Affiliate marketing is an extremely clever marketing strategy that utilises the advertising efforts of your affiliates to make their visitors and customers become aware of your own brand, products and services.
Here are four reasons why brands should use affiliate marketing:
With traditional advertising, there's constant pressure to come up with new and exciting ways of getting your brand noticed and ‘out there’. This can become extremely difficult and frustrating over time, especially as ads now run 24/7 in the digital age. It can also be very time consuming, requiring lots of brainstorming and effort to come up with fresh campaigns and see them through from conception to completion. With affiliate marketing it’s different – once it works, you can just keep it running until you need to change it up. You’ll be able to target your marketing efforts at specific audiences rather than trying to reach everyone. The success of each individual affiliate partnership will rely on them too, which lessens the workload. They’ll have a vested interest: the more money you make, the more money they’ll make!
With certain ad platforms, it’s hard to know exactly where your ad will show up. Imagine advertising cars on a cycling website, or fast food on a slimming club website! It just wouldn’t work. With affiliate marketing, you’ll know exactly where your marketing efforts are going and where they’ll be seen. For example, if your company sold garden furniture, your affiliates could range from plant seed wholesalers to suppliers of garden sheds. You’ll be remaining relevant, but reach a whole new diverse audience that might not even have realised they were interested in your brand. Your marketing will be more likely to work too, because people won’t feel annoyed by it. They will see it as relevant to their needs and will respond accordingly, increasing your exposure.
The risk of affiliate marketing is extremely low, because if it doesn’t work, you don’t pay! Whether someone has to come from an affiliate website and view your website, or actually purchase a product, you set the rules. Unless these conditions are met, you won’t pay a single penny. This can be very liberating because it allows you to experiment with your brand and discover what will give you the best return on investment. Low risk affiliate marketing is also an ideal way to explore new markets and discover if your brand has even greater potential.
As mentioned above, with affiliate marketing you don’t have to pay at all until you get results. With other forms of advertising, you’ll pay no matter what. You can run hundreds of pounds worth of ads and not receive a single penny in return. The cost of affiliate marketing therefore makes good economic sense – whether you spend a little or a lot, you’ll be getting something in return. You can also set the price for each action, so you’ll always know what your budget is and what the rate will be.
