New technologies, a freshly launched operating system, and newly published - yet perpetrually murky - regulations are three things in our industry that change as frequently as Senator Craig's explanation of his George Michael homage in the men's room of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Then factor in an avalanche of new sites that show up in the blogs as often as Nicole Richie appears in the tabloids with $100 per sale promotions from the new, or newly revamped, programs behind them, and even the most plugged-in online veteran requires a trail of breadcrumbs, a compass, a Lewis and Clark map, and the personal guide services of Sacagawea just to be able to navigate back to where they started when they logged in an hour earlier.
With the landscapes on both the industry and consumer sides of the web in a constant state of flux, how does the forward thinking gay company create a splash or make sure their already spawned endeavor remains front page new? The answer is branding, but the question is: Where do you start?
Branding as we know it today first appeared in the 19th century when the steam engine made it possible for packaged goods to have a worldwide distribution for the first time. These then-unknown names had to compete with familiar, local favorites with memorable logos and phrases employed to convince people they were just as worthy of public trust. These first efforts consisted of literal branding, with the same hot iron used to mark cattle, the wooden crates, and barrels that were the shipping containers of the time.
Granted that certainly sounds implicitly simple compared to the slick, multi-million dollar product roll-outs seen today, but those early efforts from the fine folks at Quaker Oats, Coca Cola, and Kellogg's prove just how effective and indispensable consistent repetition of a logo can be in attaining brand awareness and market share. Laid out like that, it makes perfect sense until you are confronted with the new age reality of the Internet entrepreneur trying to decide what they need to brand first. Their webmaster program to attract the affiliates who will become allies in spreading word of your sites? Or do you focus on your sites to aid in making the sale once the consumer arrives on your landing page? It is not as "which came first..." as it sounds, since unlike wondering whether it was the chicken or the egg, our conundrum does not have an either/or answer: The truth is you need to do both.
Affiliate marketing and the concept of the revenue-sharing model first appeared in November of 1994 when CDNow.com launched their "BuyWeb.com" program just in time for the gift-giving season. That new concept of reward-based click-through purchasing achieved a wide-spread legitimacy when Amazon.com followed suit with a massive roll-out of its associate program in July of 1996. Ten years later, affiliate marketing has blossomed into a $6.5 billion dollar annual commission bounty with adult, gambling, and retail being the three most lucrative areas.
Simply put, the more affiliates you have, the more independent marketing soldiers you have, bringing the one-click access to your sites - along with the branding of your logos - to a far wider swath of potential surfers than you could possibly reach through your own efforts. In other words, your affiliates do your marketing for you in exchange for a commission based on the success of their efforts. That does pass along a considerable degree of control of the frequency with which your brand will appear and the integrity of the presentation of your carefully crafted image to virtual strangers, and there is one way to reduce that gamble and ensure your message is carried out to your liking both in terms of quantity and quality: Augment your affiliate's efforts with some direct-to-consumer advertising of your own.
With the future viability of the affiliate-based business model on increasingly tenuous footing given the very real litigious and logistical requirements proposed in the pending 2257 regulations, the affiant tier in progressively shrinking in numbers, and their role in marketing your sites can suffer right along with it. In order to replace that lost traffic and to fortify the efforts of your remaining associates still producing the clicks we all need to survive, the more familiar the surfer is with your sites through your own marketing campaigns targeted directly at them, the higher the chance that that money-making call to action will occur, making more money for everyone. Affiliates who receive regular rewards for their efforts are much more likely to maintain, and hopefully increase, the amount of real estate they devote on their sites to sending traffic to your sites than those who do not.
Through prints ads you design yourself to appear in consumer publications - or sponsorships you take advantage of at webmasters shows or in publications - to bring your program into the forefront of webmasters whose livelihood is dependent of the successful selling of your sites, the path to success all starts from the same location: brand central station. All Aboard!
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