Selling on the Net: Are You a Retailer or Wholesaler?
by Maurice Bretzfield
If you're a brick-and-mortar retailer who wants to expand your sales through Internet marketing, you'll have to change your perception of customers. And if you're going to sell your merchandise to a large and ever-growing number of Internet customers, you cannot simply sell on the Internet; you must become an Internet affiliate marketer.
Traditional retailers sell directly to customers. They advertise their merchandise in newspapers and magazines, on television and radio. Their marketing costs are all up-front and often quite high. If you're a wholesaler, you sell your merchandise through a network of sales reps to the buyers at retail outlets.
When you become an Internet marketer who relies on affiliate networks to drive customers to your Website, you will no longer be a conventional retailer; you will have to become an Internet wholesaler, relying on an affiliate network of Web sales reps.
An affiliate network acts like a middleman, a distribution network that drives customers to your Website where the sales are made. Affiliate networks are not passive entities. To put cash in your coffers, they must be proactive. No Website achieves success by waiting for customers to come knocking. Customers must be identified by their shopping preferences, solicited and lured by appeals to their self-interest so that they arrive (credit card in hand) at your Website. And that's precisely what effective and pro-active Internet affiliate marketing does.
In addition to bringing a dramatic increase in sales, Internet affiliate marketing has an additional benefit-there are no up-front advertising costs! You pay a commission only when a sale is consummated. The affiliates are commission-based sales people with a hungry incentive to produce customers. You pay only for completed sales. Whoever drives the largest number of actual customers to your Website will receive the largest financial rewards.
What to Look for in an Internet Affiliate Marketer
Choose a company that:
- Has a proven track record of successfully increasing sales and revenues.
- Has demonstrable expertise in the field of Internet affiliate marketing.
- Understands the Internet as a marketing medium.
Common Mistakes
Ad Agencies
Many merchants assume that their ad agencies will be able to guide them through the thickets and sand traps of Internet marketing.
However, ad agencies are often the least knowledgeable of how Internet affiliate marketing draws in customers.
Ad agencies tend to carpet bomb potential customers.
They believe that if they bombard a large number of consumers with their ads that a certain percentage will become paying customers.
That is not the best return on your ad dollars.
When a company advertises on TV, for example, it reaches as many as 50% of the wrong customers, those who will not spend a nickel on their merchandise.
In such cases, 50% of the ad dollars went into the living rooms and bedrooms of people who had clicked on the "mute" button.
A successful Internet affiliate marketing program, however, identifies consumers who are interested in specific products and then drives those
consumers to Websites where they can purchase just the kinds of products they are interested in.
In-House Marketers
It is essential that Internet merchants reach the right audience of prospective customers. For many merchants, unfortunately, reliance on in-house marketers often results in aiming at the wrong affiliates. There are countless Internet merchants who have unintentionally made pornographers and hate mongers their affiliate marketers. Imagine, for a moment, selling children's toys on a porno site or selling religious vacation packages on a site that spews hatred. Not only will there be no sales, but prospective customers who see a trusted retailer on such a site will lose all confidence in that retailer. Such problems are commonplace when the marketer is not a savvy and experienced manager of affiliate networks.
An affiliate network must be regularly reviewed and investigated and its sales volume verified from month to month. If an affiliate network, comprising thousands of Websites, is not correctly and actively managed, the ultimate result for the merchant will be lost sales.