I have been looking at this lately. I’ve seen so many affiliate programs launch and fail because the mechanics and marketing that is required to build a program and that sit behind the program offerings – just haven’t been put in place properly.
Last month I spoke about the importance of Affinity Marketing in my Free Webinar on YouTube – you can watch the replay HERE.
Online Marketing and the way we build engagement and rapport with partners online is evolving due to the necessity imposed by COVID restrictions around the globe. Lead generation and networking has changed and so has the impact on how we perform outbound sales. It’s time to start investing in your brand to pre-sell your affiliate program and build rapport with partners ahead of onboarding them into your program. It’s time to market via consistent storytelling instead of by price-sensitive offers.
I’ve been exploring brand affinity and how that impacts your affiliate program from the ground up. I’ve researched why some programs launch and soar and others launch and fail. I’ve been watching what is different in each and how affiliates engage with advertisers to see how to overcome failure.
The key thing to know is that those that fail – fail because they don’t invest in their program brand the same way they do for promoting to their customers. Launching an affiliate program takes patience and perseverance to get it just right. When you invest and you do it right some pretty amazing things can happen. I’ve seen this happen over the past few decades running affiliate programs across multiple industries over time.
It’s what I wanted to share with you today in our #AffiliateDriveTime Feature – it’s about understanding emotion-based selling and how together with investing in your brand affinity you can improve the performance of your affiliate program and your team’s output.
I”m going to be talking about this subject a lot more in the weeks that come but for now, I wanted you to remember a simple acronym or formula I like to call the “The 3 R’s”
Referrals + Reputation = < Reach
It’s simple – but effective.
When you implement it – it helps you build your affinity and brand within the affiliate community and that in turn boosts your program performance.
It’s about partnering with the right affiliates, companies and people that can help you leverage your brand reputation to increase new affiliate relationships and support your brand reach.
Advertising or marketing your affiliate program – is something few brands do. It is also grossly underrated at the moment as budgets are being cut or paused and squeezed. The problem with not investing in building your affiliate program brand is that you risk being “forgotten” or worse being misunderstood by your partners – which impacts their performance to drive you new customers of the right value and tenure too.
Now is not the time to go “dark” because of the economic downturn but to ramp up the exposure your affiliate program receives as a thought leader, innovator and collaborative partner helping affiliates to find you before your sales team has to actively engage.
Sometimes you have to think about the bigger picture to get the right perspective. With the 3 R’s in place, you’ll self perpetuate your program growth and allow your team to focus on things that are important and drive revenue without having to resort to spammy outreach or sleazy sales tactics.
Let me know what you think about this concept, and if you’ve started to invest in your brand affinity to build engagement with new affiliates and how that’s working for you HERE.
In the meantime, Affiliate Drive Time will be back next week on Wednesday so make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest affiliate marketing tips and tricks.
