In the world of inbound and outbound marketing. The B2B and consumer world is already bombarded with advertising and organic campaigns. If it is B2B, then email and content marketing campaigns are on the sky and in B2C, it is content marketing and social media marketing. But apart from that there is one strategy, which is affiliate marketing.
B2B affiliate marketing is a secret lead-generation tactic that can be personalized, targeted, and scalable to some extent. In this blog, we will discuss how to create an impactful B2B affiliate marketing program for businesses to maximize their Return On Investment (ROI).
What is B2B Affiliate Marketing?
In B2B affiliate marketing, an affiliate or influencer is like a client of a brand that promotes their products and services to other businesses in exchange for commissions. An affiliate is usually an expert individual who has created a well-established image and trustful presence in a particular niche.
The affiliates are told to bring certain metrics and reach specific benchmarks in exchange for getting asked for commissions such as newsletter sign-ups, free trial subscriptions, etc.
How Does B2B Affiliate Marketing Work?
Here are some of the benefits of B2B affiliate marketing:
Access to Niche Customer
B2B marketing is all about targeting small cohesive customer bases as compared to broader groups of B2C. In this pursuit, many companies struggle to reach the right customer groups.
However, with affiliate marketing, there is no such case, the right affiliate marketers don’t even know how to crack the narrow customer bases but also have an established presence in those markets. Therefore, it’s a no-brainer for businesses to partner with professional affiliates and not worry about paying large sums of fees upfront, as brands only have to pay when affiliates bring conversions.
Effective Lead Generation Process
Lead generation in B2B affiliate marketing or any other marketing strategy is a bit longer and more complex path. It becomes difficult for businesses to target their ideal prospects and get their contact information to target them with a relationship-building strategy.
Many businesses invest heavily in building inbound and outbound marketing campaigns. Compared to inbound tactics, brands can utilize affiliate marketing services by integrating their programs into the existing sales funnel. B2B affiliate marketing generates high-value leads as these come from affiliates that are already in contact with customers regarding concerns about relevant products and services.
Transforms Brand Reputation
Affiliate marketing for B2B is one of the best ways to improve brand reputation. By partnering with well-established and trustful personalities, brands can influence their target audience’s opinions and leverage the presence and authority of their affiliates. Notable figures and personalities vouching for one company’s products and services through affiliate marketing channels improve brand image compared to inbound campaigns.
How to Build a Good B2B Affiliate Marketing Program
A B2B affiliate program is the right decision to avoid paying expensive upfront costs. Here’s how you can create one:
Understand Buyer Journey: A successful affiliate program corresponds to customers’ personal needs. For instance, some B2B customers demand customized marketing and sales materials. Therefore, affiliate marketing techniques should be focused on creating those efforts that target the right customer segments and improve the sales funnel.
Set Goals: The next step is to set goals. One needs to set goals in their affiliate program that they want to achieve quarterly, such as 25 new leads from the affiliate program in Q2 or 30% affiliate traffic to a certain date.
Identify Key Touchpoints: Every business’s target customer base moves along the sales funnel with different behaviors and interests. Therefore, one needs to create an affiliate program by determining the key behaviors of their customers so businesses can compensate their affiliates accordingly. Below are the common key behaviors of customers:
Clicks through the affiliate link
Micro or macro conversions
Form submissions
Newsletter sign ups
Free trial subscriptions
Develop Your Payment Plan: Rates differ with every industry. The ideal step is conducting a competitor analysis and examining how your similar industry competitors pay their affiliates. Considering your similar key behaviors, one can find their competitor’s compensation frameworks. Generally, merchants pay affiliates from 20 cents to $1 for unique affiliate clicks to the site, $5 to $90 dollars for lead generation and sometimes pay a low flat-rate fee.
Measure Performance: Once the program is started, businesses need to monitor the performance of their affiliate’s efforts through suitable management software. Businesses need to analyze their return on investment (ROI) and monitor the signs of any deliberate click frauds.
Conclusion
With rising affiliate marketing trends, brands need to focus on creating suitable programs that rightly compensate affiliates and encourage them to bring well-needed leads and sales. Affiliate marketing channels allow brands to target niche-related customer bases that are quietly impossible for brands to reach through their personal branded campaigns.
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