Why should a business use affiliate marketing?

Introduction

Internet Marketing is an umbrella term. There are many different types of marketing. According to HubSpot, there are 41 types of marketing and counting.

Finding the proper marketing for your business can be a considerable obstacle you will face during your business venture. After researching thoroughly, PostMaker came across Affiliate Marketing.

This type of marketing is the primary way of marketing your business with minimum costs and minimum risk.

There are some challenges of using Affiliate Marketing. However, there are also many significant positive aspects. The type of marketing you choose is based solely on what best suits your business.

Suppose your business has an affiliate product that you want to get out there. You have the funds to pay the commission rate. You know your target audience. Then you may be able to be a successful affiliate marketer.

(Qureshi, 2021)

Within this blog post, I will be breaking down each of these aspects in detail:

What Affiliate marketing is.
How to use an affiliate link.
How to create an affiliate sale.
What makes a great affiliate marketer?
Example of successful affiliate marketing programs.
What makes a great affiliate marketer?
Example of successful affiliate marketing programs.

I will be going into detail about the good and the bad and thoroughly researching how beneficial it will be for PostMaker to Affiliate Market their products. Will you be eager to start affiliate marketing by the end of this blog post?

What is Affiliate Marketing?

(What is Affiliate Marketing and What Do Affiliate Marketers Do? 2021)

According to (Enfroy, 2021) Affiliate Marketing is an arrangement created between your business and an affiliate. An Affiliate Marketing Program allows you to find your target market and sell a physical or digital product to your consumers.

Though there can be many different types of Affiliates, PostMaker is most interested in the form of marketing. For example, you are paid commissions from online retailers who go to an external website, resulting in traffic or sales generated from referrals.

Affiliate Marketing can offer a business an approach that is a flexible and very cost-effective method that allows the company to promote their brand and create new connections vastly.

Affiliate Marketing is also beneficial because it allows the business to waste money on ineffective marketing such as advertisements. In addition, the affiliate commission is only made when there is a successful transaction. Therefore, this would be a fantastic Marketing Strategy for PostMaker.

(120 Marketing Quotes To Get Inspired, 2021) States Affiliate Marketing is an excellent opportunity if you truly believe in the value of the product you’re selling. Because many times you can make money off of something you would probably recommend anyway. - Samuel Patel.

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

There are many benefits of Affiliate Marketing. Search Engine Optimization factors into this type of marketing because it focuses solely on the traffic these affiliate products appear when searched. Also, they look at the cost per acquisition.

Affiliate marketers tend to promote the products that they would use themselves as they fall into their niche.

For example, on an affiliate platform such as Amazon, when you place amazon affiliate links onto your website, you have instantly made some commission if someone clicks through your link and buys their product. This is also a great way to flow organic traffic. According to (6 Benefits of Affiliate Marketing | Impact Networking, 2021), these are some of the key benefits of Affiliate Marketing.

Below are some of the main benefits of what makes an effective marketing strategy and affiliate marketing success:

Affiliate Marketing has a low start-up cost.
Future/Ongoing costs of Affiliate Marketing are low.
Affiliate Marketing is very low risk as you only pay when a sale has been made, therefore you save money when you’re not selling any products.
Using Affiliate marketing allows you to target specific audiences.
You have complete flexibility as you only payout when you have a completed sale.
Using Affiliate Marketing you have a very high return on investment.

Downfalls of Affiliate Marketing?

Though there are many advantages, there is no denying that there are going to be some disadvantages. According to (Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing - Know the Good & The Bad, 2021)

Affiliate marking can take a lot longer than other forms of marketing to get established.
You need a lot of self-discipline for Affiliate Marketing.
You may create a relationship with a company and it may end up in a bad affiliate partnership.
The Affiliate company is in charge of the price of Affiliate Marketing.
Within the Affiliate marketing world there is a lot of competition.

How does Affiliate Marketing work?

You show an add on or link on your website/social media or blog
Your customer clicks the advertisement/link on your website.
The customer is sent through to your store through the link that is tracking the click.
The customer purchases your product
Affiliate network records the customer has purchased the product and it documents the details of the sale.
The purchase is confirmed that it is a valid sale.
The transaction is credited to the business.
The commission is paid out for the sale.

(Enfroy, 2021)

Example of Affiliate Marketing

After extensive research, I have found a fascinating, detailed example of successful Affiliate Marketing (Breton 2021). The first is from Buzz Feed Reviews, the second is from Nerd Wallet, and the third is from Amazon. I will l break down why each of these is successful.

The first successful Affiliate Marketing example I found was Buzz Feed Reviews. Buzz Feed first started as a gift guide. As the company was thriving, they expanded into creating and writing reviews, which they did for multiple product categories.

(BuzzFeed Reviews - Ecommerce Web | Ecommerce web, eCommerce web design, eCommerce, 2021)

Buzz Feed Reviews are unique because they review items within a category, such as The Top 3 Best Smart Phones 2021 according to (Best smartphone 2021: the top phones ranked | TechRadar, 2021). So, coming in at number 1 is the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, then second is the OnePlus 9 Pro, then thirdly is the iPhone 12 pro and Pro Max. Then they will cover each item, and review them, show their different price points. Their reviews are usually very detailed and thorough, which leads the buyers to be filled with information about the products to help them decide.

Buzz Feed’s content has demonstrated that they are very effective within Affiliate marketing. Usually, when a business is using Affiliate Marketing, they advertise their product with a tracked link to pay out the commission. Instead of doing this, Buzz Feed create content that allows the users to interact and going away with new knowledge on the subject.

Why would PostMaker benefit from Affiliate Marketing?

After weighing up the pros and cons, overall, it would be in PostMakers best interest to dip their toes into Affiliate Marketing. Partnered up with the right company could lead to PostMakers thriving in sales. In addition, there are many benefits of Affiliate Marketing, which would massively benefit a small company, such as Low start-up costs and future ongoing costs.

PostMaker is a new company and is still finding its feet. Using low-risk marketing could be very useful, as you only pay when someone has clicked through the link and bought the product. Therefore you are not going to lose out on any money if your product doesn’t sell. Affiliate Marketing will also allow PostMaker to target the audience they want to attract to try and guarantee some sales. Lastly, as Affiliate Marketing has a very high return on investment, if PostMaker puts x amount of money into marketing it, it will receive more in return, so overall, Affiliate Marketing would be a fantastic investment for PostMaker.

Conclusion

Why should a business use Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is a great low cost, low-risk way of marketing your business.

A strong Affiliate Program can be fantastic for a business as it shows that they are a reputable website. This is very important because you can create relationships with other minded companies, and it displays a level of trust between two companies.

It also gives you creditability because if you were selling a lousy product, other businesses wouldn’t want to market it to make them look bad.

Your business’ Social media platform plays a big part in this form of marketing. For example, you can share your Affiliate deal over on your social channel, which you can promote to your niche market, this allows you to build a connection, and it also shows who is a loyal customer.

As a marketing channel, there are many ways you can push affiliate opportunities, such as email lists, social media posts. As long as your company has the budget for Affiliate marketing spend, quality content, they can start marketing themselves with an affiliate channel which is a fantastic advertising method. This form of advertising is revolutionary.