Lead generation in real estate marketing refers to the process of bringing potential buyers to your website or business and converting them into a client who relies on you for all of their real estate needs.

With the ever-expanding reach of digital marketing, we have narrowed down the top 4 real estate lead generation ideas that will help you win valuable real estate leads.

1. Paid and Organic Social Media

Over the last several years, social media channels have provided real estate agents with a platform for selling homes, interacting with other agents, and building connections with prospects in a more genuine and personal way. Facebook and Instagram are top 2 social media platforms that can help your business generate leads.

Both paid and organic social hugely complement each other. They are two sides of the same coin. Running ads with little to no activity on organic social channels does not encourage your potential clients to engage with your business in the long term. Whereas, if you don’t have any paid activity, your content will struggle to reach your target audience.

• Paid social media ads can be massively effective when done right. They allow you to directly target demographics and users that have shown interest in buying in your area. You can also create “lookalike” audiences that mirror your current targets to expand your reach even more.

• Organic social media content is essential because it allows you to build and maintain an online presence. Create content that showcases your personality, work ethic, current listings, and any upcoming activities, such as an open house. You should strive to come across as professional, approachable, and genuine. Before you realize it, your profile will be emerging and generating leads.

Paid social media ads have the ability to provide immediate results that are often worth paying for. Organic social, on the other hand, is a long-term cost-effective solution, but it requires effort. Ultimately, combining the benefits of each type of social will yield the best results.

2. Optimize Your Website

The first step toward real estate success is to have a website that can generate leads and convert them efficiently. With a strong lead-generation web marketing plan, you effectively expose your services to a bigger number of internet users and potential clients. Your website must be the foundation of that plan, and capable of converting leads into actual sales.

• Put up value-added real estate material.

Your audience will see you as an industry thought leader as you produce more value-based material, such as buyers and sellers guide, suburb insights, property prices, market updates, real estate tips, tricks and info. 

When it comes to content, the more value your material provides, the more likely you are to earn meaningful leads. Remember to include the keywords you wish to rank for. Keywords might be single words or phrases that you know your prospects are looking for.

• Optimize your website for search engines

According to the National Association of Realtors, 44% of all buyers search online for property listings as the first stage of their journey. Therefore, it is important for your business to get found online first before your competitors. Having a nicely designed website will not increase your Google ranking; you must also have valuable material that is effectively optimized for search engines.

The following elements should be included in a real estate SEO lead generating strategy:

• Local SEO with Google My Business
• High-quality content aimed at low-competition local keywords
• Website that is mobile-friendly and visible on all search engines
• Increasing domain authority and creating local backlinks

• PPC (Pay-per-click), most known as Google Ads

Google Ads lead generation for real estate agents is the most common approach, especially since nearly every customer will conduct an internet search first.

We can reach people with Google Ads while they are searching for something relevant and putting their query into the search box (Search Ads) or while they are reading other blogs and websites (Display Ads).

A good PPC campaign will rank your website at the top of the page for your targeted keywords, potentially bringing in a huge number of visitors. You may have to pay a small fee for each click, but if you’re utilizing PPC well, you can get new leads, drive revenue and achieve a solid ROI.

• Add a testimonial page to your site

Buying and selling a house is a big financial decision someone can make and trust plays a big role. Potential clients will read online testimonials and reviews before they get in touch with you. Testimonials may favorably impact your website visitors in the same way that they help build social proof for your social media accounts. Dedicate a section on your homepage to testimonials and reviews. Choose statements that showcase your unique traits as an agency and build trust.

3. Email Marketing is Not Dead

The impact of email marketing can do much more than just getting messages into inboxes. Email marketing may be 43 years old but it’s as strong as ever. Based on the survey from Hubspot, 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months.

Real estate newsletters are a tried-and-tested method of nurturing old clients. This is an effective way to keep your brand on top of their mind. Signature Dream Homes, one of Geonet’s Real Estate clients, utilised this method to engage with first home buyers who previously signed up for information and they generated 25 leads in less than 48 hours.

Follow these suggested patterns to ensure the success of your marketing strategy:

• Gather your top performing content from the month and use it in your email to showcase your industry expertise.
• Informative topics of interest should be shared.
• Highlight some of the best properties you’ve sold while also promoting current properties for sale.
• Remember to keep them connected to your brand by encouraging them to follow you on all of your platforms, which will reinforce your brand recognition.

4. Build Referral Partnerships

It is also one of the cheapest and easiest ways to grow your business. According to the National Association of Realtors, the average realtor received 17% of their business from referrals. That is a significant portion of total business that may be affected just through word-of-mouth marketing.

Forming connections with other businesses that serve potential buyers and sellers, such as mortgage brokers, lenders, contractors, and tradesmen is a fantastic approach to enhance your referral leads. Professionals in these industries benefit from recommendations as well, so you may help each other expand your businesses.

• Include your partners’ name and logo on your website, and link them to an appropriate place on their website.
• Describe the partnership in a short synopsis of how they support you or how they are involved in helping you work toward your mission. 
• Promote your partners’ program on your social media channels, and make sure you mention and tag them.

It is important to know that consistency is the key. Choose the strategies that are ideal for you and your real estate business, and then fine-tune them until they work like a well-oiled machine. To find out more about how Geonet can provide full-service digital marketing, contact us.

What is CRM?

CRM in online advertising uses the collected customer data to shape the relationships and interactions between a brand and its customers. By combining different marketing strategies and practices, a brand can manage this data with a CRM platform create highly personalized, ultra-targeted experiences for its users.

What are the benefits of CRM?

The old saying goes that “the customer is always right” and while that isn’t an iron-clad strategy, the phrase highlights a customer’s influence on any business’ source of income; you can’t make money without customers. That’s why it’s important to cater to their needs and preferences and build long-lasting bonds.

Happy customers aren’t only loyal customers. They can spread positive messages, recommendations, and good reviews, resulting in a larger customer base and consequently securing more sales and profit.

There are so many reasons that a business will engage with CRM when it comes to online advertising. CRM really offers invaluable insights and can offer you a whole lot of customer information that will then be at your disposal when it comes to crafting high-quality and high-performing PPC campaigns.

Some of the main perks of using CRM in your online marketing include:

• Helping you to leverage the contacts in your CRM database
• Drive shoppers to your site through social media posts
• Encourage repeat purchases through retention-focused campaigns
• Improve customer retention through retention-focused campaigns
• Help with customer acquisition
• Maximise the success of remarketing efforts
• Boost the performance of PPC

CRM really does help your company and brand to reach your full base’s potential, rather than just the simple to catch customers who are naturally more easily drawn in.

