Creatives are pieces of content that your brand provides to affiliates for use in their own content. They can include, for example, promotional images, written content going over information about your brand or a specific product, and videos showcasing how to use a product.
Visual assets and other creatives can be incredibly beneficial for affiliates, and that can wrap around to improving your brand identity and sales.
Here’s what you should know about pushing your affiliates to use these.
Why Should You Provide Affiliates With Existing Creative Assets?
For many brands, the point of an affiliate program is that it requires a low level of investment. Brands may wonder why they should put in the work to provide content for your affiliates if the whole purpose is for affiliates to create the content themselves. Here are the top reasons that you should be providing these creatives.
- It Helps Reinforce Your Brand Identity
First and foremost, providing affiliates with creative assets helps you reinforce your own brand image. Brand identity can get a little lost when you have many affiliates creating many different pieces of content. When all of your affiliates are drawing from the same pool of creatives, it means that all potential customers are exposed to the same imagery and general content, allowing your brand identity to stay strong.
- It Keeps Your Logo and Company Name Front and Center
Your logo and company name are two of the most important parts of your brand, and you may have put a lot of time, money, and thought into them. By making it easy for affiliates to draw on these two components of your brand identity, they’re more likely to keep it in focus, which is great for your brand as a whole.
- It Makes It Easier for Affiliates to Create Content
Finally, providing creatives just makes it easier for your affiliates to bridge the gap and start creating content for you. If you’re willing to put in a little bit of work on the front end, then it means that your affiliates may be more inspired to put in their own work on the back end, which can really increase the amount of content produced about your brand and improve your affiliate marketing relationships.
Tips for Providing Your Affiliates With Better Creatives
So, how can you provide a better set of creatives to your affiliates? Here are a few tips.
Design Banner Ads, Photos, and Video Scrolls In-House
One amazing way to provide creatives is to design pieces of content that your affiliates can easily put into their content. It’s important to tailor the creatives you’re designing for the type of content your affiliates are interested in making. For example, if most of your affiliates make long-form video content, you’ll want to focus more on video content; if most of your affiliates are writing blogs, then offer product shots and banner ads.
Offer Media Kits Full of Logos, Brand Content, and Info Sheets
Media kits are another easy way to provide all the information your affiliates could possibly want. Provide large images of your logos and approved brand images, as well as a full list of your brand’s colors and font choices. Include PDFs that give your affiliates insight into your brand as a whole, including your target demographic, for example. Add info sheets that help direct your affiliates’ content.
Share Approved Copy With Your Affiliates
Approved copy is one component of ensuring that your affiliates are using the right messaging for customers. This can be very important if your brand needs to use certain types of language for legal reasons, but even if you just prefer to talk about your brand a certain way, this can help you retain your brand image over many blog posts, videos, picture posts, and more.
Read and Watch Any Content Your Affiliates Put out to See How They’re Using Creatives
Finally, remember to check out any content that your affiliates put out. Pay attention to the way they talk about your brand, the way they link your brand, and the specific creatives they are and aren’t using. Not only can this help you understand whether your brand messaging is working, but also it can give you some insight into what types of creatives you might want to produce more of and which types aren’t being used as often.
The Bottom Line
Creatives can prompt your affiliates to create more content, and more content from your affiliates is what drives sales. If you’re willing to put a bit of effort into creating these visual and written assets for your affiliates, then they’ll know you care about both of you attaining success. While it might not be an instant payoff, the long-term benefits more than make up for it.
