Digital technology opened up the business landscape and made it possible to connect with brands and customers across the world with the click of a button. However, this means many overlook the power of staying closer to home. In this article, we discuss the benefits of local affiliate marketing and detail how you can tap into your community.
What is Local Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a global industry. Brands can connect with partners from around the world to expand their reach and successfully target new demographics and customer groups.
The sector has grown significantly over the past few years, with experts predicting it could exceed a value of $36 million by 2030. While these are incredible numbers, and they are a testament to the health and potential of the industry, they also mean that affiliate marketing is more competitive than ever before.
As more organisations and individuals get involved with affiliate marketing, it’s becoming more difficult for existing affiliates to stand out from the crowd and generate the sales and conversions they need.
In response to this, we’re seeing an increasing number of affiliates look closer to home for opportunities. Local affiliate marketing means forging affiliate partnerships with smaller local businesses, rather than with international brands that could be on the other side of the planet.
The Benefits of Local Affiliate Marketing
What benefits can you see from implementing a local affiliate marketing approach?
First and foremost, you’ll face less competition. Rather than promoting household-name products to a global audience and competing with countless other affiliates, you will instead be marketing to a more focused, specialised demographic, and you’ll likely see better results.
Small local businesses are well aware of how important internet marketing is, but many do not have the time or resources to implement campaigns themselves. The stats back this up. Approximately 40% of small businesses don’t use digital marketing and just 17% make use of SEO.
Speaking of SEO, ranking for region-specific search terms is much easier than attempting to rank for global terms. Local SEO can also be extremely effective. Data suggests that 80% of local mobile searches lead to a conversion and around 46% of Google searches are region-specific.
What this means is that there is a fantastic opportunity here for you to use your digital marketing skills to help local businesses boost sales and improve reach. By connecting with businesses in your local area, you may find you’ll be offered far more favourable terms than you would see from partnerships with bigger brands and companies.
While many of these businesses might not run fully-fledged affiliate programs, you can still negotiate deals through which you generate leads for their business in return for an agreed commission rate. This also means you can upsell your services in the future, offering things like nurtured leads and conversion optimisation for improved commission rates.
In Conclusion…
As an affiliate marketer, it can be easy to overlook local businesses and focus on forging partnerships with huge global brands. However, doing so can mean missing out on some truly golden opportunities. Local affiliate marketing means you’ll face less competition and may be offered more generous partnership arrangements. In addition, local SEO is extremely effective and can see you generate improved results.
