How Affiliate Programs Can Help You Bootstrap A Startup?

According to the research by Fundable, only 1% of startups opted for external funding back in the year 2012, the others preferred going the bootstrapping way. It’s true that people confuse capital to be the most important prerequisite for starting a business rather than the idea and determination. Bootstrapping is the new buzz word in the world of business and ‘Affiliate Marketing’, the new fuel to business ventures!

If you’re wondering why bootstrap start-ups are gaining the steam, it’s because bootstrapping opens wings for experiments and freedom. Orchestrating the required funds for your startup might result in multiple sleepless nights but it’s worth the effort. Freedom of being the 100% owner of your idea is not the only merit, it comes along with opportunities to experiment, learn, grow, and craft a plan that yields results, come what may!

While it’s great to bootstrap your business, it’s also important to keep the revenue flowing in so as to manage the expenses of your business. One of the best ways to generate revenue is Affiliate Programs, a channel that can help you monetize your blog and business without significant investments. Bridging the gap between the retailers and the customers is an innovative way to traverse the path towards success and Affiliate Marketing definitely paves a way for a safe source of income in any business.

As an Affiliate channel, GrabOn pulled the strings together by reaping profits right from the first year of business. A cohesive platform that provides great deals and offers on over 4000+ brands acts as a great shopping advisor for the customers and an aggregator for the brands. Affiliate Programs are easy to start and often attract great revenue when structured systematically and smartly. Read through to know more about Affiliate Marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

According to Wikipedia, “Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts”. This concept of performance marketing works as a commission engine for various online publishers and influencers who drive sales for e-commerce websites or brands. You get a commission for the number of sales that you bring.

How Can Affiliate Program Help You Bootstrap Your Start-up?

I am sure the idea of generating revenue is creating a spur in your mind to dig a little more about the Affiliate Program. But if the question is how performance marketing can fit in your business model, here’s the answer. Whether you’re an online publisher or a service-based company, you can trust affiliate marketing in every scenario.

Affiliate Programs For Service-Based Startups

For startups that are product or service-based, affiliate marketing can help in more ways than one. Instead of spending a huge amount on your marketing campaigns, you can make a list of the top influencers in your niche. Influencer marketing can help you reach the desired audience in exchange for a couple of free services/products to the influencers. The bloggers can use your product for a while, analyze it and then recommend it to their audiences via a trustworthy and genuine blog post. The bloggers solve the reader’s problems through their blog posts and in turn gain trust by the readers. This can boost traffic and sales more than any other form of marketing.

Relying upon this genre of marketing can help you save loads of capital. Having adopted this budget marketing option, you can leverage the capital on further enhancing your startup’s operations and functioning.

Affiliate Marketing For Easy Income

Another benefit of stepping into the world of Affiliate Program is that they help you generate easy income. If the nature of your startup permits creating space for some affiliate programs, you can add a list of affiliate networks and earn revenue by recommending their products to your audience.

As a publisher, you can partner with brands and drive sales for them through your content marketing strategies and the more speed this gains, the better revenue you reap. This is more of ‘no-risk marketing’ where you earn when you sell.

Wondering how the publishers get paid? The process of bridging the gap between the seller and their consumers isn’t easy. However, for an affiliate marketer to earn bucks through this passive income source, one can formulate strategies around any of these 3 methods.

Pay Per Click – This model helps in generating income with the help of organic traffic. The publisher needs to redirect the consumers to the brand’s website and any click via this channel will generate an incentive for the publisher.
Pay Per Sale – Create a compelling marketing strategy, convince the consumer to make a purchase through your channels and get a commission for every sale that’s made.
Pay Per Lead – This one’s a little tricky. You can get paid per lead when you persuade the consumer to make an action on the brand’s website and become their potential lead. Whether it is subscribing to the newsletter or following call-to-action, lead generation can help you earn big bucks.

Why Affiliate Marketing?

As a startup in its nascent stage, the great idea would be to strategize ways to get the most out of bare hands. Affiliate marketing is an opportunity and when you weave this with your right skill set, it can work wonders to grow your capital. Affiliate marketing is more about understanding the know-how of your market and how you can leverage that to benefit your business. Still wondering why Affiliate Programs?

It’s Quick – If the idea is to generate risk-free, easy money, Affiliate Programs should be the way. All you need to get into the game is to find the right affiliate program and start publishing. A credible blog driving traffic can bring in magical revenue. You will get a commission for all the sales made through your affiliate link.
No Additional Knowledge Required – Start building your affiliate network and drive sales without any additional knowledge. All you need to know is your market and the opportunities it has for you. You need to play around these and generate passive income through affiliate sales.
Independence To Work – Another advantage of generating revenue via Affiliate Marketing is the independence that comes along with the opportunity package. You can work at your own pace, using your own strategies and tools.
Easy Money – You don’t need to burn the midnight oil to earn money from affiliate marketing. All you need to do is take time to focus on your niche, find the right kinds of affiliates, and keep it regular. Affiliate Marketing can flourish in a snap and get you the money you require. For example, Amazon recently introduced the Amazon Influencer programme where you can become an influencer and review the products that you’ve used. If people buy using your link, you get a commission.

Benefits of Bootstrapping Your Brand New Venture

You Meet and Connect With Like-minded People – They say “You’re only as strong as your team” and it’s absolutely true. When you bootstrap your business, you form a small yet brilliant team of like-minded people. You yearn and learn together, make connections, grow and evolve in the best possible way.
You Focus On Building Your Product – Another best part of going the bootstrapping way is that you spend all your time on bettering your product and business rather than running behind investors. Trust me, even the investors like to partner with people who are focused on making your core business better.
Put Problems Over Passion – When you’re investing your time and money on something, it’s always good to identify the problems and focus more on solving them. For a bootstrapped start-up to turn profitable, it’s very necessary to tap the problems faced by the common people and roll out a solution for that. Honestly, people can easily fork over cash, if they get what they are exactly looking for.
Earn Your Cash – It’s not necessary to get an investor. Manage your business on a shoestring budget and try to generate cash from other ways like Affiliate Marketing. Become a publisher and promote products online to generate a cash flow. This will not just help you in earning easy extra income but also utilize the money in your own business.

Bootstrapping your startup can be a great learning experience as you are directly responsible for your company’s growth and profits. In order to yield the best results, you will put in your 100% to help the venture grow and succeed. While this can be challenging if the capital is limited, it’s never a bad idea to experiment and learn with time, and affiliate programs as a source of revenue provide you that opportunity.