Introduction
Before we answer the question How can i start affiliate marketing lets ponder on the quote below. I dont know who said it but well its nothing less the truth.
“The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” SO START TODAY BE A DOER.
Follow these simple steps.
- Choose your niche
- Find affiliate programs to join
- Decide on a platform
- Create great content
- Drive traffic to your affiliate site
- Convert clicks to sales
STEP 1: Choose your Affiliate Marketing niche
When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one”
I am not sure who said that but if you think about it in relation to affiliate marketing it’s 100% true.
One of the pieces that affiliate marketers seem to be grappling with the most is choosing a niche. The internet is an overcrowded place full of failed marketers targeting “everyone” this is so because there are a ton of products available for promotion, and a billion customers out there.
This article will pause a few questions to us, we shall use these questions to guide us to select a profitable niche/products that will earn us enough passive income. These questions are:
- What are your hobbies (Passion)
- How familiar are you with the product you intend to promote
- Who is your target audience
- What competition are you up to in marketing the product of your choice
- What commission will you earn with the product of choice
Now that we have identified the questions let’s dive in and answer them.
Finding a niche is one of the most daunting steps in an affiliate marketer’s journey. But it’s a step that can’t be overlooked or rushed through. Finding the right niche is the key to tapping into a strong buyer’s market that’s not saturated with competition.)
STEP 2: Find Affiliate marketing programs to join
There are three types of affiliate programs to choose from.
High-paying, low-volume affiliate programs
These are affiliate programs for niche products with high payouts.
For example, ConvertKit’s affiliate program pays almost $700 per month if you send just 80 customers their way. However, as they sell CRM software for small business owners, there’s a limited pool of buyers.
There also tends to be more competition for programs with high commissions. Since you’re probably just starting, it’ll be quite challenging to make a meaningful amount of money competing against skilled marketers with deep pockets.
Low-paying, high-volume affiliate marketing programs
These are affiliate programs for products with low payouts but mass appeal.
For example, take PS4 games. Lots of people play PS4, but the average cost of a game is only around $50, and affiliate commissions are usually in the single digits. This means you’ll earn $2–3 per sale if you’re lucky.
The redeeming quality of these types of programs is that they usually offer tons of products to sell. Take Amazon’s affiliate program, for example. You can earn up to 10% commissions on almost anything Amazon sells.
The other good thing is that you often get commissions on the entire value of the purchase rather than just the product you recommended.
To make these types of affiliate programs pay, you’ll need lots of traffic.
High-paying, high-volume affiliate programs
These are affiliate programs for products with mass appeal, which also pay high commissions.
One example is credit cards.
Everyone needs a credit card, and most people stay with the company for years (sometimes even decades!)
The downside of these types of products is that they attract affiliate marketers with lots of expertise and deep pockets. Some also use spammy tactics that you just can’t compete with.
And since this is a tutorial for beginners, I won’t go any deeper into this.
Just be aware that these programs exist.
How to decide which affiliate marketing programs to join
This depends on your niche and level of expertise.
If you’re targeting consumers, you’ll likely go with the second model of low commissions and higher sales volume.
If you’re going after a business audience, you’ll likely go for the first model: high-paying and low volume. The most popular programs here are for software and web hosting-related products.
The best way to find these affiliate programs is with a Google search.
It only takes a quick Google search to find an application form for this program.
However, if there is a product you’d really like to promote without a public affiliate program, reach out to the company and ask if they would be willing to build an affiliate relationship with you.
STEP 3: Decide on Platform to Use
The is simple, all you need is an online platform, which includes a website, blog, Facebook page, Instagram page youtube, etc.
However, it’s much easier to build an audience and increase your affiliate sales via one of two channels: a blog or a YouTube channel.
Starting a blog today is relatively easy and cheap. There are plenty of tutorials online that teach you how to get started. The best part? It’ll likely only cost you a few dollars per month.
Once your site is up, optimize it for search engines so that you have a better chance of ranking. From there, you’re free to add affiliate links in your content. (There is an art to doing this, which we’ll cover later in this guide.)
The other platform is YouTube. Creating and uploading content to YouTube is free, which makes it ideal for many people. Optimize your videos for SEO, and include affiliate links in your description.
In another lesson we will learn how to create blogs and a how to set up YouTube channels.
Step #4: Create great content For Your Affiliate Marketing
If you want to succeed in affiliate marketing, you need to create high-quality content where your affiliate links fit naturally.
Content creation is a good way to advertise any brand or product. It provides a huge number of functions that are not related to marketing itself, but lead to better conversion and increasing sales.
Content creation and sharing helps to attract the attention of the audience to your site, service or product.
Imagine the situation when you visit some website to read a couple of articles. You notice some fascinating title and start reading the text. You come across some links, click them and go to other sites because the content is excellent and you expect to find something interesting there, that’s the kind of content that any affiliate marketer should seek to create.
Your content should always solve problems and answer questions that users can look for in different search engines. You need to do a lot of keyword research so you can target keywords that are too long or less relevant.
Step 5: Drive traffic to your affiliate Marketing site to get clicks
Here are three traffic strategies to consider:
Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO is the practice of optimizing pages to rank high in search engines like Google.
For as long as you can rank high in the search engines for your target keywords, you’ll get consistent and passive traffic.
SEO is about:
- Understanding what your target customers are searching for;
- Creating content around those topics (blog posts, product pages, etc.);
- Taking care of the “technical” stuff to push these pages higher in the search engines.
Email Marketing
Email lists allow you to communicate with your readers anytime.
Use them to tell fans about new content and keep them coming back to your site for more. This leads to more affiliate clicks and sales.
You can even send affiliate email promotions to your list directly:
Paid Traffic
This is where you pay for traffic to your site. You can do this using PPC ads. The advantage of paid traffic is that the moment you start paying, you get traffic. However, there are some downsides. First, running ads will dig into your profits. It’s quite normal for advertisers to lose money before they make it… if they ever do.
You need to be realistic about how long it takes to optimize a paid traffic campaign.
Secondly, once you stop paying for ads, your traffic will stop.
Generally speaking, ads are a great traffic strategy if you’re part of a high-paying affiliate program and can make the numbers work.
But if you’re completely new to paid marketing and have no marketing budget (or are working with lower commission programs like Amazon Associates), then it might not be such a great idea.
Step #7: Convert clicks to sales
In affiliate marketing, two conversions need to take place for you to make money.
The first conversion is the click to the product page.
You’re 100% in control of this action. Use the tactics above to improve your chances of getting that click.
The second conversion is the visitor purchasing the product. In the case of affiliate marketing, the merchant controls the checkout, and their conversion rates are out of your control.
The trick is to play the game to your advantage and look for merchants with programs that convert well.
You would definitely want to find out Tips to Become Successful in Affiliate Marketing