How to get started with CRM

Of course, CRM can be applied to many areas of your business. But for now, let’s focus on how CRM can drive your digital marketing campaigns.

To manage CRM data, you need CRM software. A high-quality CRM system can help your business to build your customer base while maintaining a personalised relationship with the customers that you do obtain. Of course, you need to spend some time considering your business’ needs and preferences before investing in a platform. This will help you to choose the right one the first time around and to benefit from your investment as much as possible. You can then take a look at the different options on the market and select the one that ticks as many of your boxes as possible.

Not all CRM software is the same but they follow the same principles:

1. Import contacts
2. Clean up data
3. Assign data
4. Outline next steps
5. Set up sales pipelines
6. Create segments and filters
7. Set tasks
8. Create tickets

Examples of CRM data

CRM systems gather customer data from multiple channels where a customer has interacted with a brand, including:

• The brand’s website
• Telephone
• Email
• Live chat
• Social media
• Direct mail

In terms of the data collected for CRM, these can also include:

• Geolocation
• Purchase history
• Feedback – positive or negative
• Marital status
• Contact details
• Average review scores
• Spending habits

A good CRM system will integrate the information from all of these areas, showing you what deals are on the table, what stage they’ve reached, who you should be reaching out to and when you should reach out to them for optimal results.

Next, it’s important to fully understand your chosen CRM system. So many businesses make the mistake of investing in CRM and assuming the results will instantly roll in. This isn’t true. As with any other form of software, it has to be used wisely and effectively to have any positive impact or benefit for your business. So, fully understand your CRM systems and train relevant staff members to use it effectively and precisely too.

The secret weapon: CRM automation

Automation saves time and resources. For large amounts of CRM data, it comes in handy for boring tasks, allowing teams to track and manage their customers with ease.

Besides automating sales processes, CRM automation also empowers sales departments to focus more on difficult decisions – the kind of decisions that need human interactions. There’s also an opportunity for teams to collaborate for example sales and devs or sales and marketing.

What is the cost of CRM?

It’s relatively difficult to outline one set cost for CRM – even when focusing on one company and the CRM packages they’re providing. Ideally, companies offering CRM software would give you a set price list, detailing their prices with a per-user breakdown. But often, this isn’t the case. Costs can be hidden and obscured, so it’s important to really look into costs before getting started.

It’s also important to understand that costs differ depending on the status and reputation of your chosen CRM provider, your region, and add ons that you may need. Put simply, you need to request upfront costs before getting tied in.

Here are some examples of CRM software costs (data correct as of 2021):

• Zoho: £10 per user per month for a Standard subscription billed annually. Try it free for 14 days.
• Monday.com: Starting from £7 per user per month on a Basic package for a minimum of 3 users. Try it free for 14 days.
• Pipedrive: Starting from £12.50 per user per month on a Essential package billed annually. Try it free for 14 days.
• Less Annoying CRM: Starting from £15 per user per month. Try it free for 30 days.
• Keap: Starting from $11 per month if you sign up for 5 months on a Lite package. Try it free for 14 days.

Summary

CRM has always been important in marketing. It can help your business provide the best customer service, improve customer engagement, and build customer loyalty to your brand. It’s also essential for growth. Without it, you may find it difficult to build genuine bonds with your userbase so if you haven’t already, consider investing in your customer relationship processes.

When we’ve worked with other agencies, it’s often become a ‘too many cooks’ situation. In meetings, agencies vie for attention rather than thinking of the client’s needs. They all want to push their agenda so they can stay on the gravy train. When the meeting is done, each of the agency reps continue to undermine the others – only this time in private.

As you can imagine, this is a nightmare for the client to manage; not only are you trying to learn about SEO, PPC, CRM – you name it – you end up managing a horde of bickering children. And yes, we’ve seen this happen. While your needs are being addressed by these agencies on the surface, you can never be sure what the best course of action is. How could you? There’s no accountability. With multiple agencies, it’s easy for one to blame their poor results on another agency’s behaviours and strategies. For the client, the upshot is a loss of potential revenue and a huge bill at the end of each month.

You have to be extremely strong to manage multiple firms, and you have to know exactly what you can reasonably expect in terms of outcomes. Generally, marketing managers and directors with an agency background are able to nimble negotiate this environment. With the right resources and time to commit to multiple agencies, you can, in theory, create campaigns with stunning results.

The Cat Conundrum

Trying to gather all your advertising agencies in one room is like herding cats! We had several meetings booked with a big client who’d employed five separate agencies. On at least two occasions, for larger strategy presentations, two agencies arrived at one venue. And then another somewhere else, with the remaining agencies arriving at another venue. Each agency blamed everyone but themselves, resulting in a fair-sized headache for the client.

On a similar topic of scattered meetings, we found out that two agencies were both doing the same thing: display advertising. Both were targeting the same customers on the same sites, with the same ads – one via media buying and the other via Google Display Network. Basically, the client was paying twice for the same thing because neither agency was prepared to back down and let the other carry on.

Cringeworthy Behaviour From Adults Who Should Know Better

Multi-agency meetings always end up being a “big dick” competition. Each agency wants to be the most important, most aggressive, most impressive. As a result, they over-prioritise the importance that their channel plays in the marketing mix. It often doesn’t reflect what is best for the client.

Business owners often struggle to maintain a clear picture of their goals, as they’re pulled in many different directions. What’s even sadder is that, if you ask each agency about the goals of the client or campaign, you will get different responses – with very little knowledge of how each agency’s “slice of the pie” fits into the overall marketing objective.

Another hard-to-handle element of the multi-agency meeting is the excessive headhunting that occurs. Can you handle the heartbreak of losing your favourite marketing manager, who you have invested in and trained to know you and your brand? All of a sudden, they are pulled from your company to go and work on a bevy of other brands. If you have one in-house agency, the chance of them stealing your talent is no longer a risk.

One-Stop Flop

You might be thinking, then, that the solution is finding an agency with services across the board. If only it were that simple. Sadly, many multi-skilled agencies are great at a few things and passable at other items on their long list of services. While it’s certainly doable (we’ll explain how!), it can be tough to decipher which of these are which.

