How to Grow Your Business with Affiliate Marketing in 2021? Creating your Own Affiliate Marketing Program, Joining an Affiliate Program.

Any person who operates an online business would be lying if they said they didn’t want to be a big success. This won’t happen overnight; it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of time, and a lot of sacrifices. However, there are tools out there that can help contribute to growing your business. One of the more proven methods is using affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a form of marketing that is based on performance. It works by creating a relationship between two entities; for example, Company A will reward their affiliates for driving traffic and customers back to Company A. This can actually benefit both sides when it comes to growing a business.

Creating your own affiliate marketing program to Grow your Business

If a company sells a product or service, affiliate marketing can be a powerful tool to help encourage sales growth. By recruiting affiliates to market your products and services for you, you get someone else to do all the work, paying them for set terms and conditions. Amazon has their very own affiliate program for just this very thing, and they’re one of the biggest companies around the world.

As a company, if you’re paying an affiliate purely for visitors, this is far from ideal. Whilst you may get a boost in the numbers of people visiting your online business, if they don’t make a purchase then you’re paying out money for no real gain. That is unless your business is like a news service that is making their own money from advertisement packages like Google Adsense.

The best practice as a company would be to pay out commission on successful sales. This way, you are only paying out if someone comes from an affiliate and makes a purchase. By only paying for successful sales, this means when visitors don’t buy anything at least the increased traffic is free. Of those customers who may not buy right then, some may return to make a purchase at a later date not through an affiliate link saving you paying out on commission.

Another best practice if you’re a company launching an affiliate marketing program is to make sure you calculate what you can afford to pay affiliates. You can have several levels of affiliate membership, with affiliates who draw in more revenue being paid more money. Which encourages people to work harder to earn more, and thus earning you more. It is important though, that you’re not paying out more than you make. Otherwise it’s all for nothing.

Joining an affiliate program

The other way to grow your business with affiliate marketing is by being an affiliate. Whilst working to increase revenue for another company may not seem like it’ll be good for your own business, it can be. It does, however, depend on what kind of business you operate.

Affiliate marketing is extremely popular amongst many bloggers, influencers, and news websites. This is because not only does it offer them an opportunity to generate their own revenue, it encourages them to generate more content for their websites too. With more content, it’s likely to drive more interest in your site, drawing in more visitors and growing your business via exposure.

When creating content for affiliate marketing, it is best practice to include your affiliate links in a natural way. You want your content to flow and be engaging. You don’t want that content to be sticking out like a sore thumb and being a blatant advertisement, because it lowers the quality of your content and can put people off from coming back to your website.

Sportsbookreview.com is a great example of affiliate marketing in terms of how to implement it in a natural way. SBR publishes content based around traditional sporting events and esports events; offering betting tips and suggestions for people who visit their website. They’ll often publish content on odds for upcoming events like MLB games; analyzing stats and linking back to sportsbook sites they’re affiliated with. Making the affiliate links a natural fit to the content.

How to grow your business with affiliate marketing?

Depending on where you are in the world; it may also be best practice to disclose if your content includes affiliate links. If you have a website that operates in the UK, you are required to declare if your content contains these links because it is classed as an advert. You don’t have to say specifically which links are affiliated; but if you don’t add a disclosure, then you could be subject to a fine. It’s also good for your business’s image of being transparent and honest.

But besides generating additional content which could draw in more viewers; as mentioned, affiliate marketing also has the opportunity to increase your revenue. The harder you work marketing the sites you’re affiliated with, the more money your business can make. This can then be reinvested into your business for your own marketing or improving things like website design. If done well, this can also help your business grow.

It would be best practice though to not just spend everything you earn on marketing your own business without a plan. Save the money, identify the areas of your business that need improving or where your target audiences are; and then invest your money in those areas. By doing this you give your business the best chance at succeeding when it comes to growing and becoming successful.

Extra best practice tips

We’ve touched upon a few best practice tips already; both in terms of setting up your own or joining another business’s affiliate marketing program. There are a couple more that are worth considering too.

Do you have the time to actively publish additional content or push the marketing for the affiliate program you are part of? If not, and you’re approached about joining an affiliate marketing program; it could be best practice to turn down, but instead offer advertisement banner slots. The company still gets some advertisements with your audience, and you can still generate revenue. Which method will earn you more is unknown, but you do have options there.

Another best practice tip is you don’t have to be limited to one affiliate marketing program. Some companies may say they do not want you to advertise them alongside a rival; others may not have any issue. But the more programs you sign up for; the more opportunities you have to increase your revenue and grow your business.