How Affiliate Marketing Help Boost Your Business
When running a business, it’s no surprise that you might come across all sorts of jargon and terms almost all the time. One particular term that you’re bound to come across often if you run an e-commerce business or of the same nature is affiliate marketing.
You might wonder, “What is affiliate marketing, really?”, “Does it mean that my business is partnering up with another business?”, or simply “Is it running someone else’s business under my roof?”
What Is The Concept Behind Affiliate Marketing?
Well then, let’s answer the first question with the definition of affiliate marketing according to Pat’s Flynn Passive Income:
“Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”
Simply put, affiliate marketing means you will be promoting or selling from other businesses/brands and get paid for it, usually either by specific monetary value or based on a certain percentage that has been agreed on.
But How Does Affiliate Marketing Boost Your Business?
The reason why a lot of businesses are starting to adopt affiliate marketing as part of their business and marketing strategy is due to the low-risk factor.
In comparison with other business strategies and marketing campaigns, you won’t be creating leads that require a lot of effort and nurturing. Instead, you will create direct customers that you can build and retain relationships with, and upsell any products/services that you are affiliated with.
Affiliate Marketing Has A Low-Risk Factor
Simply put, by strategising your business through affiliated marketing with another brand or business, you are assured to get customers. Your investments will be worthwhile with a good return rate and you won’t be at risk of using up a huge portion of funds.
How the promotion works with affiliated marketing is that it works both ways; customers will know more about the brand that you are affiliated with, and they will know more about your business or service.
It’s a foolproof way of exposing your brand or business to the audience of your choice. Once the public or your customers know that you are affiliated with a brand/business, especially if it’s one that is known to provide high-quality and premium products/services, people will view your business as one too.
The Cost To Set Up Affiliate Marketing Is Low
Unlike when running a whole company where you need huge funds to run advertising campaigns, as you will need a team and a whole lot of equipment, affiliate marketing only requires small funds and some investment in time. Of course, we don’t deny the fact that there is still the risk of it not taking off.
But that is why we also advise you to make a thorough background check of the brand/business you want to affiliate with and decide on a good and established brand/business that will not only help bring in lucrative returns for your organisation but is also one that matches your business’s goal and objective.
Another reason why you should take up affiliate marketing with an established brand/business is that they will provide you with proper guidelines, with some even providing training on how to set up and run an affiliate business.
This is because these businesses/brands that are established and provide affiliate marketing knows that poor performance from one of their affiliated business will reflect and create an undesirable impression on their business/brand. When people perceive that the affiliated business is bad, it’s because the main business/brand itself is bad.
This is why established and good businesses/brands will provide you with guides and training should you choose to affiliate your organisation with them.
Boost Your Website’s SEO Performance Through Affiliate Marketing
Another good way to gain leads and deals is by increasing your SEO performance. Affiliate marketing gives a huge SEO boost to your website.
Most businesses/brands that provide affiliate marketing has well-established backlinks such as blogs, websites, and social media. It’s even more effective if the brand/business you are affiliated with has an audience that shares and likes the contents provided from those locations.
So basically, you will continue to get free and massive SEO services that are done by the audience.
The ranking of your website’s SEO on the search results engine page can greatly improve its performance through affiliated marketing. Brands/businesses you’re affiliated with can have a strong online presence hence allowing you to gain additional SEO help.
It Provides An Extra Layer Of Security For Businesses
Another perk that comes with affiliate marketing is having another source of profit and revenue for your business. With the constant stream of profit and revenue you get from affiliate marketing, your business will have a safety net – a financial backup in case an unwanted incident befalls your business.
As Always, It's Important To Be Safe Than Sorry
Though there are perks that come with affiliate marketing that help boost your business, there are a few caveats to this. One of them being traffic source as the source of traffic that leads customers to your website or business can greatly influence your brand/business image.
Should you mismanage your traffic source or handle it not thoroughly enough, you may receive traffic from questionable sources that could affect your brand image. This is why you should know the brand/business that you will affiliate your business with, especially if it’s a small and upstart brand/business. They may be receiving traffic from many sources, without caring whether the sources are good or not, since all that they want is to get their brand/business’s SEO rank up quickly on the search engines.
So, it is recommended that you get your organisation affiliated with a well-established brand/business. It is also advisable that you use Google Analytics’ assistance to help manage the traffic to your website better.
The verdict is that affiliate marketing does help in boosting your business, but you also have to be prudent and careful in selecting which brand/business you want your organisation to be affiliated with as well as having Google Analytics’ assistance in supervising your traffic management.
Another great way to establish better credibility and legitimacy for your business is through visual elements such as explainer videos that tell your audience more about your brand/business’s story and achievements.
Unsure of how to translate your ideas into videos? Just give us a buzz and we’ll craft your ideas and visions into visuals with directions.