Spend time getting to the bottom of an agency’s offering. It’s a two-way street. An agency worth their salt will be doing just as much probing as you; any time your scrutiny is fobbed off or ignored, steer clear. If the agency in question has some strong core skills, stick with those. Don’t cave to the pressure of taking elements you don’t need.

Treat Them Like An Employee

It is perfectly acceptable to treat an agency like a prospective employee, by checking:

• That their skills match your business’s needs.
• That they fit the company culture.
• Any references they can provide (meaning recent and detailed testimonials).

Pick up the phone and have a proper chat with the agency. This way, you can get a feel for how the agency works and where to set your expectations, all to determine whether they’re right for you and your business.

Digital Is An Environment

At Vine Digital, we don’t subscribe to the mainstream view of the specialist model. We believe that digital is an ecosystem – not a toolbox. You can’t employ one single element and have it work unless the other services are in sync. It stands to reason that agencies should be aware of this, so they can affect the environment on behalf of their clients, with maximum impact. When businesses are being built, a misunderstanding of the ever-changing climate will often result in a digital offering presented totally off-kilter. Here’s an example.

An entrepreneur starts a business selling widgets. He has a few clients, and so he decides that he needs a website – a place where people can find his services. With a limited budget to start with, the website is not a lot more than a landing page. Over time, the business’s offering increases and diversifies. Pages are added to the site as the reputation of the company grows. Because of this, orders start to roll in online, and a new page is added for orders. New products arrive and with it, more new pages.

Eventually, the website and digital side of things become concerns of their own because naturally, the original site couldn’t possibly deliver ROI to the same degree as a full digital strategy. There needs to be a considered approach to the creation of a specific digital ecosystem, which enables a pipeline for increased activity, returning customers, traffic to the website and at the end of the day, revenue.

When you find an agency who really looks after you, you gain the ability to achieve this. If you’ve overlooked the power and potential of digital, you’re not alone. Many do, and it takes an honest, skilful agency partner to show you the ropes. Rather than looking down our noses at those who need help, Vine Digital shows you how to navigate the digital landscape in a way that suits your business. Digital is an environment where each element affects another. Whether you opt for a specialist agency or a one-stop shop, you deserve an agency able to deliver in all areas they offer.

Now imagine if you could reach out to this prospective buyer and secure the deal almost as if you’ve read their mind. Well, with B2B intent data, this power can be yours.

So what is B2B intent data?

Let’s put it this way: Your prospects are right now out there, looking for a solution to a problem that you can solve. They search online, consume information, shape opinions on solutions, and read about alternatives to alleviate their pain. But they’re not asking for help from your sales team.

Intent data indicates which leads or accounts perform research actively online. As they search, they’re scored on thousands of topics. It’s basically any information about the willingness and the readiness of an account to buy a product or service. When their high-fit accounts are in buying mode for their specific solution, this data is used to inform sales and marketing teams. Intent data, when used correctly, significantly improves conversions and sales.

Intent data is sales and marketing intelligence. Intent data of today typically observes online behavior of content, competitors, activities, influencers, and social media that signify the study and future purchase.

Collated from a range of digital sources, intent data largely uses cookies to monitor for key intent search terms; so it can pinpoint when a target account or prospect is in an active buying journey – enabling informed, timely campaign responses.

B2B intent data offers insight into a web customer’s purchasing intent, enabling you to assess whether and when a prospect is actively considering or trying to buy your (or similar) goods or solutions.

Yes, intent data is more important now than ever for a couple of reasons:

1. Buyers are starting their research journey before they start talking to salespeople

As a salesperson, if I can understand who’s already doing research and tap into that conversation, I have a huge advantage. Every day inside every company, some employees are doing research on projects and initiatives that the company has to execute.

What Intent data does is it takes the research that’s being done on the B2B web, collects it, and then looks for spikes in that type of research.

2. The noise in marketing technology

There are more emails; there are more ads. So to be able to cut through that noise with really relevant messaging at the right time, again, gives you a big leg up. So the really unique thing about the way our Intent Data gathers B2B Intent data signals is that they’re doing it across 4,000 of the world’s largest, highly trafficked B2B sites. That’s really covering the entire B2B digital web. So inside of every single company, somebody is researching certain topics. Well, regardless of where they’re doing research, our Intent Data 

Software is picking up that research. It’s then collecting it, and it’s looking at searches across that network of over 4,000 B2B sites. So, where the next closest person providing Intent data might look at tens of millions of intent signals every quarter, the software looks at tens of billions of intent signals every quarter. And so what we’re able to do now is look across all of the companies that we profile and look for which companies are spiking on research for specific topics that are relevant for our customers.

To find out more, visit our website.

So, why is intent data so important?

Intent data is important for many reasons. It’s got great applications for both sales and marketing. As a marketer, the way I think about intent is it gives me access to a broader funnel. So lately, I’ve been ranting a lot about this idea that our own marketing and sales funnels are a very myopic view of our total addressable market because we can’t possibly contain every account or every buyer that’s actually going to buy from us, however there’s a broader funnel that exists. It’s everyone, including you and all of your competitors, and how engaged the leads, and contacts and accounts are with them. That makes up all the people that are potentially going to buy or are actually getting ready to buy. So what intent does is it broadens your horizon, allowing you to see past the engagement that’s happening within your own website or in any of your offline events. It then basically is able to say…like, hey, here are the people that are exhibiting intent to purchase’. 

A lot of that has to do with the fact that the buyer’s journey has changed. I know people have been saying this for a super-long time, but it really has. As content becomes commoditised, fewer and fewer people are choosing to engage with brand content. That’s not as fun but that’s really about what their product does and what value it brings.So now they’re going to third-party websites to get reviews, and other information, about a brand that they’re thinking of buying from,  so you need to be able to see that type of activity also. Understand who’s doing it. Distill it down to the accounts that actually matter, and then deliver it to your sales team. And say, hey, here’s a target account or account list. They’re looking to buy, and the thing they’re looking to buy is something that we actually sell. So let’s get to them before one of our competitors does.

How to use it?

Looking at the common data attributes can see that it’s any signals that show this. And this core signal has three different factors:

• The first is the intent type. What is the account actually looking to buy? is it any piece of software? Perhaps it’s some accounting help or some help via a consultant.
• Intense strength. This is how ready the account is actually to buy the product or service.
• Intent recency. How long ago was it? If it was last year, it’s probably not so hot, whereas if it’s this week or month, the account is probably a lot more ready and willing to be sold.

