New Data Reveals That Affiliate Needs Are Changing

The 2024 State of Local Marketing identifies the 5 optimizations for channel marketing programs

CLEVELAND, June 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- BrandMuscle announces new insights from the 2024 State of Local Marketing that reveal affiliates' shifting program preferences. The State of Local Marketing is an annual report series that analyzes affiliates' marketing behaviors and provides data-driven insights.

In the world of channel marketing, your affiliates are only as good as your program. Subpar programs that don't empower local partners to market (or market well) hold brands back. However, with the right channel program optimizations, you can supercharge your partners to move the needle.

To understand how affiliate preferences are impacting channel marketing, BrandMuscle surveyed 1,147 local partners and analyzed 211,347 data points.

The 5 Game-Changing Channel Marketing Program Optimizations report details how brands can adjust their programs to better equip their affiliates for local marketing success.

Key findings from the report include:

• 55% of local affiliates experience some level of difficulty with their marketing programs.
• 32% of affiliates prioritize fund matching, making it the most-requested program feature.
• However, affiliate demand for fund matching decreased by 42% between 2021 and 2023.
• Affiliates satisfied with their marketing programs use 30%-34% more funds than their unsatisfied peers.

"Local affiliates rely on their marketing programs, yet many of these programs have elements the affiliates find abrasive, in spite of their corporate partners' best efforts," said Erin Strong, Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing at BrandMuscle. "This report identifies the pain points local partners care about and provides tactical advice on how to mitigate these issues."

"Affiliates are talking, and brands need to listen — plain and simple." said Helen Baptist, Chief Strategy and Market Officer at BrandMuscle. "The State of Local Marketing amplifies the voice of the affiliate by bringing their wants, needs, and pain points to the surface where brands can acknowledge them through their channel programs. Only then can they expect to see better results."

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About BrandMuscle

BrandMuscle makes channel marketing easy by empowering beverage alcohol brands and Fortune 1000 companies to activate and amplify local markets. Our flexible ecosystem of solutions helps brands drive revenue and protects businesses against legal, fiduciary, and other compliance risks. The BrandMuscle platform pairs cutting-edge technology with proven marketing services to support highly regulated verticals.

More than 1.5M local businesses and over 50,000 sales reps and affiliates use BrandMuscle to seamlessly scale corporate branding, messaging, and demand generation to engage customers and increase ROI. Our robust ecosystem addresses every aspect of local channel marketing to unleash hyper-local activation for affiliates.

Contact: Jordan Feise, [email protected]

SOURCE BrandMuscle