What is Affiliate Marketing?

When researching how to improve your brand marketing strategies, you may have seen the term ‘affiliate marketing’ pop up again and again. While affiliate marketing is often touted for its many benefits, it’s critical to know the answer to the question of ‘what is affiliate marketing’ — and how exactly it works before jumping in.After all, it’s vital to have a solid understanding of any media strategy before implementing it into your brand marketing plan. Lucky for you, we’re pros in this space. Here is our guide to ‘what is affiliate marketing’ — and how to make it work for your brand. What is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is a practice where third parties (called affiliates) help market your brand. These affiliates promote your brand or product on their own platforms and are compensated when business or traffic is created as a result of their efforts.To get involved with affiliate marketing as a business owner, you would sign up your brand for an affiliate program and decide what commission you want to offer to affiliates when they feature your company on their platform.In media, affiliates are becoming a necessary component of being featured in digital magazines, newspapers, and websites. There are many big players in this field — Amazon Associates, Skimlinks, ShareASale — and each publication has various requirements to be considered for inclusion. Without being part of an affiliate marketing program, it’s unlikely a brand will win a coveted spot in a gift guide or product round-up. Benefits of Affiliate Marketing Now that you know the answer to the question of ‘what is affiliate marketing,’ you may be wondering about the benefits. Affiliate marketing can help your brand grow in several ways.Here are just a few of the aspects of affiliate marketing that could be beneficial for your brand: Audience Growth Cost- and Time-Effective Low Risk Easy to Start Increase Brand Exposure Grow Your Audience Reaching new potential customers is one of the most significant benefits of affiliate marketing for brands. When an affiliate advertises your brand on their platform, they can connect your products or services to a new group of people. Affiliates are usually chosen because they have an established platform and audience that they have already worked to build up.Being part of an affiliate program allows freelance journalists and editors to consider your product for features. Since all affiliate programs have requirements — like having a solid website, a certain number of reviews, and so on — it covers some of the research a reporter needs to do for their work. A Cost- and Time-Effective Solution Any brand marketing tactic that can help save time and money is helpful to consider. Luckily, affiliate marketing is both cost- and time-effective. Other traditional marketing strategies can be very costly, but in comparison, affiliate marketing is more affordable and can help you save money while still making a sizable brand marketing impact. Commission fees can be relatively low, and just being part of an affiliate program increases the chance that media outlets will feature your brand. Low-Risk Brand Marketing Strategy Once you consider the answer to ‘what is affiliate marketing,’ you might begin to realize that it is a great low-risk brand marketing strategy. The risk to your brand is especially low if you choose only to pay affiliates when a sale is made through the link or advertisement they post on their platform. This way, you are only paying a commission to an affiliate if they actually drive business to your site or brand. Easy to Start If you’ve ever wondered about the topic of ‘what is affiliate marketing,’ one of your concerns may have been how difficult it would be to not only get started with but to maintain over time. Many affiliate marketing programs and services are available today, making getting started with affiliate marketing simple. We can make the process even easier by helping you figure out how to sign up for affiliate marketing programs and see your return. Increase Brand Exposure Participating in affiliate marketing can help increase brand awareness and target a wider audience. If you are a part of the affiliate programs that publications and media sites seek out when looking for brands to include in gift guides and stories, your brand will have a better chance at being featured in top media outlets. As a result, your brand will have more opportunities to get valuable media exposure and reach the audience of different top publications. Essential Affiliate Marketing Tips Here are some valuable tips to keep in mind when getting started with affiliate marketing to help maximize the impact it can make on your brand: Choose the Right Affiliate Program(s) Utilize Seasonal Marketing Partner with LaRue PR Choose the Right Affiliate Program(s) At the end of the day, affiliate marketing should help your brand. You can afford to be selective about which affiliate programs you make a part of your brand marketing strategy. Consider the top affiliate programs out there like Amazon Associates, Skimlinks, and ShareASale, and do your research to find out which ones would be most useful for your brand. You can also join more than one affiliate program to better your chances of being featured in top publications. We can help you identify the affiliate programs that are right for your brand and get started with them. Utilize Seasonal Marketing Affiliate marketing can be an even more effective strategy considering seasonal marketing techniques. For example, you might consider putting more focus on affiliate partnerships in the lead-up to busy times of the year, such as in the months before the holiday shopping season. This will maximize the effectiveness of the affiliate marketing partner for both your brand and the publication that features you. How Partnering with LaRue Can Help The best tip of all for making the process of navigating questions such as ‘what is affiliate marketing’ and how it can be used to help grow your brand is to assemble an effective marketing team by partnering

