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Social location marketing has the ability to impact the purchase decision cycle at all points—brand awareness, brand elevation, brand consideration and purchase. The concept of the purchase decision cycle is best defined as the continuous loop through which customers become aware, consider, select and finally reconsider purchases.

In the pre-social media market place, the purchase decision cycle involved much less influence from strangers. Purchasers were influenced by a closer network of people. Purchasers were also unable to take part in the level of comparison shopping that they are able to do now. With the advent of the internet the travel requirement declined but it still took time to visit all the websites and make notes on which product had which features and which site was offering the best prices.

Price comparison sites quickly became popular with members posting coupon codes and special offers as they became aware of them. Social media took all of this to the next level. Twitter and Facebook users can post a question and receive hundreds of responses about the best deals, perhaps even getting responses directly from brands themselves.

What differentiates social location sharing from much of the rest of social media marketing is that it is specific to allocation. It happens as someone becomes or is in the process of becoming a customer,visitor, or user. When users check in at a specific location, they are publicly declaring an affinity with that location. Wittingly or unwittingly, they are making the statement that they use this location as part of their lives. Whether it is a grocery store, a clothing shop, a restaurant, or a hair salon, the effect is the same. They are telling the people in their networks, all of whom they have selected to share with, that this is a place they go to.

Perhaps at times they want to promote a local business because of the great service they have received from them. They believe that by announcing this location and its great service, they are helping to promote and prolong the business. All of these motivators can be leveraged by marketers and all have their place within the purchase decision cycle.

Brand Awareness: Making the target audience aware of the existence of the brand. This is traditionally something that is associated with advertising, but in the current environment of a society that is more “word of mouth aware,” getting existing customers to be your advertisers/advocates is a much more common effort. Social location sharing tools are
most definitely achieving that. These tools broadcast the fact that the user is not only grocery shopping but is shopping at a specific grocery store.

Brand Elevation: Making the target audience aware of a brand is not usually enough to trigger a purchase. Rather, having made the target audience aware of the brand, the next step is to move the brand into the consideration stage of the purchase decision cycle. To do that, the brand needs to position itself as a better choice than its competitors. Again,
social location sharing tools play their part here. Having an advocate in the form of a social location sharer share her decision to make a purchase at a location immediately aids that business in providing a reason why it is different from its competitors.

Consideration: This stage can be immediately before purchase or can be several months, even years ahead of purchase. Much of this depends on the immediate need of the purchaser, the price point of the product or service, and the amount of information available. A customer looking to buy a pair of jeans is unlikely to spend the same amount of time in the consideration phase as a customer buying a new car or even a home. However, social location sharing tools can and do play a part in all these decisions. Users checking in at the Apple store, for example, are stating a preference for a particular brand, but they are also stating a preference for a particular type of technology.

Purchase: Checking in at the time of purchase, and announcing that a purchase has been made, is obviously the most powerful use of these tools. Each of the tools allows for this in different ways, but at the most basic users can tag their check-in and in doing so start a conversation on other platforms such as Twitter.

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Lost in this outpouring of love is potentially the most valuable marketing channel for any Web business — affiliate publishers. Most affiliate marketers will continue to go it alone, deprived of many of the advantages that other marketing channels receive such as the continuous exchange of important product information and analytical data, not to mention additional opportunities for training, education and financial reward.

This Internet-age-old phenomenon makes it considerably harder for affiliates to successfully market, promote and sell a merchant’s products or a company’s services, yet countless business owners attribute lackluster performances to a lack of motivation on the part of the affiliate. That is why the most successful online business owners learn how to get inside the minds of their often misunderstood partners, which allows them to give their affiliates the same consideration afforded to members of their own staffs. That may include anything from sending a weekly email to say hello to a generous holiday bonus given out annually. The important point is that — like anyone else you encounter in the business world — the more you can do for your affiliates, the more they will do for you. Following are the four steps required for building prosperous and productive relationships with your affiliate marketing partners.

