As anyone managing an affiliate program knows, educating your network of publishers is a vital and often daunting part of building and growing an affiliate program.

This is definitely true for RealNetworks’ program, which focuses on digital media subscriptions, including Rhapsody, with more than 1.3 million songs, GamePass with hundreds of games and SuperPass with premium news and entertainment content.

Though thousands of publishers may have joined our affiliate program, some may not even be familiar with the products, let alone the tools and tactics for successfully marketing them. So with the limited resources available to manage and grow these programs, it’s important to be efficient in your efforts to educate your publishers.

The keys are constant communication with your network, listening to your publishers’ feedback and implementing change from it and sharing best practices and insights on marketing your products.

Your welcome email, the first correspondence your publishers receive upon joining your program, is extremely important. This is your chance to provide new publishers with helpful information on tools available in the program, as well as to present information on your products and tips for successfully marketing them. Many publishers won’t read your welcome email, but it’s worth making it good and helpful for those who do.

It is also important to communicate with the entire network via an email newsletter on a consistent and ongoing basis. These mailings should include broad information such as updates and tips on marketing your products. Again, many publishers will ignore these e-newsletters, but you should make it as educational and informative as possible for those that take the time.

Next is the important step of segmenting your publisher network. Your top-volume drivers will have needs that differ from your mid-tier publishers, which also have needs that differ from those who’ve barely begun promoting in your program. The size of your segments is also likely to vary. Your top-tier group is typically the smallest, while the largest segment is often made up of newcomers and non-performers (for those who keep them in the program).

How much time should be allocated to each segment is really a matter of preference and experience with the individual program. Some managers might find that working to increase a top publisher by a small percentage has a greater impact on revenue than seeing each mid-tier publisher grow by one transaction a month. Others may find the opposite to be true. That’s why it’s extremely important to test both tactics in your program and at different points throughout the year.

Again, the main elements to the education process are constant communication with your network, listening to your publishers’ feedback and implementing change from that feedback, along with sharing best practices and insights on marketing your products.

So let’s start with the big guys. These publishers are invaluable partners to the company and key players in your affiliate program. For RealNetworks, they are the ones who continue to amaze and impress us with their constant innovation and online marketing savvy. They often build, test and optimize faster than we can and move quickly to implement new products and offers. We stay in constant contact with these publishers, keeping them informed of upcoming launches, providing them with new products and offers first, granting their requests and requesting their feedback.

We provide our top publishers with tips on top-performing search keywords, any new knowledge we’ve acquired through recent testing, customized creative and updates on the constantly changing and increasingly competitive digital music and entertainment space.

Requests coming from these publishers have helped to shape our program and have greatly influenced the development of the tools and processes we have in place.

The mid-tier publishers can be defined in a number of different ways and may even be split into multiple tiers depending on the size of the program and the amount of management resources available. In our program, we consider the mid-tier publishers to be those who have shown some success in generating revenue, but have not reached a certain threshold to be considered a top performer.

There is a great deal of opportunity within the mid-tier, especially since these publishers have already put some time and energy into marketing your products and have started testing and gaining knowledge. One helpful way to gauge the potential of these mid-tier publishers is to keep a spreadsheet showing their best week. This key metric provides a benchmark and an opportunity to understand the potential impact of focusing on this group.

Working with mid-tier publishers often entails a combination of a one-to-many approach as well as a certain amount of individual attention. Consistent, ongoing e-newsletters and email messages to these publishers are a great way to let them know about new promotions, products, tools and tips. Since they probably already have a basic understanding of the products and tools available in the program, we try to focus our communications here on new information.

In addition, we also designate certain times throughout the year when we reach out to our mid-tier publishers by phone or direct email. For those who are interested in taking the time to speak with us, we find it invaluable to understand what is and isn’t working for them, and give them tips and ideas for growing their volume and finding greater success in our program.

And finally there’s the low-tier publishers – those who have barely begun or have not had much success promoting our product, or have joined the program but have not successfully driven a transaction. While some programs choose not to allow inactive or nonperforming publishers to remain in their program, we view them as an opportunity to activate a publisher who has shown enough interest in our program to at least complete the registration process. We take a purely one-to-many education approach with this tier, using similar tactics of sending e-newsletters and emails to educate them on our products, as well as alerting them to tips and tools in our program to help successfully market our products.

I believe that there is a large opportunity within this tier, particularly because it’s one of the biggest segments. For example, our program can, within one quarter, get 5,000 inactive publishers to drive one Rhapsody trial; we that as a fairly significant lift.

There is one important caveat to the segmentation model: If a large publisher joins your program, reach out right away to ensure they are aware of the data feeds and other tools in your program.

By continually informing and educating your publishers, you can ensure success and a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership.

RACHEL LAZAR is a consumer marketing director at RealNetworks. She previously worked at Amazon.com in online advertising and launched the Inshipment Marketing Channel. She holds a B.S. in psychology from Santa Clara University.