And this links to how the data is actually collected. 

If you imagine this from a buyer’s perspective, first, the account will realise that I need a different product or service. Let’s say they need some consulting. 

They’re going to put some research in and have some people from the company look into what options are available. 

Then we’re going to look at the specific providers and the products they have and put some research into this. 

And from this, you can collect data into what they’re looking for and how long they’ve spent on the specific research. This could be signing up for webinars, signing up for newsletters, or downloading white papers. All this information could be collected as they’re researching. After this initial stage of research has happened, they can go into properly comparing the individual prices and product options of the service they’ve actually decided to select. As this goes on, you can see that the intent strength really builds. When someone gets to a comparison, they’re really ready. This is when it’s good to reach out and make sure you’ve secured it. 

So when you’re assuring the quality of your B2B intent data, it’s basically just assuming that you’re getting the strongest quality signal.

• How are the signals collected? It has to do with the technical methods during the research process we mentioned above. Have they been in contact with a person? Do you measure dwell time on a website or maybe the clicks onto pages? The technical methods will determine the quality and strength of the actual signal.
• How recently were the signals collected? As we mentioned, if it was last year, it’s probably not so hot. Whereas if it’s still this quarter, maybe even last week, you can tell that the iron is still hot. So you can go.
• Finally, is the data on the right scale? For you, the scale is always important, especially with B2B intent data. It can be hard to get data on the right scale to make sure you’ve got that.

Then once you’ve got your beautiful scale data, how are you going to use it?

Well, it mostly comes down to account-based marketing. You can

identify some early intent in the account and reach out at this early stage of the process to help guide them. 70 percent of the time, the salesperson who gets there first secures the deal. So. if you reach out to the account just when they’re ready, almost like you’ve read their mind, there’s a high chance that you will be the one to secure their purchase. Then once you’ve got them on board, you’ve got the marketing team nurturing this potential; you can then prioritize them when they’re hot and send your sales teams to secure the deal. 

Then finally, once you’ve got them as a customer, we’ve got to retain them. If you start to notice that they’re looking at competitors or maybe they’re not so happy with your service, you can use this information from the intent data to make sure that you retain them. 

Practical ways to use buyer intent data

With buyer intent data, I’m able to go into our platform, apply filters that are relevant to my territory, so whether it’s geographic location, whether it’s employee size, revenue size, whatever the case may be, I’m able to go in, apply these filters, save the search. What this does is it literally sources for me every single week. I get an email every week, saying, “These are the companies that are actively searching for a topic that is relevant to your product, how much it scored.” I’m able to go after them, and it actually then backs it up with relevant contact data to go after them with direct dials and direct emails, to be able to not only know what they’re searching but actually have the people to go after too. 

If you’re like me, and you’re in sales, the most time-consuming part of your day is finding accounts to go after. Not only are you just throwing things at a wall and hope that it sticks, but with this intent data, you can actually find companies within your territory that are actively searching for a product and a topic relevant to your company and be able to go after them at the right time. So you’re not throwing things at a wall and hope that it sticks. You’re actually creating a sales cycle within a relevant time period within the right time within the right people.

Is intent data really a new thing?

Is some’s intent to purchase a new thing? Surely not. That’s why actionable intent insights have existed for a while, and many larger enterprises have already incorporated intent consideration in their strategies. Because customers are creating and sharing more data than ever before, and technology has evolved, marketers are even better equipped to gain a granular view of intent and move from ‘topic’ to ‘keyword’ insights.

The insight intent data provides can help us understand exactly where an account is in its buying journey. It is based on the content and keywords that buyers are researching. This is an additional layer of timing, relevance, and context within campaigns, especially account based campaigns.

It also clarifies the sentiment attached to certain topics (positive or negative), giving a more comprehensive view than more traditional profiling or behavioural data.

Check out LeadIntelligence LAB on Marketplace

Distribution is how a product’s prospective customers actually discover it, or how it’s introduced to them. For example, it could be through an organic search query, a paid ad or a referral from another customer — whatever channels a product gains awareness through.

Trust determines how willing a prospect is to purchase a product after discovering it. This is especially true in the context of B2B software, where these decisions are often high stakes and involve multiple decision makers comparing competing products.

Succeeding at one of these alone isn’t enough. A product that’s trusted by its core customers will ultimately fail if new users can’t discover it. On the flip side, well-distributed, highly discoverable products will struggle to close sales if prospective customers (or their coworkers) distrust their product and the business behind it.

Typically, SaaS companies build out their internal marketing and sales teams to handle all of the above, and this works perfectly well… to a point.

While every SaaS company needs a solid internal marketing and sales process to drive distribution and build trust with its target audience, there are hard limits on what internal teams can accomplish alone — along with certain situations where internal teams are actually at a disadvantage. This is where partnerships come into play.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• The limits of internal marketing and sales teams
• Why you need partners to reach the entire market
• The types of partner programs that make sense for SaaS

The limits of internal marketing and sales

The most obvious challenge in relying solely on your internal teams to market and sell your product is that your success is limited by your team’s headcount. Even when your team is running smoothly, bringing on new talent requires significant investment in both ramp-up time and fixed costs.

Eventually every business hits a point where growing revenue proportionally to the team is no longer feasible. This is often the stage when growth at a startup plateaus, as reaching and acquiring new customers becomes increasingly difficult and costly, with the most obvious optimizations to the marketing and sales funnel having already been done.

This can lead many companies to conclude that the total addressable market for their product is simply smaller than they thought — when in reality, they’re reaching only a fraction of prospects that are a great fit for the product.

Those prospects are just shopping for something else.

When internal teams lose on distribution

If you’re selling software to businesses, there’s a good chance that your customers aren’t just in the market for a single product, or looking to solve a single problem. They’re likely about to make a shift in their business strategy and looking for what’s necessary to make that shift happen, whether that’s one tool or (more than likely) multiple tools working together.

In this situation, looking for a product might not be your target customer’s course of action at all. They could instead look for a partner to work with them to build the strategy, implement their entire plan and select every tool in their tech stack.

If your target customers already have relationships with consultants, resellers or distributors that they trust, your product might never have an opportunity to enter the conversation at all — they’ll simply go with what their partner recommends. This presents a massive risk if your competitors have partner programs of their own and you don’t, because it means consultants, agencies and resellers have every incentive to not sell your product to customers.

