You can hardly manage a long-term marketing strategy without paying close attention to affiliate marketing. After all, when it comes to cross-promotion and building up an online presence, affiliate marketing is a necessary tool. So, in order to deepen your understanding, we are going to take a closer look at certain affiliate marketing strategies. With practice, they should help you boost your online marketing and reach the audience that you couldn’t before.
How to approach affiliate marketing
To better understand affiliate marketing strategies, we first need to outline what affiliate marketing is. In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where brands work with affiliates who help promote their products and/or services. It is also known as performance-based marketing, since most of your marketing efforts are based on the performance of various affiliates. When used properly, affiliate marketing allows you to reach new audiences and grow your online presence.
So, with this in mind, how do you approach affiliate marketing strategies? The key thing to monitor is performance. If you are to handle affiliate marketing properly, you need to know how well your affiliates are performing. Only then will you be able to alter your strategy in order to fit the current market trend. And, as you will soon learn, being able to adapt and implement new strategies is what affiliate marketing is all about.
Using analytic tools
You cannot talk about advanced affiliate marketing if you first don’t have the necessary analytic tools. After all, how are you going to know which affiliate is performing properly and which strategy is working, if you do not have the necessary tools to track them in the long run? Now, there are many analytic tools out there that you can use for affiliate marketing. And, you should definitely stick with those that you feel comfortable with.
Upgrading your website for affiliate marketing
After
you’ve installed the necessary tools to monitor the performance of your
affiliates, you need to update your
website so that it is easy to promote. Now, this may seem redundant, but a surprising number of people fail to
properly organize their website. By skipping that step, they make affiliate
marketing needlessly difficult and even end up hurting their online presence.
So, in order for your affiliates to have an easier time promoting you, here is
what to do with your website.
Improved content
Since affiliate marketing usually takes a long time to fully develop, people tend to neglect the content on their website. They seem satisfied to let their old content sit and only promote the latest posts. This is not only a waste of resources, but it is also a bad way to manage your website. Soon you will end up with dead links, useless webpages and an overcrowded website. So, do yourself a favor, and improve your content constantly. It is much better to have a website with picked out, top-notch content then to have one with useless piles of text. By keeping your website short and to the point, you will also help your affiliates promote it in a better way.
Having “clean” links
This
may seem trivial, but it can be quite important. Namely, if left unchecked, websites will keep your links long and
difficult to read. So, instead of having a link such as
“http://www.randomwebsite.com/asf88124nakshfakhdf”, set it up
as “http://www.randomwebsite.com/nameofthepost”. That way you will
have an easier time sharing your website on social media.
Streamline promotion
The whole point of affiliate marketing is for you to use affiliates to address the needs of your audience. In order to do this properly, you need to pick the content you want them to promote. Remember, trying to promote your whole website at once won’t do you much good.
Even if you have a lot to offer, you need to pick out a service or a product that you feel represents your company best. These are called pillar services and/or products, and they are key to a streamlined promotion. By using them you will be able to monitor your marketing strategy more easily. And since there will be fewer variables, you will be able to promote your website with better control.
Some affiliate marketing strategies to consider
The
aspects we’ve outlined so far should give you an idea of how to approach
affiliate marketing. But, the important one we would like to point out is that you should always look towards building your
own affiliate network. Having an affiliate network of your own is the main
difference between basic and advanced affiliate marketing strategies.
Choosing the right affiliates
Having the right affiliates promote you is the first step you need to take in order to have a decent, long-term affiliate marketing strategy. By choosing the right people, you will be able to promote to your target demographic and build rapport with them. This, in turn, will make your marketing efforts worthwhile since you’ll be engaging the people who actually want to do business with you.
Using coupons and deals
Coupons
and deals are a great way to temporarily boost your online presence and draw in
some new attention. The main thing with
them is to time them properly and pick the right product/service to offer
coupons for. In most cases, this will be your pillar product/service. But, if
the time is right, you can offer
something that will boom your business, especially if you combine it with
cross-promotion.
Working with social media influencers
Social media influencers have become a great way to promote products, especially if you create a decent social media campaign. By contacting the right ones and by offering a good product, you will easily break the wall of obscurity, and help people find out about you.
Author bio:
Joanna Spencer is a freelance blogger who mainly focuses on writing helpful articles about website management and marketing strategies. She also helps people learn how to monitor your website in order to keep your data safe and how to promote your website in the most cost-effective way.