To invest or not to invest?
I'm talking about investing in building a brand for a site that basically generates its revenues from affiliate marketing. On second thoughts, the more appropriate question is not whether to invest or not to invest (there's only one answer to that question perhaps), but rather how much to invest, because brand building is an extremely challenging and time consuming endeavour.
It is particularly challenging in the case of an affiliate site because at the end of the day it is promoting somebody else's product, often a brand that is much much bigger than itself.
There are some basic things that an affiliate site could do to progressively build a name for itself, as a destination where consumers are likely to find links to the best products in the market, starting from the most elementary aspect-- getting the name right (obviously there are constraints here; but time spent on getting the name right and how you are going to position the site will be extremely helpful).
A brand is built or destroyed on the user experience. Can affiliates make sure that the experience users have on their site is memorable? Having the right amount of content and the right features and functionality to help the site visitor in their decision making process are obvious; there are two other aspects that could make or break an affiliates' plans to build customer loyalty.
Are the products they promote trustworthy? An affiliate does not have control on somebody else's product, but he surely does have control on the product he chooses to promote.
Secondly, as an affiliate are you offering the customer reasonable choices and the best choices? If you do, visitors to your site are more than likely to come back again and again because the choices you offered were beneficial to them. Obviously, your financial interests will, to a great extent, dictate the products you will promote, but if you are able to find a balance with the products that are most likely to benefit your site visitor, you will go a long way in building "top-of-mind" recall-- which is what in many ways brand building is all about.
In passing, here is an interesting article about online conversions based on a study by web analytics company WebSideStory. Put the stats & conversion behaviour in an affiliate marketing perspective and draw your own conclusions...
Until next time,
Ben Flux
2 Comments:
Yes, like anywhere else, it will require 'wise investments' from the affiliates; but there is no escaping investment
2/06/2006 03:17:00 PM
Very interesting post Ben. I think investment is absolutely essential if affiliates are to maintain any long term presence in the market. At the moment it's severely lacking.
The standard of web sites has increased significantly in the last few years and the reality is that the vast majority of affiliate sites don't cut it anymore (Think Pricerunner, uSwitch etc). The main reason behind this has been the accessibility of search as a traffic driver. Back in the day when we affiliates were the kings of SEO and then PPC we didn't have to focus on the sites we were developing. The money was coming thick and fast simply because we were able to harness the power of search. There was no need to add value, have a great concept and develop a brand because there were so many short term opportunities that required minimal investment.
I think those golden days are seriously numbered. The way forward for affiliates is to focus and create something remarkable. Short term is out, long term is in. Investment is key!
Google has won the war on SEO. I don't say you can't rank in Google with short term rubbish but it's a law of diminishing returns. They are getting better all the time. Launching a short term aff site into Google is a nightmare and any old ones will definitely be leaving the building soon. Yahoo and MSN are still ridiculously easy to rank in but isn't it a bit embarrassing to be clutching at those two? I'm sure they will be as tough as Google once they get their act together.
The "clever" way to rank organically is through building something these search engines want to rank because it's so good it would be embarrassing for them not to have you top in your specialist area. If you create something remarkable then this will happen naturally because of course lots of highly authoritative sources will want to write about your great site. That means great links, great rankings (real rankings which mean you can sleep at night) and non search engine exposure (you can sleep in economy if you get that golden egg). Google have been telling webmasters this same thing for years and it always made sense it was just too easy in the past to go for the quick cash.
Apart from SEO, PPC is changing too. Merchants are taking more care over their own search campaigns targeting the keywords affiliates once did and restricting the use of their URL's and trademark terms. This again points us to the direction of creating something remarkable. A remarkable site gets repeat traffic through direct URL type ins and word of mouth. That takes the sting out of the increasing CPC's.
Now I should point out that I'm not saying just forget about all those tricks you know for SEO and PPC. Use them to build the user base of your remarkable site. I think it's the best asset most affiliates have. They know better than anyone how to get great traffic at a low cost.
So you can get the users but where does the remarkable site come from? Well.. It's a damn site easier if you utilise other remarkable people and this is where I see investment being key. Of course there are some amazing one man band web sites but generally it's a killer team that makes a killer site so get employing. Going back to Ben's question of how much? I think that all depends on how confident you are in your ability. If you think your success in affiliate marketing was a one time lucky break then keep your money and live happily. If on the other hand you think you've still got something great to offer then go in large. Me? I'm investing the lot. See you on the other side!
Duncan
P.S. I need to get remarkable in a couple more times… so the really remarkable thing about developing remarkable sites is that remarkable companies like eBay, Yahoo!, IAC and Google tend to like to buy them for remarkable sums of money.
2/19/2006 01:54:00 AM
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