Marcus Richards
The digital world provides us with the most expansive business opportunity the world has ever seen. It has never been easier to reach out to potential customers on every continent, and any online store can service customers wherever they may be.
However, while the opportunity is there for all, with around a billion active websites, standing out in the crowd is the biggest challenge for any business. Like all businesses, visitors are the lifeblood of your online brand. The more people visit your site, the more sales you make, but when you are competing with hundreds, even thousands of others for their attention, getting those visitors can be a challenge.
Using SEO services to ensure your site appears high in the search results, ad campaigns and more all help. But what if there was a way to have an army of professional marketers promote your business 24/7? Better still, what if you only had to pay them if a visitor they send to your site actually buys something?
It may sound too good to be true, but that is affiliate marketing.
How affiliate marketing works
Broken down into its simplest form, affiliate marketing programs give professional internet marketers the opportunity to promote your site, products or offer to potential customers, in return for a percentage of every sale they make.
For example, if your brand is a range of fitness clothing, then your affiliates will actively promote products on your site to their own audience and to fitness enthusiasts in general. Whether through a comparison site like slotsites.uk, a Google Ad program, social media or a range of other approaches, your affiliates will put your brand in front of more people. Every customer that arrives at your site via an affiliate and buys something will then earn the affiliate a specific amount, or percentage of their order value, depending on how you structure the affiliate program.
Building Your Brand
That all sounds great, but can you really trust other people to promote your brand and business? Here is where it gets interesting, because your affiliate campaign can be anything you want. Set boundaries for how and where they can promote your brand, even provide the marketing materials if you want to maintain coherency no matter who is promoting your business.
You stay in control, but gain the advantage of having professional marketers promote your business for you. With no upfront payments, just a pre-agreed portion of your profits from any sale, it is by far the most cost-effective way of generating revenue. The value isn’t just in the sales though, by the very nature of internet marketing, affiliates will be pushing your brand to hundreds or thousands of potential customers. Even those that don’t make a purchase will notice your business, and that can pay dividends in the future too.
It’s also not just a one sale thing. With an effective CSM system to keep customers aware of new offers and other value-led information, you can make any number of repeat sales from customers found by your affiliates. In most cases, you won’t be paying a commission on those additional sales either.
Is Affiliate Marketing Right for You?
No business is too big or too small to take advantage of affiliate marketing A small business just starting out benefits from the cost-effective approach, and given Amazon operates one of the most extensive affiliate programs in the world, it is scalable for any business size.
Whether you offer products, services, digital goods or anything else, affiliate marketing can help you build brand awareness, increase sales revenue and help your business grow. Whether you are just launching a new business or wish to extend the reach of an existing brand, few approaches offer the cost effectiveness of affiliate marketing, yet it also remains one of best options for results too.
There are a number of specialist businesses who can help you set up your affiliate program if required, making it completely painless to roll out. It can also deliver results very quickly, and as it is completely scalable, will grow with your brand.
Affiliate marketing has everything you need to boost your brand. There is a reason Amazon uses it, because it works. If you are looking for ways to promote your business, put affiliate marketing at the heart of your growth strategy.
