Many people are interested in making money with an internet-based "side
hustle" to supplement their regular income or even starting an online
business to replace their income entirely.
Though there are many
ways to make money on the internet, one of the fastest and easiest ways
to make money online is by starting an affiliate marketing business.
Even if you have an existing business, affiliate marketing is one of the
easiest ways to add an existing income stream to your business.
Affiliate
marketing is a great way to make money online as a standalone business
or as an additional revenue stream to an existing business.
While
not as easy as making money with ads on your website, it's still
relatively simple to do and has more profit potential than just simply
running advertisements on your website.
Affiliate marketing
allows you to make money online, even if you don’t have a blog, website,
or any products of your own. Following a few simple steps can get you
up and running within hours and earning your first commissions right
away. Affiliate marketing really is one of the fastest and easiest ways
to make money online and should be a part of every online business
owner's portfolio.
The formula for affiliate marketing remains
relatively constant no matter what your market or niche. Your main task
will always be traffic generation (i.e. driving prospects to the
merchant’s website via your unique “affiliate” link). If you don't have
any money you can get started by finding ways to get free traffic to
your website, including blogging, guest posting on other websites, and
posting to social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, etc.
If
you have a budget you can drive traffic even faster with paid
advertising methods, such as paid ads on Facebook, running banner ads on
other websites, and using Google Adwords.
Free traffic is great because it's free, but once you have enough money start using paid ads to grow your business quickly.
Writing good advertising sales copy (copywriting)
is the other important skill for online marketers. The good news is
that when it comes to affiliate marketing, many vendors will provide you
with advertising copy to use for your blog posts, websites ads, etc.
They'll give you the emails to send, the banner ads to display, and even
posts you can use on social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
etc.). The more materials that vendors give their affiliates the better
changes an affiliate has to make sales for them - it's a win/win
situation.
That being said, what are the essential steps for
affiliate marketing success? Here, we focus on five critical steps to
launching your own profitable affiliate marketing business quickly and
easily.
Choose the Right Affiliate Network
The
fit must be right between you and the merchant who is going to benefit
from your promotional efforts, or it simply won’t work. The easiest way
to begin with affiliate marketing is to select an affiliate network.
Many affiliate networks exist, some of which are tied to well-known
companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple, while others specialize in
specific types of products and services.
You may have heard of ClickBank,
one of the oldest and most popular affiliate networks. A billion-dollar
company, ClickBank specializes in digital products like e-books and
software, as well as membership sites. If you haven't considered selling
digital information products, then you should seriously consider doing
so considering all the benefits. Digital information products offer much
higher commissions (anywhere from 10 to 75%+) than physical products
which usually only offer commissions under 5%. Also digital information
products and can be easier to sell in many cases because people can get
instant access and immediate gratification when purchasing a digital
information product.
Seriously consider selling digital
information products as an affiliate, as they often offer much higher
commissions than physical products.
Another network you should
consider when it comes to promoting products as an affiliate is
Amazon.com. As you may already know, just about any physical product can
be sold on Amazon.com. Though products on Amazon generally offer lower
commissions than their digital product counterparts, selling products on
Amazon as an affiliate can be a much higher volume business and most
people trust Amazon as a merchant, making it easier to sell products as
an affiliate.
Finally, in some cases, you may work with a company
or individual directly as an affiliate; rather than going through a
network. Entrepreneurs or companies may run their own affiliate program
and you can apply directly to them to promote their products and
services. If you see a product that you would really like to promote as
an affiliate and the company doesn't offer a formal affiliate program,
you can always reach out to them to work out a private deal as well.
Research and Select the Right Affiliate Products
A
sound product strategy is a must for new affiliate marketers. Ideally,
you should choose a niche that you can make money online with and has a
lot of product vendors. This will give you a wide selection of products
to offer your online community. However, when you're just getting
started you should limit yourself to two or three products at a time.
This will allow you to really become an expert on the products you are
promoting which can be helpful when it comes to marketing those products
(such as writing products reviews).
As you become comfortable
with the affiliate marketing process, you can consider both specialized
(e.g. fly fishing) and broad (e.g. weight loss) niches. Don’t forget to
track your marketing metrics! They are usually provided by your merchant
and/or affiliate network. Tracking your metrics will allow you to see
what is working and generating sales and what is not working, causing
you to waste time and/or money.
This way you'll be able to know
which products your audience is responding to and which ones aren't
generating any profits for your business. This is especially important
if you are investing in paid advertising to drive traffic and promote
products as an affiliate... you need to know which campaigns are
profitable and which ones are losing money.
You'll want to
continually monitor the marketplace for new products, review and test
promoting those products to your audience to see which ones resonate and
convert.
Consider Buying the Product Before Promoting It
As
a new affiliate marketer, you are not obligated to purchase every
product you want to promote. However, it goes without saying that
actually owning and using the products is huge for establishing
credibility and trust. Intimate knowledge of the product can mean the
difference between making the sale and having prospects move elsewhere.
Writing product reviews
are an excellent way to enhance your credibility as an affiliate
marketer. This is especially easy with information products like e-books
which are relatively inexpensive. After establishing some steady income
it may even be worth buying higher-end products, provided you get in
touch with the product creator to work out a strategic marketing plan
that takes you to the next level.
If you actually use the product
and get results with it, then sharing a case study or your personal
experience can be one of the most effective ways of selling those
products to your audience. As you build a more responsive list of email
subscribers and buyers and your reputation, merchants may offer you
“free” samples of e-books or other products.
Note: in many cases,
merchants will be happy to offer you a free copy/sample of the product
even if you don't have an established business -- it never hurts to ask!
If so, you'll want to include full disclosure that you were provided
complimentary access to the product in addition to having a disclaimer
disclosing your affiliate relationship.
Utilize Social Media Marketing to Get More Traffic
Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and other social media marketing methods
are great vehicles for “word of mouth” or viral marketing. Video
marketing, in particular, is a great way to demonstrate your expertise
via commentary, screenshots, and live demonstrations if necessary.
Right
now doing videos on Facebook and Facebook Live are extremely effective
as well as utilizing YouTube for a more longer-term approach to video
marketing.
While at first you may be focused on using social
media as a free way to get traffic, keep in mind that there are powerful
ways to use paid advertising on social media to reach your targeted
audience and drive that traffic back to your site or your affiliate
offers.
Consider Using Redirect / "Pretty" Links
Cloaking
or using anchor links was a controversial issue in internet marketing
circles, with some affiliate marketers swearing by it and others who
feel it is unnecessary.
On one hand, long and ugly affiliate
tracking links are a straight giveaway to people that you want to sell
them a product (and people may be uncomfortable clicking on them).
Therefore, making your link shorter and "nicer" looking will it give a
more professional appearance. One of my favorite plugins for making
links look "pretty" is the Pretty Links WordPress plugin.
This
makes the link much shorter, more friendly, and easier to type in case
they can't click the link for some reason and want to type it into their
browser.
The Bottom Line on Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing
Whether
you're starting a new business from scratch or already have an existing
business (offline or online), affiliate marketing is a great way to
generate income online. All you have to do it recommend relevant
products or services to your audience and the vendor of the product your
are promoting handles everything including product creation, handling
the sales process, customer service, refunds, etc.
The key to
success with affiliate marketing is to just get started and continue
learning new tips and tricks to grow your affiliate business as you
continue to build and grow your affiliate business.