It also means affiliate marketers have no reason to even mention your product in the same breath (or blog post) as your competitors. Even if your target customers do decide to select and implement a solution on their own, if you’re not coming up in comparisons to the competition, you’re unlikely to make the cut for consideration.

When internal teams lose on trust

You might be thinking that this can all be offset with great marketing and a stellar sales team. Surely if your internal teams can create useful content, get as much reach as every affiliate marketer, and understand your customer’s needs as deeply as any agency they’ve worked with, there’s no way you could still be at a disadvantage?

First of all: good luck! Secondly, even if you accomplished all of the above, you’d still be disadvantaged by the simple fact that the smoothest marketing and sales teams are still ultimately a company speaking on behalf of itself, with the clear intention of selling its product. Your customers see this. But that isn’t how your customers see partners.

Even if affiliates and resellers get paid for promoting, selling or implementing a product through its partner program, their ultimate incentive is in retaining and growing their business through their customers. Their commitment to their customers goes beyond any particular product. The tools they decide to sell to customers are the ones that both solve their customers needs and give partners meaningful incentives to sell them.

None of this is to say that internal marketing and sales don’t matter — they’re absolutely vital to any SaaS business. But if you rely solely on them, you’re missing out on countless qualified opportunities and artificially limiting your revenue growth.

In his article “5 questions to answer before launching your partner program”, PartnerStack co-founder Luke Swanek explains how internal success can translate into success for potential partners:

“If you’re not able to close customers on your own, you won’t be able to close partner referrals — and resellers won’t get the resources they need from your team to succeed. And if you can’t retain the customers that partners are bringing to you, it’s impossible for a program to generate positive ROI.

But if you do know who your audience is and how your product provides value, partnerships can help you reach even more of the right kinds of customers.”

How partners scale the SaaS pipeline

The type of partner program that makes the most sense to launch first depends heavily on which metrics you want to drive.

• Marketing partners — such as affiliate marketers and content creators — are best for driving traffic to your site or campaigns, and driving awareness of your product within a specific market.
• Referral partners include consultants, agencies, and even existing customers that refer qualified leads to your internal sales team to close the deal.
• Reseller partners manage the entire sales process and customer relationship, working with your internal team to support their customers.

For example, when the team at leading landing page tool Unbounce launched their first partner program, they chose to launch a marketing partner program focused on getting new audiences to discover the product and start a free trial.

Anca Bujor, Unbounce’s Channel Partnerships Manager, explained in a case study of their program: “Unbounce’s most important KPI by far is New Trial Starts. Over half of the people that try out Unbounce as free users end up converting to paid users — an exceptional rate for any SaaS company.”

Today, 25% of Unbounce’s New Trial Starts come from partners in Unbounce’s partner program. Partners are incentivized to bring in the most qualified traffic possible, because they only earn money when those free trials convert to paid accounts — and then continue to earn 20% of the revenue for as long as those referrals remain paying customers.

While Unbounce’s program contains over 5,000 partners and drives a quarter of its new users, it’s managed largely by Anca herself. That type of scale wouldn’t be possible if the program was managed over email and spreadsheets. “A crucial step in launching our program was finding a partner relationship management platform that supported our subscription-based payment model, and could scale up quickly.”

Partner relationship management (or “PRM”) platforms are geared towards ecommerce affiliate programs with single conversion points, not B2B SaaS companies with complex conversion paths. What made PartnerStack stand out to the team at Unbounce was its ability to to automate and track the entire partner journey.

“I love that now, other teams in the company feel like they own KPIs connected to partnerships. Partnerships isn’t an experiment for us — it’s an integral part of how we acquire customers. PartnerStack has helped make this possible, giving us a single source of truth to measure and optimize program revenue, for both us and every partner we work with.”

Next steps for exploring SaaS partnerships

Launching a partner program for your SaaS business helps you drive recurring revenue from all-new audiences, while supporting your marketing and sales teams by bringing in more qualified traffic, leads and customers.

Interested in learning more about how partnerships can drive SaaS revenue?

• It’s almost always the right time to get started with partner programs, but you can make sure you’re ready by reading “5 questions to answer before launching your partner program.”
• Learn about how Unbounce launched and scaled their partner program to success in “How Unbounce drives 25% of trial signups from 5k+ partners”.
• Check out the different types of PRM platforms. We’ve already mentioned PartnerStack, but you can see all of the most popular platforms (and how PartnerStack compares) on software review website G2.

Learn more about how PartnerStack supports fast-growing SaaS companies like Unbounce, Asana, Adzooma and more at partnerstack.com.

In this article, I’ll talk about how to increase your reach and sales using the synergy of paid channels.

Where can you find the right customers in your target audience?

Your target audience contains people who represent the core of the business. They are the ones who buy the product or service, therefore it is important to adapt marketing activity to their needs. Ignorance of the latter leads to ineffective measures.

There are several methods to determine the target audience. Companies choose the ones that they find the best for themselves. However, the most effective solution is to combine approaches if the budget and time allow it.

1. Product

The main task is to objectively evaluate the goods that you offer in the market. Highlight their advantages, disadvantages, and the main characteristics, such as:

• Price
• Market position
• Packaging

A good solution would be to conduct a SWOT analysis. Among other things, it will help to highlight weaknesses that can be improved or offset by other product properties.

You should also find out the opinions of existing customers, for example, by conducting a survey. This will help to highlight custom product characteristics that are important to customers.

2. Clients

It is necessary to create a portrait of the target audience. It will help to understand the personal motives for buying a product, as well as purchasing behaviour. When looking at demographical data, it is necessary to determine such characteristics:

• Geographical (where the product is bought, why there, perhaps there are climatic and other factors that affect demand);
• Demographic (age, gender, educational level and occupation of clients);
• Economic (income level, purchasing power, type of employment);
• Brand loyalty (how often they use the product, what is the experience, how customers are committed to the company);
• Behavioural (how the decision is made about the purchase, where they find the goods, on which sites share information about the product);
• Psychographic (desires, values, user preferences, purchasing behaviour and customer stereotypes).

Answering these questions will give you an array of information about your target audience. It will also provide the most effective communication and present the goods in accordance with the customer value system.

After the study, you may need to segment your audience and highlight several customer groups. This can improve product promotion by increasing KPI marketing activities.

How to combine contextual, display, and targeted advertising

A modern user sees a lot of advertising every day. Therefore, immunity to it is growing and it can reduce the effectiveness of advertising. However, combining tools can help to maintain a high level of performance.

