You've probably noticed that some of your vendors will give you a percentage of new sales through their affiliate programs. They find affiliate marketing as a way to add sales channels. But there are many ways to use affiliate marketing as a business-to-business firm.
What is affiliate marketing? The promotion of other people's offers in exchange for a sales commission. Like referral programs, the partner may pay you on a per lead basis. Essentially you become an independent commissioned salesperson.
Affiliate Marketing Delivers An Additional Sales Channel Plus Other Customer Getting Benefits
Use these insights to help clients increase sales. Any of these reasons business-to-business firms get into affiliate marketing could be the basis of your next billable project. How might affiliate marketing help business-to-business websites:
- Test possible campaigns direct from competitors marketing programs. Use other peoples affiliate marketing programs to test ideas for future campaigns. This saves money on product development while segmenting your mailing lists.
- Monetize web traffic leaving their site. If a visitor to your website doesn't want what you have, there isn't anything to lose offering them what others can provide. You will get a commission while building good will with visitors you weren't going to convert anyway.
- Better serve the interest of customers. Over time customers may have gotten all they want from you. Rather than letting those names go stale on your mailing list, find new solutions to solve problems beyond the scope of your core offers. Affiliate marketing delivers an unlimited supply of new solutions to existing customers.
- Extend revenue from particular set of buyers. There may be market segments that stop converting for your offers. Why not introduce them to a complementary product from another provider? Affiliate marketing gives you a small commission where you might otherwise have no revenue.
- Give more to your customers without stocking inventory. On the front end affiliate programs behind lead generation gives you something to offer without product creation. This is perfect when you offer high ticket services. Downsell every prospect that doesn't convert with an entry level product from an affiliate.
- Testing specific markets with proven offers. Remember, top converting affiliate offers are proven because hundreds of other marketers are feeding them. Even if you use affiliate networks for ideas, you can find out what is working and what isn't by statistics avaialble on platforms like ClickBank and ShareASale.
- Generate back end revenue on relationship marketing. As you increase sales volume you may run out of mailing lists, profitable offers, and face increasing costs per sale. The right referral relationships open the doors to cost effective solutions. The key is market to message match.
- Fill under utilized banner space. This is common when banner advertising networks dominated the internet. Do this with advertising space trades, back fill, or run of the network remnet when you don't have enough offers of your own. It will help you identify what interests your visitors have for content sites.
- Create a test basis for marketing efforts. Before you launch a huge campaign, consider ways to test the sales funnels of complementary companies. You can start fleshing out marketing campaigns long before a product exists by promoting what someone else has to offer.
- Improve referral channels through existing customers. Reverse the process by hosting your own affiliate program so that you get more leads from partners. These partners complement your offers and already reach the target market you desire.
- Building web analytics on keywords outside your core. Rather than creating a new website to test an idea, you can borrow from existing affiliate programs to test for complementary keywords. This testing includes lead generation and sales offers without building any infrastructure.
Every diverse business development program with longevity has affiliate marketing in there somewhere. Start with the best possible opportunity, then enhance your approach with testing. Getting more leads, more sales, and a greater understanding of buyers is worth it.
CASE STUDY: Client increases advertising revenue by backfilling advertising server with affiliate offers. With affiliate programs, they could test offers across many diverse properties to determine which advertisers to pursue (and increase revenue easily.)
As you might see, affiliate marketing has the value of extending your reach with as few resources as possible. Affiliate marketing can operate as a simple referral program or be an integrated part of business development.
Done Right, Affiliate Marketing is a Business Development Solution For Any Budget
Many small businesses can benefit from affiliate marketing but don't know how to get started. They believe these programs have to be complex. You can help clients use affiliate marketing to test new ideas, reduce lead costs, and increase customer volume.
There are drawbacks to affiliate marketing too. There are many mistakes you can make with affiliate marketing. Help your clients avoid these mistakes while incorporating affiliate marketing as a revenue-growing resource.
Affiliate and referral programs aren't the only solution available or the right solution for everyone. Help clients see if affiliate marketing fits in their mix or if another solution is better.
Whether you promote other businesses' products, supplement your online catalog, or have affiliates selling your solutions, affiliate marketing has value to your business-to-business website.
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