Does affiliate marketing still work?
Well, affiliate marketing is largely credited with accelerating and maintaining Amazon’s lead in web-based book sales. In fact Amazon has expanded their program to include used books. Amazon also recently announced the launch of a new service entitled “Amazon.com Web Services.” With this service, developers will be able to dynamically integrate Amazon content and tools into their sites. The new tools will allow customers to remain on the affiliate site all the way up to the actual purchase, thus blurring the line between affiliates and resellers. If you are looking to join an affiliate program you should first recognize that you are not likely to have a huge sales volume. Therefore, look for affiliate deals that pay higher percentages (30% or more). The probelm with Amazon is that their commisssion for every sale is only around 15%. That’s only $3.75 on a $25.00 book! There are several good places to browse affiliate offers. Refer-It.com is my personal favorite.
For those interested in using the affiliate concept as part of your marketing mix then you need to create your own. For some practical advise, “The Four Myths of Affiliate Marketing” is a good start. The article states; “Any affiliate marketing system you use should get good results for both the advertiser and the affiliate. Identify sites that target similar audiences and have traffic. Also, make sure you pay them enough to make it worth their while.”
For the serious enterprise, affiliate marketing should be looked at as a way to market products and services without utilizing the reseller channel. The affiliate’s job is simply to generate qualified leads. This enables the enterprise to save money on marketing, increase branding to core audiences, broaden the reach of current marketing campaigns, decrease dependance on resellers and increase the amount of lead flow to the sales team.
What strategy should be employed to gain affiliates? In my opinion there are only two options that work, especially as it relates to niche markets. First, approach resellers, online publishers and others who are already getting web traffic from your potential customers. The closer the sites hit your niche the better, since you will be processing leads from these sites through your sales team. Obviously, the higher traffic sites should be first on your list to approach. The affiliate payout should be at least 30% per sale. Treat affiliates as you would a true reseller… like partners in the business of marketing your product.
A second, very effective approach to generating affiliates, is to advertise in publications such as email newsletters or magazines that target companies already marketing to your target audience. At murdok, many companies have found our niche email newsletters an excellent way to gain affiliate partners. For instance, goEmerchant, an online eBusiness hosting company, has gained thousands of new affiliates in the last two years utilizing our murdok list (this newsletter) which is read by over 500,000 internet professionals- most of which are decision makers in ebusinesses themselves. In future articles I will get into the nitty-gritty of setting up software or partnering with sites such as Commission Junction to manage your affiliate program. While we are on the subject there is a great book, “Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants”, that anyone putting an affiliate program together should read. This book is excellently written both for the merchant thinking about putting an affiliate program together as well as those with an existing successful affiliate program. I doubt there is a more complete and thorough book on successful affiliate management. By the way, you can find this at Amazon.com!
murdok is the CEO of murdok which publishes over 200 websites and email newsletters.
Rich also publishes his blog WebProBlog which focuses on internet business and marketing trends.