How To Get Press For Your Startup

You’ve done the hard work, but how do you spread the word? Launching a business is challenging. True success requires endurance and ingenuity, especially if the goal is to build a lasting or even iconic brand. Getting press for your startup can feel overwhelming, even discouraging at times, especially when entrepreneurs are typically already wearing many hats. It’s important to remember that creating a great product or service is only half of the equation. Once you have that, you need to focus on building brand awareness, a key element for standing out in a crowded marketplace. In 2025, there is no magic bullet methodology for driving brand recognition. It requires a mix that includes everything from social media, public relations, performance marketing, and more. 11 Tips for Getting Press for Your Startup Luckily, there is overlap between all of these mediums and focusing on one will often help create overarching brand momentum. Conquering the multi-faceted, multi-platform, digital media landscape can feel daunting, but LaRue’s team of 20-plus seasoned publicists, affiliate marketers, account executives, and social media experts can offer insights on how to get started. 1. Research Research, research, research. The media landscape is vast with more outlets than there have ever been and one common denominator: a need for new content. Spend some time reading and following the platforms where you would like to see or hear about your brand. Go down the rabbit hole and work backwards, starting with the bigger and more obvious publishers to those that might be a little lesser known. Stay current on the content and stories they are creating, promoting, and publishing to see how your brand fits within their work. Of course, if you have an in-house PR person or an agency, it’s their job to do this work, but having awareness of the space will help you understand how to craft the best possible strategy. 2. Know Your Targets From doing the research, you should learn about the power players in your specific media landscape. In our current, very digital age, this list will include creators and influencers, editors, writers, producers, podcasters, and more. Look at your wish list of targets and make sure you learn everything you can about their beat, their content, what they cover, their interests, personally and professionally if that’s an option. The key is to become an expert in who they are and what piques their interests, so you can craft the absolute best pitch and stand out from your competitive set. 3. Writing is Key A well-written email pitch is a thing of beauty. Editors, creators, producers, and writers’ inboxes are inundated with pitches and press releases. That means, for your email to get opened it must stand out. A smart subject line, a punchy introduction, or thoughtful and well-researched opener can make all the difference. Show that you have done your research by explaining why you chose them to reach out to. BUT the key is to do all of this in three sentences or less. Nobody has time to read through a long email — get to the point. And no spelling mistakes. 4. Gift and Invite Another great way to get on the radar of key contacts is through experiential marketing. Product sampling and events should be curated and thoughtful. Keep in mind, the ideal is to have the product requested, versus sending it out unsolicited and into the void. It’s also important to note that media are invited to a lot of events — both virtual and IRL. For a brand to garner interest it’s important to create something truly innovative. But it’s worth the sweat equity. Most creators will only sing a brand’s praise if they have had a good experience with the product/service. Sending a standout package or hosting a memorable brand activation will help create brand advocates. 5. Be Ready You might think you’re ready, but are you really ready? Is your packaging where it needs to be? Are you entirely happy with the product? How’s the website? Do you have inventory? These are the questions you should be asking before you attempt to place your brand in the hands of the media. You often only get one shot to impress and if you aren’t entirely ready to be seen and shared, it can work against you. There is also nothing worse than getting coverage and not having stock on hand to fulfill initial demand. 6. Timing Like they always say, timing is everything and the press cycle is a specific one. Editors and creators are planning months and seasons ahead. If you’d like to be considered for a seasonal gift guide, make sure you expose your target to your brand with plenty of time. 7. Network This may sound way less appealing than ordering takeout and binge-watching shows, but networking at industry events and meeting people is a huge part of making inroads. The people you meet at conferences, happy hours, and other gatherings often turn out to be allies or friends of allies. If they happen to also be founders, CEOs, or creators in the media landscape, they can share insight into what has worked for them and their brand. 8. Watch Others Pay attention to what other brands you admire are doing and look to for inspiration. Watch how they evolve, where they are getting coverage, and what they are doing to stand out. You need to be original, but a little competitive analysis is a great motivator. 9. Be Realistic Set attainable goals. Target five media outlets or creators a month/week/day depending on your bandwidth. Set a goal you know you can stick to and chip away at it. Overnight successes are often years in the making. You might not land your dream outlet or placement right away and that’s okay. It’s far from a failure. Just getting on a writer’s or editor’s radar might lead to coverage down the line when the time is right. The key is patience and perseverance. 10.