Affiliate Marketing and the B2B Proposition

[Bruce Clayton]

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This post has been a long time in the coming as I've finally had time to sit down and hopefully join up a string of thoughts, chats and meetings that I've had over the past year in and around merchants who are looking to the "affiliate" model to promote their goods and services.

My historic knee-jerk reaction is that for "B2B" merchants affiliate marketing in the UK as it currently stands is not a recipe for success, however this is by no means universal. Most electrical retailers (such as E-Buyer and Microwarehouse in particular) deal with a huge amount of SME Business and have appropriate internal channels to cater to their specific invoicing and tax needs. This is because for certain products and services the needs of the consumer and the search / decision / procurement process is no different from the B2C pathway and affiliate marketing therefore works well.

Not all B2B clients have such an obvious crossover in sales channel and require a more bespoke sales approach - for example a credit card application for an individual ia a mainstay of financial affiliate marketing, however an application for 100 corporate cards may be too bespoke for an online only aplication procedure. Likewise a telecommunications product, business software (beyond the simple operating systems) and high end professional equipment may be deemed as too difficult to sell online with the required degree of customer satisfaction and sales consultation.

An obvious response to my scepticism is that affiliate marketing can deliver leads and enquiries as well as sales, and as such can deliver them for a B2B cleint. However affiliates tend to favour the lowest common denominator and the shortest possible form (in order to maximise response and payment) - which conflicts with the need for a B2B proposition to get the most qualified leads possible in order to maximise their conversions.

I believe there is a way forward and that involves a serious attempt by affiliates to embrace the B2B search market in the same way as they have come to understand and harness it for B2C merchants. Secondly I know of an organisation that is making inroads into the UK that is offering performance related lead generation for businesses (using on and offline methods).

I would be very interested personally and professionally to hear from anyone who sees B2B as key to the expansion of our industry or anyone who has a B2B product or service that may be considering (or have considered) affiliate marketing as an avenue.

Please excuse the size of this post and thank you for sticking with it!!

[Jeffco]

This post has been a long time in the coming

the replies seem to be taking even longer! :-)

I dont really understand what this is about. any chance of encapsulating this, almost into a palm of your hand sized morsel with less acronym.

Are you saying that a big business for example - Kraft general foods, may be looking for car rental for its massive fleet of sales reps across the uk and someone in the back office is charged with typing 'car rental' into google, they visit an affiliate site and say, god this is a bit mickey mouse.

firstly, i dont think that happens and secondly, car rental merchants will only credit me 15 quid for one car rental sale anyway regardless of the fleet being giant sized.

so?!

[Bruce Clayton]

Thank you for giving me a good context to "clarify".
The rental car company wouldn't currently expect Kraft to consider renting their cars this way, as they have corporate sales people who would proactively target large companies that would require large numbers of rental cars and do a deal that way. What the rental car company might require however is leads for these sales guys - so Small Co Ltd may want to get a long-term deal for car rental, however they won't be being actively targeted by any sales team from the rental company. Affiliate marketing may be able to generate deliver that lead depending on how it is marketed. That would obviously have a value (probably greater than the £15 that you earn when Joe Bloggs rents a car for the weekend).
Affiliate marketing can potentially deliver sales leads for businesses rather than actual "sales" - which is of value IF the information within the lead is of good quality and stands a chance of being converted into the offline sale of the goods or service.
As it stands that “IF” is a big one and setting too high a threshold in terms of information required understandably blunts the response of the affiliates.

[stuey_p]

I think this is related to something I have been mulling over - although forgive me if I'm on the wrong track.

My brother in law has recently taken on the UK sales and distribution of a 360 degree, spherical camera on behalf of a German company. He is a one man operation and needs to reach those businesses who might be interested. The technology behind the product is amazing but reflected in the 30 grand price tag.

Is this product ,a) too niche and ,b) too expensive to gain any kind of fulfilment through affiliate marketing.

I guess the brochure request/trial run scenario is a possible avenue but this in itself leads to problems and doesn't exactly resolve the problem of the products specific nature.

Sorry if I have got the wrong end of this thread Bruce. I think I'm more or less in the same ball park - it's got to be at least least a local derby

Anyhow any opinions would be most welcome.

Thanks

Stuart

[tonydimmock]

Hi,

I have specialist knowledge in a technical area, where businesses spend £££s per annum and am looking to use AM as a way to provide them with solutions. The merchants mostly provide the products required, so in my way I am referring businesses to the merchant and making £££ along the way.

Website should be up and running in the next few months (hopefully!).

Tony

[Warren]

Hi

The IAB spent a lot of effort looking at the B2B channel last year, I am not sure the of the value conclusions reached but they could be worth contactinghttp://www.iabuk.net/en/1/iabknowledgebankb2b.html.

My own company, Dyscover, is involved in this area from an e-learning perspective offering (soft skills, business training, computer software education and pre-employment Job / IQ testing) in addition to operating our own affiliate program we have gone down the route of white labeled sites for strategic partners.

In my experience many affiliates who have established B2B sites dillute their offering with promotions that are purely B2C; keep a focus that your users will relate to.

You also have to bear in mind that many purchasing managers "treasure" their existing relationships if you are going to persuade them to change their established routines use as sophisticated approach as you can and go for quality not quantity in the information that you display.

Warren Bresler
Career-Mentor
020 8416 0341
warren@dyscover.com