3 reasons why your beauty business should consider voucher codes in affiliate marketing campaigns
By Guest Writer | 08 August 2020 | Expert Advice, Feature
Virginia Rizzi, head of affiliate marketing at the SEO and digital marketing agency Glass Digital, shares her insight into why your beauty business should offer discount codes and cash back deals as part of affiliate marketing campaigns…
Whether you sell beauty products online or you’ve recently started welcoming clients back into your nail salon, everyone is grappling for the attention of potential customers at the moment, so you’ll have to put plenty of thought into how you’re going to market your business and stand out from the crowd.
Virginia Rizzi
Offering voucher codes as part of an affiliate marketing campaign is a great way to do this but, if you’ve recently taken a financial hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic, you might be hesitant to reduce your profit margins right now. However, in my experience, offering discounts to build customer loyalty and secure new business can pay off in the long run, so it can be a very effective tactic to use. Here, I am going to explain exactly what affiliate marketing is, and then outline some of the main benefits of using discounts as part of your strategy.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a form of advertising where you pay a publisher – this could be an online magazine, voucher site, or even an Instagram influencer – a small commission if they drive traffic to your site that then leads to a sale.
Almost 90% of advertisers say that affiliate marketing should be an important part of any marketing strategy, and it’s estimated that the industry will be worth $6.8 billion (£5.3 billion) by the end of 2020, according to Digital Global. So, I would highly recommend delving into this area of marketing and attracting customers with discounts along the way. Here’s why…
1. Top voucher and cash back sites have a huge audience
Two of the biggest cash back and voucher sites, MyVoucherCodes and TopCashBack, have eight and nine million members respectively. To gain access to these pools of potential customers, you will need to offer shoppers a discount or work within a cash back model.
Voucher codes and cash back deals will eat into your profit margins to a certain extent, but there are strategies you can use to maximise your revenue when someone shops through these platforms. For example, if your customers typically spend an average £50 with you or on your site, you could offer them a code that gives them £10 off when they spend £70, which might just convince them to add another item to their basket. This will help ensure you always make a decent profit whenever a purchase is made.
2. You’ll be less likely to lose sales to competitors
As I’ve previously mentioned, the beauty space is more competitive than ever right now, as companies are trying their best to make up for the last few months of downtime. So, you need to do what you can to regain the loyalty of your existing customers, as well as attract the attention of those who might be new to your business.
To do this as effectively as possible, you need to consider what steps potential customers might go through when deciding where to go for their beauty products or services. For example, particularly savvy shoppers will often browse voucher sites before committing to a purchase to ensure they get the best deal possible, and you don’t want to lose out on business because a similar company is offering a 10% discount when you aren’t.
This means, to stay competitive in the affiliate marketing space, you need to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. If you can afford to offer the same deals as them, or even go one better, you can avoid losing out on sales unnecessarily.
3. You can track your return on investment
With certain marketing channels, it can be incredibly difficult – and sometimes even impossible – to accurately track your return on investment. However, with voucher and cash back sites, you’ll be able to see the direct link between your marketing campaign and any conversions.
This is because, with affiliate marketing, trackable codes and URLs are used for each campaign, so you can see exactly how much money you’re making from each channel. After a short while, you can compare the amount of revenue you’ve secured against how much your affiliate marketing campaigns have cost you, so you can make a clear decision on whether continuing down this route is worth it or if you need to tweak your approach slightly.
With a lot of areas of marketing, there’s a lot of making decisions and just hoping they pay off. But, by using voucher codes or a cash back approach in your affiliate campaigns, you’ll get an accurate idea of whether your strategy is working for you.
At a time when the beauty market is incredibly competitive, it is well worth considering using voucher codes as part of your affiliate marketing campaign to secure the loyalty of existing customers, as well as attract new clients. You should also remember that a lot of people have taken a financial hit during the Coronavirus pandemic, so will be looking to save their pennies. If you can give them some money off their purchase, you’ll be far more likely to secure their business over one of your competitors.