Whats Affiliate Marketing?
Whats Affiliate Marketing? It is a form of marketing where you sell other people's products in return for a part of the profit. The word Affiliate means to officially attach or connect, so you are in fact becoming a representative of the company whose product you are promoting.
There is a ton of information out there on the internet to tell you whats affiliate marketing, so I picked something for you to read, to give you a great primer.
If you need to know the basics this is a great article from ahrefs. After that I will explain more practical ways to get started...
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners:
What It Is + How to Succeed
Imagine all you needed to make money online was a website. You don’t have to create your own products or offer a service. Sounds good? Welcome to affiliate marketing.
According to Statista, business spending on affiliate marketing will hit $8.2 billion in the U.S by 2022.
Start today, and you’ll be in a prime position to take advantage of that.
In this guide, you’ll learn:
- What affiliate marketing is
- Why affiliate marketing
- How affiliate marketing works
- How much money you can potentially make
- How to get started with affiliate marketing
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What They Don't Tell You
The thing they don't tell you is what "Create great content" actually is.
That is the harder part of the puzzle. So what blog posts will you write, or what youtube videos will you create, that will get people to click and buy those affiliate products?
You could write this really great content, and it truly is awesome content. But nobody buys anything from you.
Why?
It could be because you're promoting the product.
You'll be thinking, but Martin, how can I get someone to buy a product without promoting it?
The key to this is not to promote, or market, but instead to help your prospective customer. In fact, don't think of them as a customer, it gets you in the wrong frame of mind.
Your student.
Create useful engaging content that delivers on its promises and gives your reader some sort of result. It has to be unique, have some sort of spin, be your own results or a compilation of others...
How Do You Clicks To Your Affiliate Link?
There are two ways. You can either have a call to action (CTA) that talks to their desire, or promises them a solution, such as a link "Get Instant Access".
The other way is if you are writing about something that you have experience with, you can describe what you do, and what you use. And these can be affiliate link.
If I'd been following your posts on your blog, and they offered valuable tips, ideas, and training or help, I'd probably trust you.
If you were then to say, "I use aWeber to create the emails. It does x, y, z, watch my video of me creating an email campaign", you'd possibly click the link, and if you need an auto-response for example, you might well buy. I didn't promote or sell in that case, I just said, this is what I do and it works for me.
Affiliate marketing without some value surrounding it, is unlikely to work. No affiliate marketer is successful from going onto Facebook and blasting out links in every area. Especially if it isn't related to the topic of posts. That's more likely to annoy you, and report the person as a spammer. Not what we want. Don't be that person.
Building a list for Affiliate Marketing
The links in your content could also go to a funnel. So you can build a list. I'd recommend that in fact, as well as direct linking to offers.
If you have a list, the chances are that you will be doing mostly affiliate marketing with it, even if you do create products.
Even though a much bigger discussion is required on how to do email marketing to drive your affiliate marketing, I thought I'd mention it here. A list is like the fuel for your business.
It is very achievable to make thousands of dollars a day doing affiliate marketing using emails. At the time of writing, I'm not quite at that point yet, but there are people in my mastermind and coaching groups who easily do. The reason that it is so effective is that people who buy, are more likely to buy again. The reason for this is because they want achieve their goal. If they think you or I can help them do that, then there is a much higher chance that they will buy from us. But they are buying from us, to solve a problem, to get an outcome. Never forget to help them to do that.
Affiliate Network
There are tons of affiliate networks out there. Some that are brilliant, and some that you will have problems with.
I personally use, and would recommend as a starting point (because they're easy to get into):
These networks are easy to get access to, as a beginner. These are the popular networks for make money online type affiliate products and apps.
If you're looking to promote softwares from other niches, or from larger companies, here are a few that you can join, and get started with quickly.
ShareASale Affilate
Commission Junction (CJ Affiliate)
Which Affiliate Product?
Each of the platforms above, you can create an account for free, and then you need to find offers for your niche. You want to look for something with plenty of sales, that has a reasonably good conversion rate (5%+, higher the better), and low refund rate (less than 2% ideally).
Do a bit of research if you can, look at the sales page, try and figure out what it is. If you can afford it, buy it, and use it. This would be the best way to be able to review it and make recommendations. Especially if you can show how the product helped you or was easier than other products (most marketers out there won't buy, and will just quickly skim the sales page).
If you're on JVZoo or WarriorPlus then you will need to apply to be approved (the link will be available once you are approved). If you're using clickbank then you just click promote and put in your account nickname (whatever you chose), and it will generate your link for you.
These networks will keep you busy promoting things for years to come. The latest products are not always the best, as there is more likely to be competition for those. A slightly older proven offer may be better, particularly if it is converting for you.
As an affiliate marketer you really need to know what the product is all about. What are you benefits what are the negatives, is there anything missing? If the product isn't converting for you, move on to another product, if it is then keep promoting it.
So many affiliate marketers move from product to product, promoting everything, believing that because it is new it is better than older stuff. If a product is out of date, that's another thing, but if all the methods are still up to date, there's no reason to move away from it.
When someone creates a new product and makes it available to the public to buy, they usual do it with a lot of fanfare. These are called launches. As a beginner you are unlikely to be approved for these, because they want marketers with huge amounts of sales. Once the launch is over, you will be able to apply, and be approved.
Whats The Best Affiliate Marketing Strategy?
There are many affiliate marketing strategies. Ideally you should be working toward understanding how to do them all, as that will lead to multiple income streams, and safety through being diversified.
Some affiliate marketing strategies you can use:
- Email Marketing
- Blog Marketing (Content Marketing)
- Video Marketing (Content Marketing)
The quickest and easiest way to start would be with email marketing. That being said, email marketing is not that easy, and will take time to develop.
The same skills are required for content marketing, but it takes a bit longer for the search engines to put up your content.
The benefit to content marketing is that it is FREE traffic, and can continue to earn passively for years.
This is the reason why both methods would be idea. Generate income on demand, and generate income in the background, passively. This will generate a much more consistent income streams for the affiliate marketing business.
How Do I Get Traffic To My Affiliate Link?
The quickest way to get traffic to your affiliate link, is by paid traffic. You could pay for Facebook ads, Google ads, or various other social media ads. If you are a beginner but are handy with a particular social media platform, I would use that platform to promote.
For me personally I don't like to mix personal and business accounts. But that is entirely up to you. If you're someone who posts a lot, if you could turn that personal profile into being a social media influencer. If you have a large following on a particular platform then you can use influencer marketing and drive traffic to your affiliate link.
As an inluencer your chosen niche and the brand that you develop would be related or the same.
Even if you are not an influencer, you can still use social media to promote, or to alert people to the posts you have on your blog, and/or the videos that you have created. You can regularly post links to your blog posts as well, which will generate links to your site, as well as visitors once they are aware of your social media profile.
