Many bloggers and influencers are earning top dollar from affiliate marketing, but there are tips and strategies you can use to improve your site and increase your income even if it is just a couple of hundreds per month. Because once it is on the internet, it lives forever.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is promoting other people’s products or services in return for a small commission for each sale. You can work with individual companies or affiliate networks, and promote your affiliate links on your websites or social medias. Comparing to some other side hustle that will take more of your time in reward for money.
The Merchant or vendor
The merchant or vendor is the party that creates the product and can be anyone from entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies. Even you can create a digital product in this exciting AI era, put it out, and give a percentage of the sale depending on your commission structure.
The Affiliate or marketer
The affiliate will try to market to the consumer on whatever channel they see fit. Be it on Google, social media, or their email list. Usually, they have an email marketing list to blast out the email to a ready set of consumers whom he/she knows is in the same niche of the product they trying to promote. How they get paid is dependent on the product they market which was agreed upon.
The Consumer or buyer
The customer or buyer as we say, makes the affiliate system go ’round. The buyer is someone who is already into this kind of industry and product plus at the right time when the opportunity presents itself to them, they will take it.
The Affiliate Network
How to get started is simple. Find an affiliate network that lets you sign up for free and generate a custom affiliate link to any product to earn a small commission. For example Amazon, CJ Affiliate, JVzoo, Clickbank, Zaxaa, etc.
Some affiliate marketers do not consider networks as part of the affiliate marketing equation, but I believe they are an important part.
Becoming a Merchant or Vendor
Anyone can sign up
Step 1: Coming Up with an Affiliate Product Idea
People want to know how to build cool sandcastles, so you could make a series of videos or a write-up of all the tools you need.
Step 2: Validate Your Idea
You can find people who tweeted about a specific topic by plugging the URL into a tool like Keyhole.
Ask them whether or not they would buy your idea. If they say yes, follow up with an ask to buy.
If people would buy your product, you can start creating it.
Step 3: Create the Product
These are good starting points for creating digital products. Once you have the product created, open up the affiliate network.
Step 4: Finding Affiliate Program Partners
After you select a platform, the tough part is finding partners that have an audience that is interested in what you have to sell.
If you want to get started with affiliate marketing, try finding one person to partner up with and start your first affiliate promotion.
Becoming an Affiliate or Marketer
Step 1: Review Products in Your Niche
Affiliate marketing is easier to get started than becoming a merchant because you already use and like plenty of products. Just publicly talk about them and be honest and even-handed.
To get your personal affiliate link, sign up to Amazon Associates and then click on “Share affiliate link”.
If you can contact your audience directly, you can market to them whenever you like.
Step 2: Build an Email List of Your Prospects
I’ll show you a few super easy ways to collect email addresses from your website visitors. You don’t need a lot of them to make the email list worth your time, so keep your audience engaged by sending them regular updates, ideally once a week.
Step 3: Grow Your Business with PPC Advertising
Once your affiliate marketing business starts to pick up steam, you can start thinking about paid advertising. However, conversions are all that matter.
When your sales start coming in from many sources, you can blow up your business with paid advertising.
Some ways you can actually promote your affiliate links or business is through some of these ideas.
1. Influencer Marketing
Influencers are some of the top faces of today’s affiliate marketing, thanks to social media and sites like YouTube. Ordinary people have become famous just because of their ability to create engaging content and interact with their audience.
When promoting products on Instagram, make sure to tag the brand, add links to your bio, use Instagram Stories and IGTV to talk about and promote products, and create product comparisons and gift guides.
2. Blogging
Affiliate marketing is often the go-to choice for bloggers wanting to monetize content. It works well with niche businesses, and the further you can niche down, the better.
Affiliate marketing can be implemented on your blog by including links in blog posts, adding banners, video clips, and even pop-ups, and sharing your links through special offers, gift lists, and product comparisons.
3. Referral Links
When visitors click on your referral link and make a purchase, you earn a commission.
You should focus on building customer relationships and trust before adding affiliate links to your content.
4. Email Lists
Marketers set up email lists of their registered users through services like Brevo, Mailchimp, AWeber, or a similar service, and include affiliate links in the newsletters. This method is suitable when you already have a list and share valuable content with your audience.
5. Videos/Webinars
People love video content, and social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are perfect for sharing video content. Add affiliate products to your videos, and be active on your community page.
Live videos or webinars are an increasingly popular option to generate leads as the telecommuting trend continues. Think about the topics you provide value in for your audience and partner with your sales team to turn leads into sales.
The webinar teaches marketers how to leverage influencers to spread brand awareness using ads. This helps turn content into commerce.
6. Product Reviews
Product reviews are quite common in affiliate marketing. Brands partner with retailers to boost sales by providing unbiased opinions about their products.
Affiliate marketing is a straightforward way to monetize your content and build an online income. Think of it like a referral. If you refer someone to a business, you will get a reward. Check out our beginners guide on how you could start affiliate marketing
