Table of Contents
Chapter 5: Discussion, Conclusion, Recommendation and Future Research
The fifth chapter is the concluding chapter of the research study that is named as the conclusion. This chapter has encased the brief discussion on the findings of the study that has been presented in the previous chapter. Furthermore, the discussion of the findings has been carried out with respect to the designed as well as formulated objectives of the study. Along with the objective wise discussion the researcher has included the overall conclusion of the study and highlights the implications as well as recommendations related to the significant impact of affiliated marketing on brand awareness. Lastly, this section has presented the future research implications that will be valuable for the future researcher.
Discussion
Objective 1
To demonstrate the significant impact of affiliate marketing on product information. The first objective of the study is related to the significant impact of affiliate marketing on the product information. This particular objective was designed as well as developed in theoretical perspective which is successfully achieved through reviewing the existing literature review that are being conducted by previous researchers and this particular objective was also achieved through quantitative means. As stated by Dwivedi, Rana and Alryalat (2017) affiliate marketing enable the brands to utilize the third party that ultimately drives the sales for the brands. When third party involves in the marketing effort and along with that third-party gets the financial incentives on generating each lead or cracking each sale for the brands. Those financial rewards compel the affiliates to provide more extensive product information to the prospect customers that eventually lock the sales because the flow of benefit runs from the both streams such as affiliates and brands. The following research has professed the identical results from reviewing the literature and quantifiable results that there is a significantly positive impact of affiliate marketing on the product information.
Objective 2
To investigate the significant impact of affiliate marketing on sales and promotions of the brand. The second objective of the research study was to investigate the significant impact of affiliate marketing on the sales and promotion of the brand. Similarly, this objective was achieved through the theoretical perspective with the help of existing literature studies. On the other hand, this objective was also achieved through the quantifiable results that were obtained in the previous chapter. In the theoretical perspective, Bowie, Paraskevas and Mariussen (2014) suggested that in highly competitive marketplace consumers are flooded with numerous promotional offerings that grab the customer attention. There are several strategies are being followed by the brands in terms of affiliate marketing like ad banners, blogs and Coupons etc. provide suffice product information and along with the allow customer to click the link and get direct access to the brand’s official page where they can buy products in a relatively discounted prices. Therefore, the following research study professed the identical results that affiliate marketing helps the brands to use numerous sales and promotional tactics in order to increase their brand awareness amongst the potential and prospect customers. In addition to this, the quantitative result suggests that there is positive impact of affiliate marketing on the sales and promotion of the brand.
Objective 3
To investigate the significant impact of affiliate marketing on brand image. The third objective of the research study was to determine and investigate the significant impact of affiliate marketing on the brand image. This particular piece of research objective was similarly obtained from theoretical aspects as well as from the quantitative aspects. By keeping in view the theoretical aspects or existing literature, it can be evident that brand image is the integral part of the brands, which provides the brands identical and distinctive place amongst their customers. Furthermore, affiliate marketing specifically in the digital platform enables the brands to place their company in the priority list in search engines. For instances; a brand is paying the affiliates and networks to promote the brand on digital platform and ask them to put the brand on the first page of the search engine than eventually it would increase the brand image among the customers. The main reason behind this was that when brands emerged on the first page of the search engine was regarded as the most valuable brand by the customer that eventually increases the brand image (Kaur & Wadera, 2017). Therefore, with the help of literature and quantitative results, this particular research study has articulated the similar results that there is significant impact of affiliate marketing on brand image.
Objective 4
To investigate the significance impact of affiliate marketing on brand attributes. The fourth and last objective of the research was to investigate the significance of affiliate marketing on the brand attributes. This particular research objective was also achieved from reviewing the existing literature as well as through analysing the data with the quantitative findings in which data has been collected from the respondents. In the theoretical context, one of the research study Narang and Trivedi (2017) stated that brand attributes are considered as the main essence of the overall brand. The research has further explained that brands attributes are the physical character and personality trait of the brand. Brand attributes can further enhanced with the help of affiliate marketing when companies allow the affiliates to put the paid content of brands on the digital platform by utilizing different networks. Affiliates clearly describe the brand attributes on their personal blogs, on social media and in other content marketing efforts. When consumer get the vivid picture of the entire brand attributes than it will most likely increase the purchasing intention among the customers. Therefore, the finding has professed the similar results from reviewing the literature and quantitative results that there is a significant impact of affiliate marketing on the brand attributes.
Conclusion
The main purpose of the research study was to investigate the impact of affiliate marketing on the brand awareness. In order to get the valuable and insightful results this particular research was bifurcated into five main chapters. The first chapter of the research has encased the brief introduction to the research topic where researcher has formulated and designed the aim and objectives of the research that further lead towards the development of research questions. The second chapter of the research has provided the far-reaching and comprehensive existing literature reviews that are being conducted by numerous researchers.
The third chapter of the research is associated with the research methodology. This research is based on the quantitative research design and data has been collected from primary sources such as survey questionnaire. The researcher has conducted the survey from 280 respondents and data has been analysed through one simple T-Test. The fourth chapter of the research is solely based on the research finding and assessment of the proposed hypothesis. The main finding of research suggested that there is a significantly positive impact of affiliate marketing is on the brand awareness. Lastly, the fifth chapter of the research is the concluding chapter in which objective wise discussion is presented along with the recommendations.
Recommendations
Following section represents the required and necessary recommendations to the brands through which they can utilize the effective affiliate marketing and generate more brand awareness amongst the customers.
The first recommendation is for the brands to utilize the affiliate marketing in more efficient and effective manner in order to generate more brand awareness. For that purpose affiliate marketers should always look for the emerging and seasonal trends. By keep on looking and embracing such emerging trends brands can create a significant difference in their marketing approach. Seasonal trends are more predictable and usually occur when the brand is on their peak. Brands should take help from Google trends to identify the fluctuations and specific queries. On the other hand, there are certain breakouts trends that are not visible and predictable therefore brands needs to rely on industry experts in order to get industry insights. Therefore, with help of such strategy affiliate marketers can utilize their marketing strategies in such way that helps them to generate more sales and at the end would be beneficial for the brands.
Another recommendation is that brands should increase their revenue by order of magnitude. As successful affiliate marketing can only happen when brands offer higher commission on sales. Therefore brands should choose such affiliate marketers and such networks that offer values related to the brands’ products and services on the digital platform. This way affiliate marketer increases their credibility and generates more brand awareness by providing valuable offers to their customers.
Future Research
The future research implication is of paramount importance because this section provides guidance and assistance to the future researchers through which they can perform similar research in more proficient manner. There are numerous future research implication are highlighted in this section such as; as this research is based on the quantitative research design therefore future researcher can conduct the similar research by instilling both qualitative and quantitative designs. Another future implication is that is particular research study is more general therefore in order to make it more specific the future researcher can confined the research to a particular company or to a particular brand. Lastly, due to limited timeframe and budget constraint the researcher has used limited sample size therefore future researcher could probably increase their sample size in order to generate more valuable and reliable data.
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Appendix
Data View:
Variable View:
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