The most effective form of advertising is word of mouth. When customers love your products and tell their friends and family how great your products are, your sales are likely to grow exponentially.
That’s why using positive public relations to turn your customers into affiliate salespeople is an intelligent strategy.
Positive PR and affiliate marketing are two sides of the same coin. Using them both as a growth strategy in communications and marketing will boost brand awareness, customer engagement, and sales.
First things first, what is an affiliate salesperson?
An affiliate salesperson is a customer who gets reimbursement through payment or discounts for sales made through their links to a company website. Affiliate marketing makes the most of a word-of-mouth strategy by encouraging customers to become your company’s best salespeople.
Affiliate marketing, through affiliate commissions, encourages your best customers to share their love of your products through social media, blogging, and among friends and family.
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This creates new customers and potential new affiliate salespeople.
The advantages of affiliate marketing activities are:
- Affordability
- Scalability
- Believability
Since affiliate marketing is sales-based, it pays for itself through profits from sales growth.
Affiliate marketing works for companies small and large, so your affiliate marketing can grow along with your business. Most of all, affiliate marketing is effective because it is believable.
Affiliate marketing programs boost sales and brand awareness for companies.
For the affiliate marketer, the customer-turned-salesperson, sharing information about their favorite products can become an additional source of income.
News organizations can also benefit from affiliate commissions. By adding affiliate links to earned media about your products, brands, or company, those organizations profit when sales are made as a result of those news stories.
How can you leverage positive PR to turn customers into affiliate salespeople?
Positive public relations can be essential to a marketing plan, turning happy customers into your best salespeople through affiliate marketing.
Positive PR usually comes from positive customer experience. By providing your customers with positive experiences, you promote customer loyalty, polish your public image, and boost brand awareness and reach. You can then invite those customers to be your affiliate salespeople.
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An affiliate marketer can reach prospective customers more effectively than an advertising campaign, creating a favorable image of a company in their minds.
Through affiliate marketing programs, companies can increase engagement rates. Prospective customers are likely to believe an affiliate marketer because they know and trust them.
This community engagement through affiliate marketing also makes the affiliate marketer, your loyal customer who receives affiliate commissions, more likely to continue using and promoting your brand and products.
By using positive public relations, companies can turn their best customers into affiliate salespeople, bringing exponential growth to sales.
Advantages of positive PR and affiliate marketing
Among the benefits of positive PR turning customers into affiliate marketers are these advantages fuel business growth and brand awareness.
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Increased brand awareness
When your best customers become affiliate salespeople, they’re motivated to tell their friends, family, and social media followers about your products due to affiliate commissions and discounts. This will boost brand awareness online through social media and blog posts.
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Improved brand image
Positive public relations and the addition of affiliate marketers to traditional marketing channels will also improve brand image. Word-of-mouth advertising through affiliate marketers is the most effective and believable type of marketing communication.
Earned media with affiliate links on respected news websites is not far behind.
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Builds credibility
Positive public relations seek to create honest and fair relationships between companies and customers. This creates satisfied customers.
Because affiliate marketers begin as satisfied customers and market to those who know and trust them, affiliate marketing builds brand credibility. Earned media with affiliate links contributes to a good reputation because of the respected publications participating.
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Better engagement
An affiliate marketing program will keep your participating customers engaged with company news, social media posts, and products. Because they are such good customers and talk with prospective customers, affiliate marketers can also be a great source of information on customer experience.
All the benefits of affiliate marketing begin with positive public relations.
When customers have positive experiences with products and services, the kind created by positive PR, they tell their friends and family. They may have had such a great experience that they post about it on social media.
This word-of-mouth marketing is valuable in that it is believable and genuine. Perhaps these engaged customers connect with other customers with positive experiences on social media. They discuss how happy they are with your company and soon become a fan club for your company.
Image source: Marketsplash
These satisfied customers are primed to be successful affiliate marketers for your company. They will share affiliate links to your products and services for affiliate commissions.
Meanwhile, positive public relations will increase customer engagement, building a more extensive base of affiliate salespeople.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing and positive public relations are woven together. Successful affiliate marketing must start with positive public relations that focus on customer experience. Affiliate marketing programs then will drive growth and profits.
Respected publications and news organizations such as CNN, Business Insider, and Forbes have jumped onto the affiliate marketing bandwagon. Editors will publish stories about products and brands as earned media but with an affiliate link.
The news organizations will then make affiliate commissions from sales through their coverage.
The worlds of affiliate marketing and public relations are rapidly changing and evolving, but the two marketing strategies—positive public relations and affiliate marketing – are growing closer.
Positive PR makes affiliate marketing possible, and affiliate marketing influences news coverage and word-of-mouth marketing.
Both strategies used in concert will boost growth, brand awareness, sales, and community engagement.
Affiliate marketing can make happy customers into your best salespeople and communicators, and it can also be more valuable than earned media from public relations. Affiliate marketing can also help news organizations profit when their content results in sales for your company.
With positive public relations and affiliate marketing, everyone wins.