Set them up to succeed: Affiliates are often doomed to fail before they can promote their first offer. If your company hires a new director of social media marketing and invests a salary and benefits into the success of this new employee, how much of that success are  you — the business owner — responsible for? Would you outfit this new hire with an old rotary telephone and an outdated computer in an oversized broom closet, and then check on their progress every three months? Your new employee would never succeed if you did, but this is the equivalent to how many affiliates get started on a new campaign.

You are doing your company, your customers and your affiliates a grave disservice if you do not give the affiliates every chance to flourish. That requires providing each affiliate partner with quality products they can sell; engaging creative content that will appeal to the most qualified customer base; highly targeted promotional campaigns and the proper technology to effectively deploy them, and thoroughly researched sales leads. Most important of all are compelling offers
that your affiliates can sell.

Continue to give them tools to succeed: Many business owners manage to provide their affiliates with great content, compelling offers and promising leads on the front end, only to watch them fail over time because they didn’t offer continued support. Everything mentioned above should be included in the standard set of tools at the onset of the partnership, but new tools must be added as the relationship deepens.

These additional tools can include different kinds of training, detailed product demonstrations, video conferences, relevant data about your company, tracking information, customer reviews and testimonials, or anything else that will help them promote and sell your products or services. Providing your affiliates with these tools can be as simple as including them on your weekly company newsletter that has most or all of the information they need –— a simple enough task, but one that is often overlooked in the forgotten affiliate’s world.

However, it is more likely that a stronger commitment is necessary to provide your partners with the tools they need. It may require scheduling training webinars or investing in affiliate tracking software. You may even want to send selected affiliates to the most appropriate conferences where they can network on your company’s behalf and However, it is more likely that a stronger commitment is necessary to provide your partners with the tools they need. It may require
scheduling training webinars or investing in affiliate tracking software. You may even want to send selected affiliates to the most appropriate conferences where they can network on your company’s behalf and make the knowledge they gain work to your advantage, just as a paid employee on your sales staff would.

Show them that you want them to succeed: What affiliates want most from their online business partners — with the possible exception of great offers to sell — is a level of commitment that does not fall short of their own. Investing in some of the tools mentioned previously — affiliate software, training webinars, video conferences and industry trade shows — not only gives your affiliates a better chance to succeed, it also shows them that you are committed to their success.

But commitment isn’t always reflected through financial investment alone. Reach out to your partners frequently, by phone as well as through email and video. Keep them informed of the different activities within your company; it will not only enhance their chances of selling your products but also make them feel like part of a team and increase their desire to succeed.

Adding your affiliates to the company newsletter, if you have  one — how about starting a weekly newsletter just for your affiliate partners? Give them the information they need to succeed, and at the same time show them that you are  committed to the process. Ask them for feedback about your products and content, and offer constructive opinions of theirs in return. The deeper the connection you build with your affiliates on a human level, the more prosperous your online business partnership will be.

Inspire them to continually succeed: If you are able to set up your affiliates for initial success, give them the tools they will need to achieve continued success, and show them your own commitment to their success, then it’s time to explore the next dimension of success. The industry term, after all, is “performance” marketing, and by adhering to the guidelines above you are already ensuring that your affiliates maintain a certain level of performance. How, then, can you help them go above and beyond?

By increasing the revenue shares for publishers by a few percentage points for six weeks, sales could increase by as much as 300 percent.  Along with boosting revenue share, an online merchant can also consider providing additional bonuses as well as free quality merchandise.  Generating special offers for strategic partners helps to strengthen the relationship, increase traffic and boost sales.

Other performance incentives for affiliates can include contests that you promote in your weekly affiliate newsletter, posting the results in subsequent newsletters for additional motivation; multi-tiered commission payouts based on performance, or faster payouts for the highest performers. Creating a competitive atmosphere instills a greater desire to succeed, but it is essential that the environment remain positive and respectful.

And, rather than penalizing your second-tier partners, pay even closer attention to them and try to identify and solve any problems they may be having. After all, even though you may not interact with them face to face as you do with your own staff, your affiliate partners are people, too.