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Elliot Jones asks How do FMCG companies utilise Affiliate Marketing opportunities

Written by: Elliot Jones

Article Overview: Ever wondered how FMCG companies, both start-ups and multi-nationals, utilise Affiliate Marketing to generate sales? If so read on... Affiliate Marketing: How affiliate marketing is being used to shift fast-moving consumer goods. How FMCG marketers are choosing to increase their presence online through affiliate marketing rather than though using other online marketing tools.

Elliot Jones asks How do FMCG companies utilise Affiliate Marketing opportunities

Affiliate Marketing: How affiliate marketing is being used to shift fast-moving consumer goods. How FMCG marketers are choosing to increase their presence online through affiliate marketing rather than though using other online marketing tools.

FMCG companies traditionally have always had to sell their products via offline stores. FMCG goods are the items that you would typically find in a supermarket, and as such most of their offers are either “on pack” (money off vouchers), or loss leader (two for one offers). Although these promote the offer, they don’t allow the company to know any more about the consumers that are buying their products.

The holy grail of marketing is being able to marry up consumer buying habits with their personal details – something that was almost impossible before the advent of the online phenomenon, and now the availability of Affiliate Marketing has allowed companies a risk free way to generate this information.

With Affiliate Marketing, FMCG companies can offer free samples of their products (razor, washing powder, make-up etc) or money off vouchers in return for consumer information – thus marrying up the consumer to the offer. This information can them be used to build a profile of the user via the products that they sign up for, and consequently can be accurately targeted for new products as they are developed and put on sale.

If we use Gilette as an example, then they could build long-term sales by offering a free razor to everyone that signs up to http://www.mygillette.co.uk/Pays/uk/?source.

The consumer would enter their Name, Address, Date of Birth, contact details, where they buy their razors from and any other information that Gillette establishes as beneficial for their marketing activity (perhaps a list of other products the consumer is interested in). Suddenly, instead of simply knowing how many razors have purchased from a particular store, they now know (for example):

John Smith, 25, of Old St, New Town buys his Gillete Fusion razors from Tescos in Springfield.

Instantly they have married up the consumer data to their sales data and started to build a consumer profile of their users.

How they use this information is up to them – they can email or post vouchers to John Smith, or even recommend a certain type of shaving foam, or do a survey on aftershave – building up the picture of him over time and expanding the questions until they get a complete lifestyle survey on which to develop future campaigns and targets successful growth and sales.

Further, using Affiliate Marketing as a means of building consumer profiles means that they only have to pay for results – and therefore no risk is involved, as opposed to other marketing formats (both online and offline).

Online Affiliate Marketing in the FMCG sector has yet to be realised to its full potential, although the benefits over other online marketing formats, particularly its ‘no risk’ nature, evidently prove attractive.

This is how FMCG companies use Affiliate Marketing to raise profile, gather consumer information and increase market share currently – although, by the nature of the online marketing arena, development and diversification are inevitable.

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Article Tags: advent, affiliate marketing, buying habits, consumer information, date of birth, example john smith, fmcg companies, free samples, gillete fusion, gillette, holy grail, loss leader, marketers, marketing tools, moving consumer goods, offline stores, razor, razors, uk source, vouchers



Related Forum Posts
Re: Affiliate Marketing - Open for Discussion - Carol, Mary and David - thanks for your great input and insight on Affiliate Marketing! This is the kind of discussion I was hoping for in this thread. There are pros and cons to Affiliate Marketing, just as there are to any business. As has been suggested, he best policy is to proceed with caution and do some research before jumping in. As Carol has recommended, this topic thread in the EvanCarmichael.com forum is the ideal place to ask questions and seek further input on available Affiliate Marketing programs. If a person is serious about building an online business and is interested in Affiliate Marketing plans, they should approach the process as they would any other form of business. Research, ask questions, compare opportunities, participate in forums on online business and Affiliate Marketing. GT :-]
Re: Affiliate Marketing - Open for Discussion - Hi GT Affiliate Marketing is one of the easier ways to get started making money online, but it does take quite a bit of work before you see any great results as you have to keep promoting constantly. It does teach you one hell of a lot about all aspects of Internet Marketing though as you will need to learn how to write and submit articles, create and maintain a blog, social networking is a great help to affiliates too..the list goes on and on. In fact from what you learn from Affiliate Marketing you can apply to any niche and be sure to succeed, take care, Carol
Re: Affiliate Marketing - Open for Discussion - You made some very good points here Jeff and I agree with you, Affiliate Marketing should not be something that you concentrate all your efforts into. As i said earlier I have learned a lot with Affiliate Marketing and continue to do so, and it has helped me tremendously to understand what I am going to have to do in my chosen niche(s). I am also being coached by the same group of mentors as GT and we are all moving forward daily to achieve our ultimate goals. Take care, Carol
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - Hi, Online Marketing would be a great title, and having sub categories would make it even better, there would plenty of categories to choose from, Social Media, SEO, Article Marketing and yes even Affiliate Marketing to name just a few, great looking site btw Jeff, take care, Carol
Why do people hate Network Marketing / MLM? - I've been looking at a number of different opportunities and end up meeting a lot of Network Marketing / Multi-Level Marketing people. Some of the offers look interesting but everyone I talk to about it says to avoid these guys like the plague - what's the deal? Why do people hate network marketers and MLM people so much? Is it not legit?


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