One option is ​​contextual targeting. It is a personalized online advertisement where ads are displayed on certain sites.

Initially, you need to set keywords or topics and create a marketing campaign in a PPC advertising service. Search engines will analyze the content on the customer’s website and match it with the generated ad.

The most personalized is behavioural targeting. It not only takes into account given topics, keywords, location and language, but also features of user behavior on the Internet.

In this case, the information collected by the sites is taken into account. For example:

• Browsing history
• Time spent on the site
• Clicks on links
• The time or frequency of site interactions?

This provides greater targeted advertising calls. You can group visitors and interact with them. For example, by contacting people who have visited the site for a month.

The effectiveness of such advertising depends on many factors, ranging from the quality of the advertisement to the convenience of the site and its domain names.

When creating campaigns, you must remember that you need to draw attention to yourself and create the right impression. A typo ad may not put your company on the best side, but a domain that does not respond to activities is confusing. Therefore, it is important before publishing any text calls to check them using special tools, for example:

• Grammarly
• College Essays
• ProWritinGaid

This will help to avoid mistakes and create a positive image. And when choosing a site name, it is necessary to take into account the characteristics of the target audience and business activities.

To check the convenience of the site, gather a group of several users and open access to use for several days. Ask them to share their experiences. So you can understand what changes may be required.

How to manage a multi-channel campaign

The use of several communication channels with target audiences significantly increases the effectiveness of marketing activities. However, complicating their control. However, this is a doable task if the process is properly organized.

1. Select the appropriate channels: The information obtained during the study of customers will help here. Based on it, one can determine the behaviour and preferences of target audiences by adapting channels for communication for them.
2. Set goals for channels: It is important that different sites perform different tasks. Some increase product awareness, others stimulate sales. Designate goals according to the capabilities of each channel. It is important not to forget to coordinate the goals among themselves. For example, email newsletters increase product awareness and company loyalty. And the link placed in the letter stimulates the purchase.
3. Multi-platform advertising: Resources collect and allow you to get a lot of data about users and their behaviour. However, one point is missed – channel transitions. Make sure that separate content is created for each device (e.g. iPhone and iPad).
4. Seek help from specialists: Wanting to save is normal. As well as not knowing something. The main thing is to look at the situation objectively and seek help when it is needed. If the company’s budget is not designed for new employees, then invite consultants. Their services will be cheaper. At the same time, you will receive professional help and guidance on the proper use of appropriate tools. Including, regarding the definition of goals for communication channels with customers, setting up their interaction and tracking conversions.
5. Teamwork: The use of different channels involves the participation of SMM and SEO specialists, content managers, designers, etc. Make sure that they interact with each other. Each specialist sees the situation, on the other hand. Plus, the lack of communication can lead to duplication of content or work in general.

Read: How To Build A PPC Roadmap

How does the use of technology increase sales?

Technology makes life easier. And this applies not only to domestic issues but also to doing business. Using software, you can dramatically increase the efficiency of employees’ working hours and the number of processed applications. The main thing is to know which tools to use.

1. Cloud storage: It is recommended to store data on them. This solution ensures the availability of information and also eliminates risks. In particular, such as data loss or espionage. Access to information can be provided as necessary.
2. Email Automation: The tool greatly simplifies the work with electronic marketing and can improve results. You can set up a newsletter and even subsequent actions. It is enough to develop a strategy, create a design and write texts, and then the service will do everything for you. Built-in analytics makes it possible to track user actions and optimize newsletters.
3. CRM: This is what every business need, that is actively involved in sales needs. According to the study, the average return on investment spent on CRM is $8.71 for every dollar spent. The system allows you to store data about customers, their interactions with business and purchases. It can also be used to control employees, view correspondence and listen to conversations with customers. This allows you to improve the results of the department, establish good relationships with customers and increase sales.

Conclusion

Modern technologies open up unlimited opportunities for business development. Integrated use of channels helps maintain user attention and interest. Choose a bunch of sources that take into account the features and objectives of your business, constantly monitor the results, put forward hypotheses and test them and the effectiveness of advertising channels will amaze you.

The customer journey is what determines if you will turn them from a visitor into a lead or a paying customer directly in your pages. We’ve seen funnels have from 3 to 10+ times more sales than normal e-commerce sites because of the focus and customer flow that they have.

The sales funnel

Here is an example of a sales funnel that is focused on a specific product with the goal to sell that product:

The intention is to give away the right amount of information to make the visitor click and go to the checkout. There are a few really important parts that you should focus on when building your landing page. It doesn’t matter if it is about a sale or a lead generation, the important parts are pretty much the same:

1. Headline – this is what your visitors will read 9-10 times out of 10 and it will determine if they will continue browsing your page. Make sure your message is very clear and on par with your campaign. Nobody wants to land on a page that has nothing to do with what they were looking for.
2. Talk about the benefits – don’t forget that people come with a problem and intent so talk about the benefits and what they will gain when using your products or services.
3. Conversion boosters – essential things that can tip the scale in your favour.

A few examples are:

• Money-Back Guarantee – this shows that the customer is safe even if they don’t enjoy your product or service and want a refund.
• Limited amount of products that can run out of stock at any time and people have to hurry up.
• Countdowns – a great way to include a scarcity element on your page by limiting the deal within a certain period of time.
• Discounts – encourage your leads to buy by offering a discount.
• Make it visible – cross-over your old price to show why now is the perfect time to grab an amazing deal.
• Testimonials – don’t skip this part of your funnel! People want to see what others have experienced with your product or service. Show them by adding useful reviews and testimonials to your landing page. Customers always read reviews when booking a room or buying a new phone, for example.

The importance of A/B testing

Alright, you did it all but you are still not certain if your texts are good enough or if the page would work better with a different structure or images. How to test that? Very easy, by doing an A/B test of your pages.

Just duplicate the page and do some of your modifications to the B version. Sometimes a different headline can convert 2-3 times better than the old one by simply resonating better with your audience. We are past the times where you had to measure for 2 weeks, analyze data and then try for another 2 weeks to see which one works better. Now you can do it in a few seconds and have a conversion rate that shows you which of the two pages lead more people to the next step or sell more products.

The checkout page

Now that we’ve made a well-structured product page it’s time to collect the payment on a checkout page. If not optimized, this step can make your customers quit so you need to try and help them gain even more than what they came for.

