Affiliate Marketing - Straight Answer Sought!!!

[Henry9000]

Ok web marketing guru's - here's my question:

I have a product - Home Appliance Service Contracts - 3 different contracts covering various different home appliances.

Already have a few thousand customers signed up, all pay by direct debit monthly.

There is a huge market for my products, have a look at homeserve.

I am interested specifically in affiliate marketing, not PPC, not SEO.

My question is...In your opinion, would affiliate marketing work for this kind of product? And what would be the best way to get started?

I have a budget for a website redesign (if required), and a small budget for marketing.

Help is appreciated in advance!


Henry

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Who would be your target audience to be affiliates?

 

[Henry9000]

Thanks for your response, though I don't think I understand your question.

My target audience is homeowners who take an interest in protecting the parts of their home that home insurance does not cover - is that what you mean?

 

[boring-friday]

Sign up with share a sale or similar. Can post on IM forums if you want to try find some yourself also, better hope you're paying well though amazon pays up to 10% and converts much better than whatever you're selling

 

[Henry9000]

Sign up with share a sale or similar. Can post on IM forums if you want to try find some yourself also, better hope you're paying well though amazon pays up to 10% and converts much better than whatever you're selling

Thanks for your input

Interesting about Amazon I wasn't aware they paid so well.

I would definitely not convert as well as Amazon, (not at the moment anyway!) but I do pay well. Approx 20% on a £180 sale.

Excuse my ignorance, IM forums? Is that internet marketing?

Thanks again

H

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

NO, who are your target affiliates?

Also, Can't you sell your products on Amazon, ebay and other related outslets?

 

[boring-friday]

Thanks for your input

Interesting about Amazon I wasn't aware they paid so well.

I would definitely not convert as well as Amazon, (not at the moment anyway!) but I do pay well. Approx 20% on a £180 sale.

Excuse my ignorance, IM forums? Is that internet marketing?

Thanks again

H

Yeah sorry blackhatworld is the biggest. Sign up to a decent affiliate program first though, I don't think 20% is going to cut it, make it 50% and I might come play if its a decent product

 

[Henry9000]

NO, who are your target affiliates?

Also, Can't you sell your products on Amazon, ebay and other related outslets?

Thanks for the input

At risk of sounding obtuse, could you please explain what you mean by a "target affiliate"? I am not familiar with this type of marketing.

It's a subscription service rather than a physical good, so Amazon and Ebay would be difficult HOWEVER Homeserve did use Ebay to great effect as part of a wider campaign and appear to plan on using them long term. They sold products related to their main offering i.e. radiator keys, and used that as a way in to market the relevant service offering.

i.e. if you buy a radiator key (and you're not a heating engineer) you may have an issue with your central heating and therefore be a good target for central heating repair/cover - quite smart on their part.

I just don't have the resources to undertake a project like that at this stage.

Yeah sorry blackhatworld is the biggest. Sign up to a decent affiliate program first though, I don't think 20% is going to cut it, make it 50% and I might come play if its a decent product

I'll have a look on there, thanks for the advice!

Ha at 50% I'd struggle

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

You are approaching this without knowing what you want to do.

When you do anything in marketing you need to know your target market and base your proposition around it.

Whilst your consumer is an end user, you affiliate target is who do you want promoting your product. Sure, just let anyone do it and you will get a wide range promoters, but only a handful will achieve anything worthwhile - think 80/20. Work out who will give you the best results - engineers, shops, diy websites etc and target your recruitment efforts accordingly.

I am doing a similar thing at the moment and it is a lot harder than it sounds!

 

[Henry9000]

You are approaching this without knowing what you want to do.

When you do anything in marketing you need to know your target market and base your proposition around it.

Whilst your consumer is an end user, you affiliate target is who do you want promoting your product. Sure, just let anyone do it and you will get a wide range promoters, but only a handful will achieve anything worthwhile - think 80/20. Work out who will give you the best results - engineers, shops, diy websites etc and target your recruitment efforts accordingly.

I am doing a similar thing at the moment and it is a lot harder than it sounds!

Perhaps you've picked me up wrong.

I have a comprehensive understanding of my target market, what my proposition is, and what I want to achieve.

What I want to achieve is entirely simple - volume sales of home appliance service contracts by way of affiliate marketing!

What's interesting is that you have mentioned I am approaching this without knowing what I want to do. Actually, I know exactly want I want to do, I just don't know how to do it!

Thanks for your input though, now that I know what you meant by target affiliate, I am starting to build a better of picture of what is required.

Recruitment of affiliates makes this sound like it would be a case of selling the idea to my target affiliate in order to get them excited about it and hopefully motivate them to sell it....Would an amateur like me not be better off contacting an agency who are experienced in this kind of thing?

Then it would be the agency I sell my idea to, and they would already have a successful network in place - or am I off the beam slightly?

Do such agencies exist?

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

These might be the kind of thing you're after (these are just some examples, there are loads more)

http://www.leadpoint.co.uk/index.php/home/
http://www.affiliatewindow.com/uk/
https://www.paidonresults.com/

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Ok, who is your target market to be your affiliate?

Scott has mentioned some great affiliate sites and you will be able to approve who you want to work with. However, surely targeting the people who will give you the best chance of a return and focus on them would be better than a scatter gun approach?

Have thought of approaching retailers and getting them to sell it?

 

[devidweb]

Hello

Affiliate Marketing are used in pramote e-commerce sites and build selling....!!!

 

[Huque Chaudhry Associates]

I recommend affiliate window. They're quite good for niche sites.

 

[mary2222]

If you are offering information rather than physical products, then you may check out Clickbank, JV or CJ for affiliates.

It is also important that you set up a page for your affiliates, where they can sign-up directly on your website and they can access all of the content that they need to promote your products. You may also need to have a tracking system to track your affiliates' performance.

Also, you may look into kindle marketing. You can have someone write you a good ebook based from what you offer and then put this up in Amazon Kindle. This is a great way to build your subscription.

 

[Henry9000]

Thanks for the replies folks

The products I sell are similar to british gas' homecare range of products, mine differ slightly in that they are service contracts rather than a regulated insurance product - much of a muchness in terms of how they could be marketed however.

It is also important that you set up a page for your affiliates, where they can sign-up directly on your website and they can access all of the content that they need to promote your products. You may also need to have a tracking system to track your affiliates' performance.

Good point. I definitely need to put some professional marketing collateral together.

I'm swaying toward talking to some of the agencies mentioned earlier in the thread. What I might pay out in fees to have the project managed will almost certainly be less than the money I would waste attempting to manage this myself.

 

[Gordon McNevin]

Straight answer: Yes, massively.

Quick way: Start a business partnership (who don't compete) but you share your type of customers. Offer them a very large incentive to get started with the cross-selling. Offer them this for the first month then lower to a comfortable amount.

Methods such as letter inclusion with an incentive could be all you need to get started. If the commission is good then they could call their customers etc etc etc.

Try it, but offer as much as you can. Measure after the month and see how you get on.

 

[Henry9000]

Straight answer: Yes, massively.

Quick way: Start a business partnership (who don't compete) but you share your type of customers. Offer them a very large incentive to get started with the cross-selling. Offer them this for the first month then lower to a comfortable amount.

Methods such as letter inclusion with an incentive could be all you need to get started. If the commission is good then they could call their customers etc etc etc.

Try it, but offer as much as you can. Measure after the month and see how you get on.

Affinity partnership, good suggestion.

It's how HomeServe do it, something along the lines of "let us use your customer data and brand logo on our direct mail packs and we'll give you 10%"

Great way of doing it if you can find the right partners