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NOW ONThe global e-commerce market is becoming more fiercely competitive, with high traffic costs, difficult tracking of order data, and the lack of attribution analysis. Brands going global need to constantly explore and optimize new marketing and promotion methods.
In such a competitive environment, affiliate marketing, as a widely used digital marketing method globally, has begun to gain prominence in the domestic overseas market and has become one of the essential strategies for more and more brand merchants.
This article will discuss the entry strategies of affiliate marketing, analyze the characteristics of brand merchants suitable for carrying out affiliate marketing, and how to maximize the effectiveness of affiliate marketing at different stages.
When a brand decides to carry out affiliate marketing, it needs to fully analyze whether it has the basic conditions to ensure the successful implementation of the affiliate marketing strategy.
The success of affiliate marketing starts with the products or services provided. The merchant's products must have certain differences and competitiveness to attract the interest of affiliate partners. Affiliate partners tend to look for products that can meet the needs of their audience and are attractive. Therefore, the quality, function, price and market positioning of the products need to be convincing.
Differences include not only product features, but also brand values and missions. The reputation and credibility of the brand in affiliate marketing are also key factors in attracting affiliate partners.
For independent sites, the website is a key element for the success of affiliate marketing. The website needs to clearly convey the brand concept and product selling points, have clear navigation and guidance, a smooth conversion process, and a good reading and shopping experience. Any problems in any link will lead to traffic loss, reduce the conversion rate, and affect the willingness of affiliate customers to cooperate.
In addition, brand reputation, vertical ranking in the industry, completeness of the product ecosystem, and the effects of other marketing promotion actions (advertising/PR/SEO/EDM, etc.) will all affect the judgment and enthusiasm of affiliate customers for cooperation, especially top affiliate customers.
Each key link of affiliate marketing, including finding potential partners, establishing and nurturing relationships with partners, negotiating cooperation terms, optimizing marketing materials, monitoring and analyzing results, and continuously optimizing the marketing plan, requires full investment of time and resource support.
At the same time, the brand needs to consider configuring a professional affiliate operator, which can be an in-house employee, an affiliate service provider or an agency company, and ensure that there is enough working space to communicate efficiently with affiliate customers and adjust the affiliate marketing strategy in a timely manner.
Affiliate marketing relies on strategies that match brand needs and can fully motivate affiliate customers, including determining the target audience, product positioning, attracting policies for types of cooperative affiliate partners, commission structure and attribution model, etc. A good affiliate marketing strategy is based on a win-win situation between merchants and affiliate partners.
In the start-up stage of affiliate marketing, it is especially necessary to focus on the types of affiliate customers that are hoped to cooperate with and the attractive policies that can be provided. If the brand foundation of the merchant itself still needs to be strengthened, then the incentive policy needs to be strengthened.
Brands can quickly understand the industry trends, competitor dynamics and portraits of top affiliate customers in their industry through the intelligence insight module based on exclusive data intelligence in the affiliate marketing data analysis website, so as to formulate a more evidence-based affiliate marketing strategy.
In fact, affiliate marketing, as a highly flexible and very diverse marketing method, can provide effective growth space at different development stages of brand merchants. Brands should customize strategies according to the needs and goals of the development stage.
In the start-up period, merchants are still in the stage of brand building and user base construction. At this stage, the brand may not be well-known yet, but is seeking to increase exposure. Affiliate marketing can help the brand expand its reach and introduce new audiences.
Stage Goals:Build a brand foundation, increase awareness, attract more potential customers, and establish a stable user base.
Cooperation Strategy:Brands can cooperate with all types of content creators such as influencers, blogs and media to have them promote the brand and drive traffic.
When the brand already has a certain reputation and a group of loyal users in the market, affiliate marketing can be used to enhance the brand's influence. At this stage, the brand may hope to spread its reputation and values more widely and improve the marketing conversion effect.
Stage Goals:Further consolidate the brand influence, improve the brand's credibility, attract more loyal customers, and expand the market share.
Cooperation Strategy:Brands can make a certain combination of content-based and conversion-based affiliate partners, and comprehensively consider cooperation such as KOLs, media, blogs, forums, and price comparisons.
When the brand has achieved a relatively ideal reputation and user base, affiliate marketing can be used to develop different types of customer resources, including entering new market segments or cooperating with different types of partners.
Stage Goals:Further expand the market share, increase sales and improve the brand's diversification.
Cooperation Strategy:Brands can cooperate with multiple third-party affiliate platforms, layout multiple platforms, multiple countries and multiple projects, and select the type of affiliate partner that best matches the needs according to the development stage of different markets.
In the mature period, the brand may have occupied a certain market share, but needs to continuously improve efficiency and increase revenue. Affiliate marketing can be used to continuously enhance the brand's visibility and conversion rate, and the brand can establish strategic cooperative relationships with the affiliate partners with the best cooperation effect.
Stage Goals:Consolidate the brand's long-term influence, continuously improve the user conversion rate, and maintain market competitiveness.
Cooperation Strategy:Brands can comprehensively operate third-party affiliate platforms and self-built affiliates, widely cooperate with all types of affiliate partners, and increase investment to maintain cooperative relationships with top partners.
In general, affiliate marketing can provide flexible strategies for brand merchants to adapt to the needs at different development stages. Brands need to understand and utilize strategies that suit their own needs to maximize the value of affiliate marketing.