15. What are the shortcomings of Affiliate marketing for the business?
Answer:
While Affiliate marketing provides advantages such as steady income, larger coverage, etc, there are certain shortcomings. Some of them are as follows:
i. Fraudulent - A marketer should carefully choose its affiliate partner as there are many fraudulent programs out there.
ii. No control - If you want to make changes in the pattern or you have some idea, you have to depend on your affiliate partners as you do not have control on the marketing programs.
i
ii. No customer base - As the customers are connected to the affiliate partner you do not have a customer base of your own. A repeat purchase will be done from the affiliate partner's website.
iv. Affects Brand Image - The affiliate partners may market the product in an undesirable way which can negatively impact the brand image of your product or service.
v. Competitive - This marketing channel is quite competitive as there are many affiliates who offer the same kind of services.
vi. No Revenue Guarantee - Here the traffic does not guarantee you good payment. The traffic must be converted into sales which can help you make some money. And the reasons for lack of conversion could be numerous, even out of your control.
16. Why does Affiliate marketing have a negative reputation?
Answer:
Some affiliate marketers use unethical methods which impact the whole industry and lend it a bad name.
Some of the unethical practices used by the marketers are:
i. Trademark Infringement
ii. False or misleading advertising
iii. Spamming
iv. Cookie Stuffing
v. Typosquatting etc.
17. If you were the interviewer, what qualities would you look for in an affiliate marketer?
Answer:
With this question, the interviewer wants to know if you are aware of the personality traits of the affiliate marketer and if you have those in you. Apart from willingness to learn and absorb the training an affiliate marketing professional should be thoughtful.
Some of the other qualities are as follows:
i. Planned and Organized: Affiliate marketing needs the person to take care of many things at a time, including content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, website maintenance etc. This needs you to be organized and have realistic goals.
ii. Consistent: It needs consistency in your efforts with content development and promoting it.
iii. Socially Active: A marketer should be sociable. He/she must use social media platforms fully to make valuable relationships with the potential customers.
iv. Patience: Efforts take time to materialize into results and this needs you to be patient.
v. Confident with product: The affiliate marketer should have the authority and be confident about the product or service he is marketing for.
vi. Self Determined: An affiliate marketer should be self-determined and self-motivated because many a times you would need to work in isolation.
18. What trends do you foresee in affiliate marketing?
Answer:
Affiliate marketing is becoming more recognized and more and more marketers are opting for this marketing channel. Some of the trends to watch out for in the future are as follows:
i. Content will become powerful: Content will remain to rule all the marketing channels including affiliate marketing. Good content attracts traffic that turns into sales. Within content, there are new trends which are coming up such as Semantic content which helps to evaluate digital content.
ii. Discounts, Cashback, and coupons: Coming days would be the days of discounts and other financial benefits while buying from affiliates.
iii. Digital Influencer: The influential people with large number of followers can help the affiliate marketers by sharing their links, writing about their products or simply writing a guest post for them.
iv. Laptop to mobile Tracking and vice-versa: A person might check a link on the laptop and later on mobile phones. Earlier there was no proper tracking tool. Now there are a lot of companies which are providing a solution to track this data which is helping the affiliate marketing grow.
19. As an affiliate marketer, why should you use your social media platforms?
Answer:
As an affiliate marketer, one can use the social media platforms to make their brand or service known to the people.
The other benefits of using social media are:
i. Flexibility to handle their own account.
ii. Social media involves no cost for its basic features.
iii. Large target audience can be reached on social media platforms.
iv. You can place as many links as you want to.
20. We are launching a new product. How will you promote it on social media?
Answer:
As you know that affiliate marketing uses an affiliate website to promote a product or service. An affiliate marketer can use social media to effectively promote the products or services to a large number of audience at once. To be successful, one has to be active on social media by posting regularly.
Here are few more ways by which you can promote your products more effectively on social media:
i. Good Photos - In affiliate marketing you can use good and effective images to promote your product and helps you to draw the reader's attention to your post.
ii. Quality Content - An affiliate marketer should focus on high quality and effective content to get the social media audience to connect with the product and service.
iii. Use your affiliate product carefully - You have to promote good quality affiliate products which will make the audience more interested in it. An affiliate marketer should believe and know about his or her product in and out and should love his/her product.
iv. Communication - Effective Communication keeps your audience engaged and connected with your service and product.