Here are a few important parts of the checkout page:

1. Checkout – the actual part where you’re collecting your payment. Make it as simple and seamless as possible – require only one or two steps for quick payment. If you are selling products or services that don’t require shipping, for example, there is no need to ask for shipping details. Make the checkout as fast and minimal as possible, don’t add anything extra or annoying.
2. Build trust – Always serve your checkout pages over a secure (SSL) connection. Visually informing that your checkout is secure with a “this site is secure” badge is also a conversion booster as some customers are very concerned about security. And trust leads to customer loyalty.
3. Headline about the product and service once again – simple and straight to the point.
4. List some of the key benefits of your products to remind your customers what they are getting
5. Add countdowns or notifications for limited items if you want to put even more scarcity to the checkout
6. Testimonials – not essential if you have testimonials on your previous steps but its always better to see more people happy with your product or service.

These are most of the elements to look for on your checkout page. Nothing is mandatory – your checkout page is highly dependent on your products, flow, and campaign. Always collect feedback from your customers and try to optimize the checkout experience.

What if we want to upsell a product right before the checkout completion? It’s called a Bump Offer and it is a really cool way to increase your order value by giving the option to grab another product right before hitting the payment button.

Make sure to use a catchy title for your upsell like “Yes! I want to grab this deal” and give some more information about what your customers are getting with it. Mention that this is a very limited offer, for example, to make it more exclusive in the customer’s eyes. The product should be added to the total and purchased upon submitting the checkout.

Upsell or downsell?

But wait… there is another way to increase the value of your offering – Show and upsell right AFTER the checkout is complete. It’s called 1-Click Upsell or Downsell and is a great way to offer even more to your customers. That’s right, directly after your customers make a purchase, instead of showing them a simple “Thank You” page, you can lead them to a page with another product and an option to buy it right away.

This gives you the freedom to offer limited products only to paying customers. You should show more information about your product, the benefits of it and make a clear call to action button to purchase it without asking your customers to add their billing information again. The product will be added as an update to the previous order and that’s it, you can now send them to the Thank You page.

The “Thank You” Page

If your customers decline the Upsell, you can either send them to your final Thank You page or offer them another, cheaper product with a so-called Downsell offer – a product at a lower price as a final attempt to increase the order before completing the journey. The process here is the same as the Upsell step but with a more-affordable offer for the customer.

In the end, we have our Thank You page. You don’t need to be too fancy with it – use a simple thank you page, include a call to action button to lead the visitors somewhere else or like your social media profiles, for example. With that, their funnel journey is complete.

Final thoughts

This is exactly what we at Simvoly allow you to do in a matter of minutes. All templates and examples that you saw are already available with us and ready to use to build your sales funnel, split-test your pages and make the most simplistic checkout and upsell experience. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to marketers and designers when you can do it better all by yourself in less than half an hour. You can sell any type of products – digital, physical, services and memberships, you can even have subscriptions and customer profiles.

Don’t forget, keep it simple, talk about the benefits of your products/services and split test your pages (it really takes a second to do it and a few minutes to play around with different headlines and images).

Absolutely everything.

Without your customers – there is no business. That’s just a simple fact. So your customers should remain at the heart of what you do.

They’re the ones who need or want your product or service. They’re the ones who interact with your company. They’re the ones who buy from you – and the only people that should matter.

So, you should always invest the time getting to know them.

What are customer personas?

Customer personas are a way of understanding your customer.

It’s a way to fill in all the missing information and see things from their perspective. It’s about getting into their head and finding out what makes them tick – so you can better connect with them.

Customer personas aren’t made from guesswork.

They’re made from research and data. They’re made from inside insights and knowledge about what motivates your customers.

Typically, customer personas are made up from elements such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Average Income
• Education Level
• Industry
• Job Title
• Goals
• Challenges
• Values
• Likes
• Dislikes

The key thing about customer personas is that they tell you exactly why each customer buys your product. And if you know this reason, you’ve got the magic secret you need to convert new customers and up your sales.

Not sure why your customers buy? Ask them.

Conduct surveys using sites like Survey Monkey and find out the exact reasons. You might be surprised by what you discover.

How well do you know your customers?

Do you know your customers?

I mean, really know them.

Not in the sense of you having a chat with them if you see them around. Or know people who’ve brought from you on a first name basis.

We mean your typical customer. A stereotype if you prefer.

Do you understand who your customers are? Do you know what they’re interested in? How old they are? What makes them tick? And, most importantly, why they buy your product?

No? Then you don’t know your customers. Not really.

Want to get to know them? Start building your customer personas today.

Start from the core and work outward

Customer personas boil down to one key question:

What problem are they trying to solve?

Your product or service is how you solve this problem.

When you’re creating customer personas, focus on this core problem first. Then work outwards until you build a clear picture of your customer.

Let’s say, for example, you’re a plumber.

Your customer’s core problem could simply be that something is broke and they can’t use their kitchen sink.

You’re not solving it by giving them durable kitchen parts made from the leading suppliers. Or with your 27 years of experience – although these are definitely important and may help set you apart from the competition.

You solve the problem by fixing the sink and returning their home back to normal.

Some of these will appear more straight forward than others – so let’s try another example. This time let’s say you offer cosmetic dental surgery.

Your customer’s core problem is that they want to be happy and confident with their smile.

You’re not solving this problem by straightening their teeth or making them more whiter. You’re solving it by giving them a confidence boost to love the way their new smile looks. Even though this is may be achieved by straightening or whitening their teeth.

Once you understand that, you can expand from there.

Why might they now want to solve this problem? Do they have an important event coming up that they want to look their best for, like a wedding?

And just like that. You’ve got a persona of a bride-to-be, who just wants to look stunning on her big day.

Don’t try to group everyone in a single persona

Your customers aren’t all the same.

They’ll have different motivations and reasons for buying, so it’s important that you don’t lump them all together into the same persona. If you do this, you run the risk of alienating them in your marketing.

Going back to the cosmetic dentist example, let’s say you lump everyone into a customer persona of a woman who wants to feel beautiful with their smile. This will alienate the customer who just wants to replace missing teeth that got knocked out in a sports injury.

So, create different customer personas.

It doesn’t matter whether you have 5 or 15. All that matters is that you understand your customer, so you can build targeted campaigns that really appeal to them.

How customer personas will boost your profits

Once you’ve got your customer personas, you’re ready to profit with ultra-targeted campaigns.

