How affiliate programs may help improving your brand equity

Céline Brandt, Ph.D

Affiliate Marketing

• Affiliate Marketing is performance-based advertising

• The affiliate promotes the merchant’s product/ service and get remuneration for every sale, visit or subscription

• Pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead (newsletter sign-up), pay-per-call or pay-per-click

• One of the most powerful customer acquisition tool

• The merchant pays only when the results are there

• Almost no research

• Dealers or partners, who promote our brand, investing their own money to sell our products/services

• Independent intermediary choose what affiliate programs to promote, what merchants to push more aggressively and on what merchants to spend less efforts

• Preferential treatment for superaffiliates

Consumer-based brand equity (KL Keller)

• BE: the differential response to the marketing of a product or a service that is only due to the brand

• In short, when you have strong brand equity, your customers will buy more from you, they will accept to pay a price premium, they'll recommend you to other people, they're more loyal, and you're less likely to lose them to competitors.

Consumer-based brand equity (KL Keller)

Consumer-based brand equity (KL Keller)

KnowledgeAwarenessRecallRecognitionFamiliarity

Promotes the merchant’s product/service

AFFILIATE MKT

How does affiliate marketing contribute to the publisher’s brand salience?

Encourage affiliates: push strategy: Special offers (top affiliates),

commissions, e-mails, blogs, newsletters,

contestsMake them proud respect and

trust

Platform to reach and engage with new audiences (site + e-mails)

Increase the availability of the brand for more

familiarity

Content displayed on affiliate sites:

awareness-driving tool/ high quality enough in order not to erode the

brand image

Examples of affiliates: focus on awareness

Agreement with TradeTracker to provide some unique voucher codes to some affiliate in exchange of a permanent referral during a defined period

Push strategy: Newsletter for the affiliates in the NL and for the CJ affiliates

Consumer-based brand equity (KL Keller)

Image: primary characteristics and features; product reliability, durability, and serviceability; service effectiveness, efficiency, and empathy; style and design; and price

Leverage secondary associationsReputation buildingA different experience

AFFILIATE MKT

How does affiliate marketing contribute to the publisher’s brand performance and imagery?

Leveraging secondary

associations

Reputation building

(throughout the affiliates network)

Design of an experience

based on the affiliate’s consumer knowledge

Invite pertinent affiliates in

terms of image (snowballing

effect)

Examples of affiliates: focus on image

How to profile affiliates in term of image?

WebsiteTarget

Audience

Promotional methods

Marketing Focus

Competitors promoted

Associations that could impact negatively the publisher’s brand image

• Inapropriate content

• Misuse of the trademark

• Negative feedback

• Incentive

• Monitoring

• Enforcement (coercive measures)

Consumer-based brand equity (KL Keller)

Quality, credibility, relevance, superiority warmth, fun, excitement, security, social approval, and self-respect

Brand defense Information

sharing

AFFILIATE MKT

Brand defense and information sharing – what drives the affiliate to enlarge their role?

Brand defence: indicator of the quality

of the relationship

Information sharing: preference, experiences,

discussions, problems

2 types of performances: technical and

relational focus on the relational performance

Drivers:

Financial dependence of the affiliate

Relational performance of the

publisher

Applications:

Segmentation of the affiliate network

Examples of affiliates: focus on brand defence and information sharing

What would drive the affiliates to enlarge their role?

In a special edition of HBR on how to motivate people, Fryer wrote in her article called “Moving Mountains”:

There is no trick to motivating others. It requires a clear, unbiased understanding of the situation at hand, deep insight into the vagaries of human nature at both individual and group levels, the establishment of appropriate and reasonable expectations and goals and the construction of a balanced set of tangible and intangible incentives

Delegating Participating Selling Telling

Delegating Participating Selling Telling

Superafiliates(generating significant volumes of

sales)

Skilled and experienced affiliates but

insecured

Capable affiliate but

lack of education or confidence

Affiliates has very low level

of maturity

External rewards Internal motivators

Cash bonuses, tangible prizes

Autonomy, prestige, sense of enjoyment

1

2

Consumer-based brand equity (KL Keller)

Behavioral loyalty, brand love, sense of community, active engagement

Facilitate Brand value

creation Co-innovation Customer

support

AFFILIATE MKT

Brand value creation and co-innovation– what drives the affiliate to enlarge their role?

The affiliate will facilitate the common research of new ideas

Discussions on how to improve the experience

Motivates visitors to take part to the value

creation (creativity and ideas generation)

Drivers:

Creativity of the affiliate’s website

open to roleenlargement

Community aspect open to roleenlargement

Drivers:

Congruence between the publisher and the

affiliate (complements)

reinforce the affiliate’simage and increases

the value of the content

Examples of affiliates: focus on brand value creation and co-innovation

What’s in for me? 1. Superaffiliates are vital at the beginning of the BE building process

to create the awareness

2. For the next 3 steps, bloggers are as interresting as superafilliates as they offer image complementarity and they consider easily role extensions

3. From the affiliate side, financial dependence plays the strongest role in the acceptance of roles enlagement

4. From the merchand side, relational performance has to be the focus number one to motivate role enlargement

5. The higher in the pyramid, the more relationnal the merchand should be

6. Create a special structure to manage the relationship with bloggers

7. Identify the high potential affiliates based on financial dependence, congruence, creativity and community-orientation

Thank you for your attention

Q&A?