How To Use Affiliate Marketing For B2b Sites
B2B is shorthand for business to business. Instead of a business selling products to consumers, the business exists to sell products or services to other businesses. This model is not always well applied by affiliate marketers, which has benefits and drawbacks.
“B2B is a wide open market when compared to consumer-driven affiliate marketing. However, there is less of a chance for click-throughs if you're only targeting a narrow demographic.”B2B is a wide open market when compared to consumer-driven affiliate marketing. However, there is less of a chance for click-throughs if you're only targeting a narrow demographic.
The first consideration, a wide-open field, is a very important one. Since affiliate marketing is becoming fairly crowded, it is always a good idea to seize a niche opportunity. As a small business affiliate, you understand the needs of other small business owners, so you can use this to your advantage when creating a B2B affiliate site.
B2B Affiliate Programs
Since it is a narrower niche, there are not necessarily as many B2B opportunities as there are consumer driven affiliate programs. You need to get creative. There is a bevy of credit card affiliate marketing programs. On a B2B site, you could think about only offering affiliate links to business credit cards.
There are business-specific affiliate programs as well, such as business products, lead generation services, legal services, web hosting and more. There's an old adage about writing that says, "Write what you know." With affiliate marketing, you could take the same tact.
As you understand the needs of other business owners, this gives you an understanding of what other small business owners need. In this way, B2B is a good affiliate marketing model for new marketers looking for a way to break into the affiliate marketing industry.
B2B and Consumer Affiliates
A number of affiliate marketing opportunities have applications for both business and the consumer market. Take web-hosting affiliates. You can find a list of these affiliates on the Affiliate Tips site.
Web hosts have some very high payouts when compared to other affiliate marketing programs. A web host affiliate is attractive to both consumers and small business owners, doubling the chance for a click through and sign-up. Most web hosts have basic hosting programs as well as business-specific programs.
As an affiliate marketer, you do not necessarily have to pigeonhole this affiliate program toward the business or consumer sector. In fact, it could be to your benefit to target both markets, as this will increase the chance of pulling in a profit.
At the same time, it makes sense to specialize and to target a demographic specifically. Any affiliate website aimed at attracting business owners is going to be fairly different than a website aimed at attracting everyday consumers -- so it doesn't always make sense to target both groups at once.