Targeted campaigns are more powerful.

This is because they’re more direct and tell your customer straight away that you can solve their problem. It shows them that you cater to their exact needs and that you understand them.

If you do all this in a single marketing campaign, your customers will be more likely to pay attention, take action and convert. Which means more sales and success for your company.

Let’s use PPC campaigns for an example, again using cosmetic dentistry company.

Instead of targeting your advert, you just went with a ‘one fits all’ approach like the following example:

Although it does list some benefits to the company, it tries to cover so many bases that it doesn’t tell customers that it can solve the exact problem they’ve got.

In comparison, this ad was created based on the bride-to-be target persona:

If you were the bride-to-be, which advert would you click on? The answer is pretty obvious.

Some aspects of a customer persona can also be directly targeted in a PPC campaign.

For example, you can limit Google Ads by age, gender and geographical location. So, you make sure that only the right personas can view the campaign that was made for them.

That means you’re not wasting spend sending the wrong message, giving your business a better ROI (Return On Investment).

Let’s recap: How to create customer personas

Ready to harness the power of customer personas? Just follow the advice in this article and you’ll be set to go.

• Look at your own data and insights. Find out what your customers are like.
• Conduct surveys and get to know your customers.
• Use pop up questions when exiting your site.
• Find out the core problem that your customers are trying to solve.
• And how your product solves that problem.
• Start extending out, looking at what motivates your customers to get the problem solved
• Keep adding information to build out their profile, including age, location, values, dislikes, etc.
• When there’s nothing more you can add, your customer persona is complete.

Remember: don’t try and get every one of your customers into a single persona.

Keep repeating this process until you have a persona for each of your customer types, or you run the risk of alienating customers in your campaigns.

This is a method that some of the biggest brands online use including Amazon, eBay and thousands of others. Don’t worry if you have a small business as the results can be scaled both for smaller businesses and global brands.

However, this won’t suit all businesses. If you’re a hairdresser, for instance, and you’re not looking for a huge boost in customers, affiliate marketing may be too much. 

It works best for online companies, even small ones looking to grow, as the whole process is automated by whichever online affiliate network you choose. More on that in a moment.

Small business affiliate marketing is basically commission-based sales

You allow people to sign up as your affiliate (commission only online salesperson) and promote your products or service online, via simple, personalised text links. 

When someone clicks on one of these links to your product and buys, you pay the referring affiliate a predetermined commission. The commission rate depends on the business and products but it’s usually from around 1 to 2% up to 70 or 80%, depending on the industry and product cost.

Most businesses will pay out anywhere from 2% to 50% and this works great as you still profit from sales without having to source them yourself.

Your affiliate has brought the new potential customer to your website and, if they buy, you’ll pay the affiliate commission AFTER the sale.

This makes it unbelievably cost-effective, as you don’t pay out anything upfront, only from the profit on the sale.

Affiliate marketing offers a stack of profitable benefits

Your Visitors Are Targeted

The great thing about affiliates is they work and promote in your niche, so the visitors they send you are perfectly targeted to your business. The more targeted your visitors are, the higher your conversions from visitor to customer will be.

Your Visitors Are Pre-Qualified

When affiliate-sourced visitors reach your website, they’re pre-qualified thanks to the info or review of your product on the affiliate’s site. They know what you’re selling and if they click through, they’re obviously interested.

Once again, this can have a huge effect on your conversion rate, simply because untargeted traffic never converts well.

Your Visitors Are Pre-Warmed

An affiliate’s website will usually ‘pre-sell’ your product in their post and get the visitor excited and enthused about your product or service. So they will either present a problem which is solved by your product or compare your product, along with a handful of others, in a product comparison/review.

This means that by the time the visitor arrives on your site, they are almost ready to buy and all you have to do is push them over the edge. 

Your Visitors Are Cost-Effective

As there’s no outlay until an affiliate makes a sale and then you pay the affiliate from the sale, there’s no initial outlay for your business.

You really can’t get any more cost-effective than not paying out until you make an actual sale.

You Get Free Subscribers

Don’t forget that if you have an opt-in form on your website, maybe offering a newsletter, special report or discount etc, affiliates can help to build your subscriber list for free.

The thing is, some of your visitors won’t buy, but they will become a subscriber via your email form. This is how other brands build huge subscriber lists who they pay for once, and then sell to over and over again.

And because it was your affiliates who sent you the visitor, you haven’t paid to build your list of subscribers.

The overlooked benefit of having affiliates promoting your brand

When you buy Pay Per Click traffic via Google, Bing or Facebook etc, some people who come to your site and aren’t immediately convinced may search Google to see if they can find out more about your product.

If you have affiliates promoting you, their websites will also show up in the search results when someone looks for what you’re selling. And this means your product will suddenly have multiple websites in the search results promoting your product.

In other words, you don’t pay for any of this traffic as your affiliates are taking care of it, and you only pay your set amount commission when the affiliate makes an actual sale.

It’s hard to think of a more efficient, cost-effective way to get more customers and sales.

How do you take advantage of affiliate marketing?

You can use an online affiliate network, which companies online who specialise in bringing together businesses and affiliates.

You simply add your product or service to their marketplace and their affiliates can then promote it if they choose to.

These networks have thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of affiliates in all kind of industries, so chances are some of them are looking for things to promote in YOUR industry.

If small business affiliate marketing is something that interests you, I suggest you begin researching affiliate marketing yourself, as it can build your business faster than anything else.

Obviously, each network has its own rules etc and some will charge you a small fee to list your business, while some are free. There are also networks focusing on certain niches and industries, while others have a huge and varied selection.

Afiliateprogram DB have put a list of their best affiliate programs together which are worth checking out. And here are a few of our favourites:

PartnerStack

Click here to visit PartnerStack

Impact

Click here to visit Impact

Tapfiliate

Click here to visit Tapfiliate

PayKickStart

Click here to visit PayKickStart

Post Affiliate Pro

Click here to visit Post Affiliate Pro

Summary

Small business affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful ways to grow. Basically, you can have an army of people promoting your business and you don’t pay them a penny until they make a sale for you. 

The thing to keep in mind, however, is scale. If you are not ready for a ton of extra sales, it might be worth waiting to jump on the affiliate train.

It depends on your business, but, if for instance you do all your sales online and have the capacity to ramp up, affiliate marketing is definitely worth a closer look.