Digital marketing comes in many forms, and there are various approaches you can take. While social media tends to get the most attention, this doesn’t mean you should overlook the power of email marketing.
Despite being one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, email marketing can still be an effective strategy for affiliates. In fact, on this week’s Affiliate Marketing Podcast, Declan Dunn discloses a number of ways to remain authentic in your outreach.
Affiliate email marketing is a form of performance-based marketing where an affiliate earns a commission for promoting another company’s products or services via email. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the concept:
Key Components
- Affiliate: This is the marketer who promotes the products or services of another company. Affiliates typically have a list of email subscribers who have opted in to receive marketing emails.
- Merchant: The company or individual who sells the product or service. They provide the affiliate with unique links, banners, or promotional materials to include in their emails.
- Email List: The affiliate’s list of subscribers who have given permission to receive promotional emails. This list is crucial as it represents the audience the affiliate will be marketing to.
- Tracking and Analytics: Unique affiliate links are used to track sales, clicks, and other actions taken by recipients of the emails. This ensures the affiliate is credited for any sales generated from their marketing efforts.
In this article, we take a look at why email marketing can work so well and how to craft effective email campaigns.
Does Email Marketing Still Work?
The incredible rise of today’s social media platforms changed the face of the digital marketing landscape. With these channels available, is there any need to pursue email marketing? Does it even work anymore?
In 2022, over 60% of marketers running email campaigns reported open rates of at least 20%. Given that there are somewhere in the region of 4.37 billion email users across the world, this means there is the potential to reach huge customer groups.
Not only does email marketing still work, but it’s actually having something of a resurgence. Research updated in May 2023, revealed that 77% of marketers had seen email engagement increase over the past 12 months.
It’s clear to see that email marketing is still a worthwhile strategy. Next, let’s take a look at how you can develop and launch a successful email campaign.
Process of Affiliate Email Marketing
- Affiliate Joins Program: The affiliate joins an affiliate program and receives unique affiliate links or promotional materials from the merchant.
- Email Content Creation: The affiliate creates email content that includes these links or materials. This content can be promotional, informational, or a mix of both, designed to engage their audience and drive traffic to the merchant’s site.
- Sending Emails: The affiliate sends these emails to their subscriber list. It’s essential that these emails comply with regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act, ensuring that all recipients have opted in and can easily opt out.
- Tracking Performance: The affiliate tracks the performance of their emails using the unique links provided. This includes monitoring click-through rates, conversion rates, and the overall ROI of the email campaigns.
- Earning Commissions: When a subscriber clicks on an affiliate link and makes a purchase or completes a desired action (like signing up for a service), the affiliate earns a commission. The amount varies depending on the agreement with the merchant.
Benefits of Affiliate Email Marketing
- Cost-Effective: Affiliates do not need to invest in product creation or inventory, as they are promoting existing products.
- Scalable: Affiliates can promote multiple products from different merchants to diversify their income streams.
- Performance-Based: Affiliates earn commissions based on the performance of their marketing efforts, which can be highly motivating.
Challenges
- Regulations and Compliance: Affiliates must adhere to strict email marketing laws and regulations to avoid penalties.
- List Quality: The effectiveness of email marketing depends on the quality and engagement of the subscriber list.
- Competition: High competition among affiliates can reduce the effectiveness of campaigns if the audience is receiving similar offers from multiple sources.
Affiliate email marketing can be a powerful tool for generating income, provided affiliates have a well-maintained email list and can create compelling content that drives conversions.
Building an Email Database
Before you can start using email marketing, first you need to build up a database of customer emails. Doing so takes time, but your efforts will pay off when you have amassed a collection of valuable customer details.
There are various ways to approach the process of collecting emails and building a database. Whatever tactic you choose, it’s vital that you keep consent in mind. Customers must disclose their emails willingly and express that they are open to receiving marketing messages. Emailing customers without prior consent could see you in breach of data privacy regulations such as the GDPR.
Offering content via email can be an effective way of building your database. You can distribute articles, guides, videos and infographics over email to a list of subscribers, with affiliate links contained within the content.
You can also hide content on your platform behind a wall before asking users to submit their emails to gain access.
Signing up for an email service provider is another option. These solutions can help collect emails and segment them for the implementation of targeted marketing campaigns. However, if you sign up for an email service provider, first you need to check if the service allows for the promotion of affiliate links.
Crafting the Perfect Email
Building up your database is only the first step. If you want to truly unlock the power of email marketing, you need to know how to write perfect, high-converting emails.
Email offers a unique opportunity for you to connect with customers on a more personal level. This is an important point to keep in mind and it should influence the way in which you craft your emails.
Avoid sounding too corporate and stay away from overly technical jargon and complex terminology. Be affable and personable and use humour wherever appropriate. Doing so will help motivate more users to click your links and will help consumers feel more connected to your brand.
While being friendly in your emails is important, you also need to deliver your marketing message as quickly and as concisely as possible. After a greeting, get right into the details of the product or service you are promoting and explain why it’s the perfect offer for the reader.
You also need to think about the affiliate link or button you include in your email. While a generic link may generate some clicks, you’re going to have to think outside of the box if you want to boost your click-through rates.
Rather than using a plain link, design a graphic button with bright colours that draw the user in. You should also include a call to action on the button itself, highlighting what benefits clicking it will offer. Doing so can see your click-through rates increase significantly.
In Conclusion…
The power of email marketing hasn’t diminished. In fact, data suggests that it could be more effective than ever. Launch an email marketing campaign today to make the most of this classic strategy.
