Building a loyal audience for your brand can seem like a daunting task, you’ve already amassed an audience, but how to keep them around? Making use of affiliate marketing can be an excellent way to increase sales and keep customers returning time and time again.
Whatever your business, joining an affiliate marketing program (or hiring your own affiliates!) is one of the most reliable marketing methods. Performance-based affiliate marketing, where compensation is given to affiliates per sale or conversion, is particularly effective, as well as cost-effective since you are only paying for results.
Affiliate marketing provides brands with an opportunity to access an affiliate’s audience. If you work with influencers with a large audience or a wide reach in your market segment, they can be crucial to raising brand awareness and pushing traffic onto your site, resulting in more sales. Affiliate marketing can also significantly increase the number of new customers accessing your website. Here are some of the best ways to use affiliate marketing to create a loyal audience for your brand:
Choose the right affiliates
Choosing the right affiliate for your brand is so important. Every affiliate you work with reflects your brand image and serves as a direct representation of your business. If you are going to join an affiliate programme, make sure to do your research on the affiliates you work with to make sure they are suitable for your brand.
Look for the affiliates that will be the best for your brand, ideally those with a great relationship with their audience, as well as an audience that will be interested in your brand. Try not to stray too far away from your target market as your marketing efforts will likely be in vain. Also, look for affiliates who have an engaged audience. Look for a good following, as well as likes, comments and authority rankings.
Picking your affiliates well is important to make sure your efforts aren’t wasted. Affiliates with more followers as well as higher numbers of unique followers daily will help you to grow your audience.
Once you’ve picked your affiliates, consider the way you pay them. Although some affiliate marketing programs offer affiliates payment per post, to make the most bang for your buck try to pay for performance and sales rather than just clicks. Encourage your affiliates to make as many actual sales as possible and pay per sale for the most low-risk method of marketing.
Make use of the power of influencers
If you’re looking for a top-tier affiliate partnership, consider looking toward influencers. Affiliates and influencers do not just have to be celebrities, lots of the top influencers nowadays are regular people who have amassed a large following due to their hard work and great content, resulting in an engaging and authentic relationship with their audience. This can make influencers a great choice for your affiliate program because consumers have a lot of faith in their peers, and therefore find influencers more trustworthy than both celebrity endorsements and advertisements.
Keep in touch with customers
Once you have a customer in your loop, keep up consistent and engaging contact with your customers. This shows them that you care about their custom, as well as reminds them of your brand regularly. Regular emails, as well as follow-up messaging, will encourage a loyal audience and increase conversions.
As well as emails, engage with consumers across a variety of social media platforms and send SMS or push notifications to customers, including personalised offers and coupons.
Make use of promos, coupons and offers
One of the best digital marketing strategies out there for boosting sales is the sharing of coupons and offers. People are significantly more likely to try out a new brand if they have access to a discount or a coupon, and offers can be really great at converting new customers who have never tried out what you are offering.
Give your affiliates promo codes or coupons to share, and work with high-quality sites. Encourage your affiliates to share coupon codes on all of their social media pages with direct affiliate links, and send out personalised emails which can direct audiences towards these points of sale. Keep all of your affiliate-related websites accurate and up to date with currently available deals to keep customers in the know.
If you approach affiliate marketing the right way, it can be hugely beneficial in creating a more loyal audience, increasing conversions and also helping you to grow your audience. Be aware that this will take work from both you and your affiliate partners, so make sure to do plenty of research into the best affiliate marketers for your brand. Opt for affiliates who reflect your brand and who you would be happy to be associated with your business.
If you want to learn more about how to use affiliates to improve your business, come along to the AffililateINSIDER Elevate Summit this June!
