Associate marketing (also called affiliate marketing) is crucial for a business’s social media marketing and digital marketing strategy because it enables them to acquire new customers and access untapped online markets. Consider blogs, Youtube videos and social media posts as new entryways to a company’s store. By utilizing associate marketers, a merchant presents potential customers with a relatable, trusted community member who will share interesting information, demonstrate new products, and give them easier methods to fill their shopping carts.
Customers can instantly shop via links on an associate marketer’s website. New technologies and startups are providing features for associate marketers and influencers that enable clients to purchase products directly from a photograph featured on a social media website like Instagram. Companies have a competitive advantage from these click-throughs and associate marketers finding new consumers for them. By developing a strong merchant-affiliate relationship, merchants and affiliates both profit from the work of creating a strategy for increasing sales.
As with any marketing plan creating a good online marketing strategy that successfully garners more interest from followers and funnels them into a merchant’s store requires understanding both the audience and how to properly persuade and inform consumers.
One issue that associate marketers or affiliates face when endeavoring to create valuable leads for their offers is that, just as the business market sometimes struggles to overcome market saturation, so too do affiliate marketers need ways to stand out in their space. Associate and affiliate marketing must involve learning new methods and tools to become the resource that businesses need to assist them in overcoming growing advertising issues and concerns. These five tips, when implemented into your existing associate or affiliate marketing efforts will enable you to present superior service for your business merchants and help you improve your merchant-affiliate relationships.
Presenting Proper Product Reviews
Product reviews can be one of the most powerful strategic marketing devices that companies rely on to provide consumers a reason to shop their products over a competitor’s. Affiliate marketers should use various methods to help explain the pros and cons of their merchant’s products. These tools can be charts and graphs, infographics, interviews with other consumers, curating reviews from other purchasers, and even live demonstrations. Reviews that feature the marketer using the product are often the most helpful for the companies. If possible provide a brief video demonstrating functionality and show how the service or item solves a problem. When presenting proper reviews, it is important to include all the relevant information regarding the product and why it outperforms the competition. Make sure that you follow best business practices for reviewing products so that the reputation of the merchant is not tarnished.
Create Urgency for Buyers
Merchants often urge their affiliate marketers to promote the current deals and sales. Explaining that a merchant is having a sale and keeping up to date with your offers increases buyers trust and demonstrates your authority on what you are selling. Since an affiliate marketer’s goals are to increase sales for their merchants it is necessary to learn how to properly create urgency for the buyers. Some methods to achieve this include addressing a problem that your audience faces and then providing the solution in the form of a product from one of your merchants. For example, if your audience struggles with financial issues you could create a landing page with information about various products which would give them the solution to their financial issues. Another method is to make sure to include words that inspire an urgency to buy when writing product reviews. These urgency words will increase readers’ click-throughs. Words such as “limited-time”, “expires”, “now”, and “take action” will help consumers move toward seeking a solution from a merchant’s offer.
Developing a Stronger Relationship with Your Audience
Businesses look for marketers and communications teams who have an actively engaged audience that they will be promoting their products to. By using tools like workshops, Facebook groups, email marketing campaigns, and private group coaching you develop a stronger relationship with your audience. Utilizing a live stream program can be enormously helpful in fostering your bond with your target market. Facebook groups help you to become familiar with other users personally which enables you to share more accurate merchant offers with them.
Increase Exposure and Build a Bigger Audience
Growing your contact list with network marketing is important for successful associate marketing because it creates trust and often results in opportunities to massively increase your audience size. The more ways an affiliate finds to grow their current audience, the more valuable they become to their merchant. Possible techniques to do this successfully would be by accepting guest posts, taking interviews, being a guest on a podcast, and working alongside others who have successfully built their own audience.
Properly Manage Your Online Reputation
To maintain a beneficial merchant-affiliate relationship it is important that you properly manage your online reputation. This includes promptly responding to consumer questions, being genuine in your social media interactions, and dressing appropriately when you are promoting a merchant’s offer. Investing money into high-quality equipment for taking pictures of products and for demonstrations can be extremely helpful in increasing sales and garnering interest from your audience. If you can’t afford high priced cameras and filming equipment check to see if your merchant provides high-resolution stock photos for affiliates to use on their websites. Merchants may even provide equipment for their affiliates. Check requirements for this, as some merchants will only provide equipment once you have made a certain amount of affiliate sales or if you have a certain size audience. Consider renting equipment from camera rental stores if purchasing new is too costly.
Working as an affiliate marketer is one way to leverage sales and marketing skills to create a regular income. It can be highly profitable for both the business owners and the “salespeople” who work to spread the word about awesome products that are available on the market. Following these tips and best business practices for sales techniques can help you become an amazing affiliate marketer, keep your merchants happy, drive more sales and provide incredible value to your audience.
