get you started, we have put together a couple of suggestions for merchants and affiliates who are looking to make this New Year their best one yet.

For Merchants

1. Focus on improving your product to make it more attractive for affiliates to promote and in turn increase your own profits.

2. Review and improve your customer sales process to get your conversion rate as high as possible. This is a key factor that affiliates look for when choosing which brands to promote, and it will help your overall sales as well.

3. Help boost your affiliate channel by investing time and/or resources into other forms of advertising, such as TV and print campaigns, SEO, video, viral and social networking. The more well known, respected and recognized your brand is, the more affiliates will be likely to want to promote it, and the easier it will be for them to do so.

4. If you’re not already involved in social media or some form of two-way interaction with your customers and by extension, affiliates, get on it, but in a strategic manner.

For Affiliates

1. Share program feedback with your affiliate managers. Think it’s awesome? Let them know why, specifically, so they can help apply the same tactics where possible across other programs they manage. Think it’s not worth promoting? Give specific, constructive advice so that those programs can be improved.

2. Develop more open relationships with your affiliate managers. Let them know how, when and why you want to be contacted, so that you can have more efficient communication, and a more effective partnership.

If you’re in the Share Results network, and you’re a merchant, tell us about a great new product you have, your new and improved sales process and any new advertising channels you’re experimenting with. Call us, or email us at support@shareresults.com.

Affiliates, let us know what you love, and what you don’t love about the programs you’re promoting. And hey, it’s a New Year, let’s chat about new opportunities that may be waiting for you! Call us, or send us a quick note at support@shareresults.com.

And Happy New Year!