The Four C’s of Affiliate Marketing: A Synopsis
Earlier this week, Jason Hulott did a great blog post entitled “The Four C’s of Affiliate Marketing.” According to him, here are the four main points and ideas that vendors should consider to help affiliates push their products and stay loyal.
Commission
This is how much affiliates receive for selling your product on their websites. There are three main options for structuring your commission payouts. They are:
Pay Per Sale
Pay Per Lead
Pay Per Click
Don’t overpay your affiliates. Decide how much you can realistically afford first. Even if you have to pay less, it’s better than paying a large amount and then reducing it later. Your affiliates won’t like that.
Creativity
Affiliates won’t sell your product very well if you don’t help them. Provide them with details, affiliate marketing materials and anything else they need to sell you product. Many vendors even provide their affiliates with text links, HTML codes, content and reviews to use on their websites to promote their products the way they want them promoted.
Consistency
Be consistent with affiliates. Send them reports on a regular basis and keep them updated on any changes in your products or services. Being consistent shows you care. It will also make your affiliates more loyal to you instead of encouraging them to look around for other vendors for their sites.
Communication
By communicating with your affiliate marketers, you achieve two important goals. First, you keep them informed with any news about your business or any changes going on so they can help market your products or services better on their websites. Second, communication makes affiliates feel more important, and they’ll be more likely to stay with you as a vendor.
By using this information, you can understand more about how to keep your affiliates happy and loyal. And if you’re an affiliate marketer, this information might give you a better idea of how vendors think.
Britannica Does Affiliate Marketing, Too
This story intrigued me for two reasons. The first reason is that I’m reading a book called The Know-It-All. It’s about one man’s quest to become the smartest person in the world by reading through the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. That’s 44 million words, dozens of volumes and tens of thousands of pages.
The second reason is that I didn’t even know that the Encyclopedia Britannica participated in affiliate marketing. But this “innovator of online research and education” not only participates in the affiliate program but also wants to expand. EB has hired NETexponent, a leading online marketing agency, to increase subscriptions and order volume through affiliate links and recruitment.
Currently, Britannica has a successful affiliate program through Performics technology. The plan for the new expansion is to launch a program in Commission Junction. And with the dual platforms, affiliates will be able to choose their preferred programs for offering links to the website.
Britannica affiliates currently receive commissions starting at 10 percent for subscription leads and purchases. If a buyer clicks on an affiliate’s link and purchases a product within 30 days of the initial referral, the affiliate receives the commission.
Located in New York, NETexponent builds partnerships between merchants and advertisers. The company, founded in 2001, bases its business on direct marketing. The goal of NETexponent is to be the most ethical and efficient marketing agency in the nation. Through its partnership with Britannica, NETexponent hopes to use its relationships to promote the encyclopedia and the other learning services that EB provides.
Seven Reasons to Use Affiliate Marketing, Part 2
Wednesday we discussed four reasons to use affiliate marketing programs on your website or for your online business. Here are three remaining reasons to use this system to increase your income.
5. Affiliate marketing means less hassle for you. The vendors already have the product and they have already developed the product, too. Vendors also have a sales page and payment processing equipment. They are also responsible for shipping and taking care of any customer issues once the product reaches the hands of the consumer. Besides including an affiliate link to the vendor from your website, here’s what you need to do: Nothing.
6. Vendors often supply you with sales tools. These could include reports, sales figures and e-mails that you can send to potential customers. The reports might also give you a better idea about who is visiting your website and then going to your affiliates from your site. As such, you can tailor the content on your site to cater to your audience even better.
7. You are not required to commit to anything. You have no obligations to the vendor, and you can drop your affiliate links at any time. You can even find new ones that might work better for your online business. You have the utmost flexibility with the vendors you choose.
If you haven’t considered affiliate marketing for your website, try it out today. It’s a great income supplement and can even make thousands of dollars a month if you’re extremely successful at it.
