The field of knowledge is one that never stops growing. Any invention or equipment that you may be using now, you can bet, will be replaced by something better and more efficient. For example, the stethoscope used by doctors in the olden days is not one used to date. Today there are new, much-improved versions of the same instrument. The same goes for cars and engines used in industries.
Once there were people specifically employed to come to the factory and screw-on caps to toothpaste tubes by hand. This labor force was significantly reduced when a robot was designed for the job. Now the job 100 men complete in hours can be completed by the robot in minutes; with every other field advancing, it’s only natural that the way these items are marketed is revolutionized.
Previously marketing was done by spreading the news. One friend heard it from the other and conveys positive feedback about the article. This, in turn, encourages the other friend to go and buy the item as well. And so the product would get promoted. Then marketing converted into advertisement printed in the papers and broadcasted on television. Nowadays, there is once again a new twist to marketing. This twist is called affiliate marketing.
Though the term may seem daunting at first. But it is incredibly simple to understand. Affiliate marketing is just that: to affiliate yourself with others to get exposure to larger, more diverse audiences. You have a product that has the potential to sell like hotcakes. But the only problem is that many people don’t even know that you exist. Rectify this situation by affiliating yourself with well-known brands and people. Let them see what you have to offer, send them samples of your product and if they like it, ask them to promote it. This is exactly as you observe when you see the A list celebrities bathing with a beauty bar soap. In reality, the celebrity may or may not use the product, but when marketers pay the celebrities to endorse it, they are taking part in affiliate marketing. Now that you have understood the concept of affiliate marketing, here are some reasons why you should do it as well. If you are a new business owner or wish to expand your business, here are all the benefits you will get out of affiliate marketing:
KNOW THE BASICS:
For many marketers, E-commerce may not be something new. They know the concept, they have heard of it, they know how it works. That’s it. But it’s much more than that. As understood by many others, Affiliate marketing is merely a way to endorse your product to others. This is what commoners understand. We will paint a picture of exactly what you need to understand about affiliate marketing as a marketer. Suppose you own a business with multiple products. People look at your catalog and call you up to place an order. Or they even place orders via emails. To extract such a response from customers, you have to make your blog or website beautiful and chic. People will be attracted to the pictures of items you post online and will want to purchase them. You do all of this before even a single item is purchased from you.
So in simpler terms, you take a risk. From the expenses that go into your website to your order shipping warehouse, you take them all on your bank account to get the order to the customer. An affiliate will be someone who will come along and tell you that they will bear the costs of taking a pretty picture of your products, maintaining your presence online, making your brand a fan favorite. They will do all of this to not have to invest any capital or labor in marketing your product. But wait, here comes the catch! The affiliate then tells you they will do all of this but for a small profit that you send their way each time your product is purchased. So, in essence, the affiliate is only offering you their services as a marketer. You must be thinking, what does the affiliate get by doing such a lot of work? The affiliate negotiates a percentage of profit that they would receive each time the market would make a sale.
Now, this must lead you to say,” I knew it! This person wants only what’s best for them,” but that’s where you have misunderstood. The affiliate will get a profit, sure, but they will only ever gain this profit if you gain the profit first. So, in essence, the affiliate is risking just as much as you are. In fact, the affiliate will even bear the loss of their own capital should the marketing fail to import buyers. All of the money he invests in trying to sell that product will go to waste. Now you know what exactly affiliate marketing can be like for both the primary marketer and the affiliate marketer.
WHY NOT CONVENTIONAL MARKETING?
Asking questions only increases our knowledge. That is a fact. After digesting all of the information about what exactly affiliate marketing is, the next question that would logically pop into your mind is, “why not go with the conventional route of marketing? When it has worked for so many years before, then surely it can work for the future years as well, right?” Wrong! We live in an era dominated by E-commerce. No one, and I mean no one, picks up magazines and orders dressers on phone calls anymore. Do you know why? Because e-commerce has provided access to websites online that let you explore a wider catalog and come equipped with features such as Track your order and Contact us.
Now, if there are still people who want to opt for the traditional method of advertisement, here is what actually happens. When you go out to traditionally market your items, you first have to pay various costs. You have to pay for the raw materials that go into making your items. Then you have to cover the costs of engaging magazines and digests to print your advertisements. Then you also have to maintain your warehouses and contact information should you receive an order. Suffice it to say all of his costs a lot of money. Now imagine after all of this expenditure your advertisements do not go well, people are attracted to your product and do not want to invest in you. So all of the capital you invested in your product, along with the conventional marketing expenses, will fall on your shoulder. So you are the only one who has lost massive amounts of money.
Such is not the case for affiliate marketing. In affiliate marketing, the risk is shared by both the primary marketer and the affiliate. This means that if you profit, your affiliate profits. If you lose, your affiliate loses.
WHY SHOULD I LOOK FOR AN AFFILIATE?
