We’re back for the 12th season of the Affiliate Marketing Podcast! Lee-Ann kicks off the new season with a discussion with the CEO and co-founder of Increasingly, Sri Sharma. The retail intelligence company has aided lots of big names, like Sephora and Samsung in growing revenue, so Sri is full of insights to share in big brand business.
Listen in to this week’s Affiliate Marketing Podcast for takes on eCommerce, AI, and getting through this recession.
Refocussing brands throughout a recession
As we’ve seen through this most recent volatile market, companies are scaling back. Staff are being made redundant, projects are getting money pulled, and spending is down.
But not so much with the customers, as Lee-Ann points out. A theory posed is that customers still have to spend throughout a volatile market or recession even if they have to spend less. Sri’s solution is to refocus on your core audience and target them in particular.
“If you have a business that’s struggling, it’s about saying, ‘Well, who is my core audience?’ And really focusing on them. And you can use affiliate marketing for that because you can say, ‘Well, let me find some locals who are similar audience’. If you know that your target audience are starting their journey on TikTok or on YouTube, again, you can use affiliate marketing for that. Likewise, it can be about amplifying your cross-sell approach.”
Is discounting worth it?
Lee-Ann mentions discounting, calling it “lazy marketing”. It is the most common way to get eyes on the brand, but is it worth it? Are there other ways to improve revenue per customer?
Sri says: “I really want to make the point that that is not the only way. And I’d love it if affiliate managers were able to communicate that upwards to their clients. Because when you do that, you end yourself on a journey of spiralling downwards, and everyone knows this, but you kind of feel like you’ve got no choice, and that’s why you do it.”
Instead, Sri goes on to detail focussing on the “customer’s mission”. Figuring out what they are trying to do when they buy from you and focussing your marketing campaign on that. This is key to surviving volatile market conditions.
AI in eCommerce
Inevitably, Lee-Ann and Sri got onto the topic of AI and ChatGPT: the hot-button topic of the industry this year – and Sri has some opinions on where it will take us.
Sri said: “It really is data science in effect, and it’s about number crunching or reading text or reading images and producing some sort of outcome. And all of that has added value.”
“If we then fast forward what that really means in business is, it means that lots of the day-to-day manual work, being frank in the day-to-day job world, it means that lots of the manual work will be removed.”
For the very best advice from industry peers, register to join us for our ELEVATE Summit in July. Elevate aims to bring you the latest affiliate, performance, and partner marketing insights from across the globe and it’s all available to stream from our website and we are very pleased to say that Sri Sharma will be joining us as a speaker at the event. Register today to hear more of his insights from the eCommerce world.
If you are interested in more affiliate and social media marketing insights, take a look at our blog for all the latest news and advice. Or for a more personalised approach, book a free call with a member of our team.
Listen to find out more about:
- Background to Sri’s time as founder of Increasingly
- Amplifying your cross-sell approach with social media
Key segments of this podcast and where you can tune into go direct
[07:00] – The untapped potential of Ai
[12:00] – The journey of the finance customer
[17:00] – Using ChatGPT to push eCommerce forward
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