On April 27 Chris Brogan posted an article called, “The Sales Marketing Organization.” In it he wrote about what a sales marketing organization is and what it should or could be. He posed two questions:
“What if every aspect of our efforts was dedicated to helping people sell?”
Or: “What if every aspect of our efforts was dedicated to helping customers buy?”
Good questions, and I believe affiliate marketing can lend significant wisdom to the conversation. Every aspect of affiliate marketing program management is dedicated to helping people sell, whether through affiliate marketing support, lead generation programs, affiliate networking or basic affiliate program management.
As for his second question, every aspect of affiliate marketing is dedicated to helping customers buy. Any Ecommerce site, email marketing campaign or Twitter marketing launch is about helping customers buy, providing the avenues and support to make it an efficient, positive experience.
He continues:
I think content marketing and the like are lead generation-focused. I feel that conversions-to-sales is the coin of the realm these days. It’s not enough to brand. It’s not exactly enough to have a wide-area sales funnel (like content). We want to see every effort’s paths back to sales.
His angle that it is not enough to brand and create good content but that the marketing industry in general wants to see “every effort’s paths back to sales” makes me think of the basic principles of affiliate marketing and the outlook of any good affiliate marketing program management. Identifying, contacting and cultivating (the efforts) sales prospects through social media and online marketing channels is what affiliate marketing lead generation is all about.
He asks if companies are looking for more sales out of their online marketing efforts? I agree with him: Yes. And that’s exciting for affiliate marketing and affiliate marketing program management.
Affiliate marketing is based on lead generation through online marketing, whether from email marketing or Twitter or any of the other lead generation media outlets. If Brogan points toward coming trends in the general marketing world, affiliate marketing and affiliate marketing program management are field to watch. Stay tuned.
3 comments on “The Future of Marketing”
Helping affiliates become better affiliates, through one-on-one phone calls, providing valuable resources, and helpful tools affiliate can put into practice to become more productive, is the purpose of affiliate management. Affiliates truly are the sales force of your company and should be catered to. IMO there isn’t enough reaching out to affiliate to offer help from people that can really make a difference.
Affiliate marketing is all about helping the customer by helping the affiliate- which result in more leads and sales. Marketing and sales in general also have strong connections- you have to be successful at both in order to generate consistent business. While it’s pretty impossible for everything you do to revolve around sales alone, you should have dedicated efforts for sales and marketing.
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