After the entire debate of whether or not you should be interested in an affiliate, the next thing to ponder upon is: would I really benefit from this? I mean, what is the benefit? Just monetary? So I would have to invest more time and money, and then I’ll gain a benefit? No, that’s not necessary. We all live in different time zones. Where the sun rises in other areas, the sunsets. Why would I be looking for an affiliate if I will still only have the same 12 hours to do business? The answer: you’ll probably have more hours than just twelve. Imagine this. If your affiliate is someone living in the other corner of the world and marketing your product when you are asleep at 2:00 am in the morning, you are essentially making money even while you sleep. So at such an ungodly hour, you may be hitting the sack, but others would be up and about looking for the next thing they want to purchase online. So affiliate marketing will help you build revenue even when you are asleep or in the bathroom or out partying like there is no tomorrow. It was speculated by statisticians that about 6 million dollars alone will be generated from the revenue gathered by affiliate marketing in 2020! 2018 was winded up with 18% online orders made simply because of affiliate marketing.
HOW DOES ONE BEGIN AFFILIATE MARKETING:
So, you are a growing business. You want to be able to do better. So you decide that you will do affiliate marketing since there are a lot of benefits to it. But what about the mechanics of affiliate marketing? How does it actually work, and what is going on? To understand the proper mechanic of affiliate marketing, we must know the three prominent members of the family: the seller, the affiliate, and the consumers.
The seller is going to be the one who is making all of the products and wants to sell them. This is the very root of the tree. The seller needs to be not only good at manufacturing their product but good at single-handedly promoting it. With or without an affiliate, you need to be a seller who has built their own place in the business world. As a seller, you should consider studying E-commerce and what it actually takes. In this manner, whomever you choose to affiliate yourself to will know that you are not someone to be made a fool out of. Instead, you are a hard worker. You do not care about what other brands are up to. You have sufficient knowledge about your market and are doing well just fine without an affiliate. For example, if you want to sell a cobra kai jacket, you need to make sure that the jacket itself is so unique that you won’t be completely dependent on the affiliate marketer.
The affiliate is the one to promote your product. Be careful about this. Select the right affiliate. Your goal here is not to promote your product, no but you want to be a common topic of discussion between peers from all around the world. So the affiliate’s job is to broaden the spectrum of the audience you reach out to. Ensure that your affiliate can actually come through with the promises they make since they will be getting a profit every time you sell an item. Remember, even if the affiliate does not have many followers, it is their job to make your product the apple of the audience’s eye.
The consumers are where the money comes from. These are the people you and your affiliate have to please. They have to be well informed about what your product offers. And what they would be able to benefit from should they choose to invest in your products. All of the information about your product and its benefits will be provided by your affiliate. But that does not mean that you as a seller do not have a role to play. You, the primary marketer, will solely be responsible for developing your brand’s image. For example, you need to be the best seller of the cyberpunk 2077 jacket to attract customers. And this needs to happen before you hire an affiliate.
You have to be a professional. Show the consumers and the affiliate that your products are worthy of attention and not just a coax.
Having knowledge about the above three is not where affiliate marketing ends. Nowadays, e-commerce is growing rapidly. This makes each consumer question whether or not they want to buy products that are being marketed online by affiliations. They begin to think and with good reason as well, that the affiliates are only praising the product since they are getting paid by the primary market. This may be true in most cases. But consumers are more attracted towards affiliates who directly disclose that they will be getting a small commission.
In this way, the consumer knows that the affiliation and the seller are not hiding anything. If they are this honest about selling their product, knowing fully that this plan could backfire and lose a lot of money, they must surely be honest about how original their product is. So in this manner, having an affiliate to market your products can set you apart in the consumer’s eyes. And once the deal with the affiliate is done, the seller will continue to profit from the customers who would buy his product.
HOW DO I MAKE MY AFFILIATE HAPPY:
Just as easily as you can find an affiliate and sell your product, you could very well lose your customers’ loyalty. This usually happens when the affiliate is unhappy. There can be several reasons that the affiliate becomes cross with you, but let’s face it, the main reason is that the affiliate wants to be compensated justly. So it is always wise to decide exactly how much you will pay your affiliate before you begin a business. Now how much you want to pay your affiliate will depend upon how much the affiliate is grinding. Are they working hard enough? Are audiences that you were promised about reaching out to buy your product. Can you trust the affiliate’s work?
You, as the primary marketer, could choose to pay the affiliate marketer per click. This means every time the affiliated link is clicked by the consumers just to visit your website, the affiliate has done his job and should be paid according. That is if this was your only goal. Alternatively, you could choose to pay the affiliate per sale. Every time the affiliate marketer markets the product and the product is successfully sold, you will only be liable to pay the affiliate marketer. This is smarter since you would not have to blindly pay the affiliate marketer before people even buy the product. Remember, there is always a chance that even after affiliate marketing, your product does not sell well.
Sometimes marketers hire affiliate marketers only to have certain forms filled out. For this purpose, you could pay the affiliate for the number of times they have successfully diverted traffic to your website.
WHO ARE THE AFFILIATES:
Ideally, when you are looking for affiliates to market your items, you are looking for people who know what they are doing. For its purpose, firstly, you must be in touch with the top affiliate marketing platforms. Like for example, Facebook and Instagram. People are instantly attracted to feeds on Instagram and are more or less daily checking these platforms. So it would be wise to find affiliates with a large social presence. These could be Bloggers, influencers, Celebrities, Emailers, large website owners, and content writers.
LASTLY, it is essential to remember that though affiliate marketing is an amazing tool to be used nowadays, it does not guarantee anything at all. There may be numerous advantages to affiliate marketing like, for example, it is a means of earning an income even when you are not available online. Another factor is that it is incredibly cost-effective. Costs nowhere near the amount you would spend if you were marketing using magazines.
