Whether you’re trying to sell a service or a product, using a variety of marketing tactics is your best bet to garner interest. One tactic that’s often overlooked by small business owners is affiliate marketing. However, this type of marketing offers little risk and big rewards if done correctly. Does affiliate marketing make sense for your small business?
Compared to Google Ads, the cost per sale for affiliate marketing is impressive. Depending on the industry, a sale through Google Ads can cost as much as 20x more than the same sale through affiliate marketing.
A second benefit is expanding the audience being exposed to your product or service. Small businesses can tap into the audience of their affiliates and, as a result, expand their brand’s reach. These new audiences might not have been easy to target and identify using other marketing and advertising methods.
Affiliate marketing can also help your website’s SEO through numerous backlinks via your affiliate websites, blogs, and social media pages. This is especially true if you’re working with higher-ranked partners whose audiences share content about your product or service across a variety of platforms.
Affiliate marketers spend a lot of time building up a dedicated audience. Affiliates who have built a rapport with an engaged audience are trusted by them. When they give a review of an affiliate service or product, this provides credible social proof for the product and the brand.
There are several affiliate marketing systems where you can promote your products or services for a fee. Affiliate networks are like project managers for your affiliate program. They manage your program by providing services such as recruiting, vetting, sales tracking, and commission payouts. The most popular affiliate networks are:
Here’s a great article that compares affiliate networks, listing the pros and cons of each, including the ones listed above.
Once established, you’ll still need to monitor and track the activities of your affiliate marketers or have a small business marketing professional do it for you. It’s important to ensure you’re product or service is being properly represented, and the leads or sales are quality.
Affiliate marketing can be a smart investment for small business owners. If you’re looking for ways to expand your sales, affiliate marketing may just fit the bill!
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