If you own an SMB or plan on owning one, the big X factor you’re probably not considering is marketing. Typically, marketing requires a large outlay of funds and effort. Affiliate marketing is a great way to curb those costs intelligently. Unfortunately, not all SMBs recognize the benefits of this approach. Studies show that only 25% of SMBs use affiliate marketing to boost sales. Let’s go through a few of the main reasons why SMBs should reconsider this indifferent stance.
No-Risk Lead Generation
By far the most appealing aspect of affiliate programs is the fact that if your affiliates don’t deliver the goods in the form of leads, they don’t get paid. That’s a pretty big incentive for affiliates to ensure that your business succeeds. It’s win-win and it directly improves ROI on your advertising expenditures. Most SMBs don’t usually mind spending money on marketing if they know that it’s going to deliver results for the most part.
Better Local Consumer Acquisition
For the average SMB, attracting local customers is of massive importance. Doing so on your own as an SMB owner can be quite labor intensive if you have to introduce yourself to every potential customer. Affiliates do all of the lead acquisition for you on their own dime in the hopes that they’ll get a piece of the action. Affiliates will knock themselves out to make sure that your local market knows your name.
Read more: How Professional Service SMBs Can Maximize Pay Per Call Campaigns
Increased ROI on Your Spending
For SMBs with tight budgets, it’s difficult to allocate funds to marketing with confidence. That’s because they’re unsure of the return they’ll see on their spending. The great thing about mobile affiliate marketing is that you’re more or less guaranteed far higher returns than you could expect with mere newspaper ads. With print media, it’s tough to gauge the success of your efforts. With mobile affiliate marketing, assessing your success is far easier.
Greater Peripheral Exposure
Even if an affiliate campaign doesn’t immediately yield results, it’ll provide ancillary benefits that are hard to quantify. The fact that your name is being passed around in affiliate ads is tantamount to free marketing. Your brand is being promoted without a lot of ad spending. If your affiliates don’t hit paydirt right away, they’ll redouble their efforts. In the meantime, your SMB gets ever greater local exposure that’ll cement your brand identity in the minds of potential customers.
Feedback That Improves Your SMB
One of the most important considerations of any SMB marketing operation is getting accurate consumer feedback to right the ship if you’re off course. Even if your business is going gangbusters, you can still use on-the-ground information accrued from your affiliates’ efforts to direct future growth and marketing. Keeping a close eye on which promotions get the right results is a great way to boost ROI and help your affiliates in the process.
Related: 5 Benefits of Using an Agency for Your SMB’s Digital Advertising
The Future of Affiliate Marketing Synergy
There’s no doubt that affiliate marketing is a tremendous bargain for SMBs and their associates. However, the form that affiliate marketing assumes is always in flux. These days, the way to play the trend is with Pay Per Call marketing. It puts SMBs in touch with the customers they desire the most far more effectively than other kinds of marketing. With so many people fielding smartphones nowadays, Pay Per Call is the obvious future of affiliate marketing for shrewd SMBs.