HOW TO GET STARTED WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING
If you choose to start affiliate marketing, the best
approach you can take is to treat it like a business right from the beginning.
Learn as much as you can and do the research. Successful affiliate marketers
don’t take shortcuts or skip steps.
Manage your expectations. Affiliate marketing is a simple
concept but it does require that you spend some time learning exactly how it
works and what you need to do to be successful.
The really great part about starting this type of online
business model is that there is no product to develop, no employees to hire,
and virtually no start-up costs. But you do need to prepare yourself so you’re
in the best possible position to be successful.
The most important step is knowing where to start. You can
save yourself a lot of time and frustration by putting the work in on the front
end doing research and having a solid strategy in place before you start.
Take a look at some of the important topics you’ll need to
consider before starting your affiliate marketing business.
– PICK A NICHE –
Choosing a niche is a crucial first step in starting your
affiliate marketing business. If you try to sell to everyone, you’ll end up
selling to no one. Finding the right niche for you makes it so much easier to
sell, create relevant content, and connect with your audience.
Not to mention, there could be a fair amount of competition
for those affiliate dollars, and the best way to carve out your stake is to
niche down. So, if you have a food blog, for example, food is a pretty big
category. You can niche down within that category to maybe gluten-free desserts
or food you can cook on your grill.
Pick what interests you. The best way for you to engage
readers and be successful with an affiliate marketing strategy is for you to be
passionate about your topic. If you enjoy your niche that will come through in
your content.
Many people simply Google profitable niches for affiliate
marketing in order to choose their niche. This results in boring, inconsistent
content and visitors who bounce from your site and give affiliate commissions
to your competition.
Quality content leads to higher search engine rankings, more
traffic, engaged visitors, and more affiliate sales.
If you’re struggling with finding your niche, ask yourself
these questions:
● What
topics do I love learning/researching about?
● What am I
passionate about?
● Are people
searching for the niche I’m interested in?
● Will there
be a consistent demand for this niche?
● What’s the
competition like within this niche?
● Are there
affiliate programs within my niche?
Asking yourself these questions will give you a jumping-off
point for picking your niche and the affiliate programs you may want to
promote.
– CHOOSE A PLATFORM –
Theoretically, affiliate marketing works on pretty much any
platform. However, it’s much easier to build an audience and increase sales
with blogs and YouTube.
Starting a blog is relatively easy and cheap. You can get
started for just a few dollars a month and the internet has many guides and
tutorials to help you get started.
Once you have your site up and running, you can optimize it
for search engines so you have the best chance of ranking in the search
results. This will help your audience find your content faster. From there, you
can add your affiliate links and you’re off to the races.
Another great platform is YouTube. It’s relatively easy to
start a channel and it’s completely free. You can optimize your videos for SEO
and add affiliate links in the description of the video.
Whichever platform you choose, it’s important that your site
or videos be professional and visually pleasing. If your site seems chaotic,
busy, hard to read, or otherwise hard to follow, you could have a hard time
keeping visitors there long enough to find your affiliate links.
Keep in mind that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission)
requires that you disclose to your visitors that you’re promoting affiliate
links.
– FIND AFFILIATE PROGRAMS –
There are essentially three types of affiliate programs.
1. High Commission, Low Volume Affiliates
These affiliate programs offer a higher payout for
commissions but they tend to not move as many of their products because they
are at a higher price point.
These affiliate programs also tend to have more competition
so you may have to work a bit harder for your sales.
These types of affiliate programs are often what you’ll find
with software products, business-to-business products, and coaching/mentoring
programs.
2. Low Commission, High Volume Affiliates
These programs don’t offer a huge commission but you may get
more clicks and sales. They tend to have a broader market appeal.
These types of affiliates are ideal for beginners. However,
because the payout is smaller, you’ll need more traffic to make it worth your
while.
One perk to these types of affiliate programs is that many
times you’ll get a commission on the entire purchase, not just the one product
you linked to in your content. For example, with Amazon Affiliates, if you use
an affiliate link for a rug, but also end up buying a lamp and extension cord,
you’ll get commission on the entire purchase, not just the rug.
3. High Commission, High Volume Affiliates
These programs appeal to a large number of consumers and
they pay high commission rates.
Credit cards are a prime example of this type of affiliate
because everyone uses credit cards and they will likely stay with credit card
companies for years, making the credit card company loads of money.
The downside to this type of affiliate is the competition.
There is a lot of money to be made in these programs, which attracts affiliate
marketers with lots of experience and resources. Some may even use tactics that
you simply can’t compete with.
Deciding Which Affiliate Program to Join
The affiliate program you choose depends largely on your
niche and level of expertise. If the primary visitors to your site/channel are
consumers, you’ll probably have the most success with a program that offers
lower commission but higher volume.
However, if your target audience is more likely to be
businesses, you may have more luck with a high commission, low volume program.
You may be wondering how to find an affiliate program to
join. A simple Google search will net you thousands of results of affiliates to
choose from.
You can also try an affiliate marketplace, which works as a
middle man, bringing affiliates and marketers together for mutual benefit. Some
to check out would be Clickbank, Affiliate Future, or Flex Offers.
You can also try going directly to a business that you’d
like to work with and see if they have an affiliate program in place. You can
usually find this information on their site map.
