Is the idea of making money anytime, anywhere, even while you’re asleep, something you strive for? Then you’ll be pleased to hear that it’s possible to achieve this by venturing into affiliate marketing. In fact, lots of people online already earn their money in this way.
Affiliate marketing is a widespread strategy to get online revenue. This is also a great way to begin earning money for startups. That’s why we’ve decided to go into more detail about what affiliate marketing entails, as well as all necessary steps you need to take to become a successful affiliate marketer.
What Is the Definition of Affiliate Marketing?
In the simplest terms, affiliate marketing is a strategy where an affiliate forms a partnership with an individual or a company and gets a commission by promoting their product or service. For example, bloggers who are affiliates of a certain company will place a link or a banner in their blog post that will redirect the visitors to that particular service or product. There are different ways in which the affiliate can get paid. These include:
- Pay per sale – if the purchase happened because the affiliate promoted the product, then the affiliate gets a percentage of the product price.
- Pay per click – the affiliate’s job is to redirect a potential customer from their own platform to the website where they can buy the product. The way the affiliate gets paid is based on the traffic that they drive to the product site.
- Pay per lead – this program requires the affiliate to get the visitor to click on the link and fill out a contact form, such as a newsletter subscription or trying out a trial version of a product or service.
Affiliate Marketing Roles
In order for affiliate marketing to work, the involvement of three parties is crucial: the product creator/seller, the affiliate marketer, and the consumer.
- The seller – otherwise known as retailer, vendor, or merchant. In short, it is the party that creates the product. The seller can either be an individual or an entire corporation. Sellers don’t have to be actively involved in affiliate marketing, but they can still gain profit. Also, anyone can be a product seller, as long as they have a product or service that they can sell.
- The affiliate marketer – also known as the publisher. It can also be one person or a company that makes sure to promote the creator’s product in a compelling way that will turn potential customers into actual buyers.
- The consumer – this party makes affiliate marketing possible. This is because, without a consumer to purchase a product or service, there would be no profit to share between the first two parties.
What Are the Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer?
Now that you’ve learned what affiliate marketing generally stands for, as well the roles that the parties involved play, we should mention some of the reasons why becoming an affiliate marketer can be a good choice for you.
- You Can Do It at a Low-Cost
In order to be an affiliate, you don’t need to pay any money. This means you don’t have to stress over-allocating lots of cash to invest in affiliate marketing. In other words, being an affiliate is a cost-effective business solution that requires little effort to start.
- Possibility of Working From Home
Hate wasting your precious time traveling the same route of traffic-jammed streets every day in order to reach your office? Not only that, but while you work, you’re also missing the feeling of a comfort zone that your home brings. If this is you, then affiliate marketing is definitely something you should consider going for. Initiating campaigns, promoting products and getting revenue from affiliate marketing are all possible to do from your own home.
- You Get to Be Your Own Boss
The idea of being independent is appealing to many. A great thing about affiliate marketing is that it can give you a certain level of freedom while making decisions. Namely, if you go into affiliate marketing, you get to choose who you want to work with and what products you want to promote. Of course, you would be able to determine your working hours and control the speed you work at as well.
What Steps to Take to Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer?
A passive income that affiliate marketing can bring is something many marketers strive for. Yet, getting to this point still calls for some work on your part. Here are some steps to consider that can bring you closer to affiliate marketing success in 2019.
- Choose a Niche You Want to Profit From
If you’re a beginner, selecting a niche you want to target should be your first step. If you haven’t decided on a niche already, you should ask yourself certain questions, such as which topics are particularly inspiring for you, whether a niche you are considering is profitable, and research if there are affiliate programs for this niche, to begin with.
Another thing you should pay special attention to is your competition. The affiliate marketing competition is bigger than ever in 2019. So, keep up with the current trends and make sure there is enough room for you to remain competitive before you go for a particular niche.
- Make Your Own Website
After you’ve chosen a niche and done an affiliate program research, building your own website is the next natural step – that is, if you don’t already have one. If you’re a complete novice in this category, then we recommend building your website on a WordPress platform. This CMS requires no advanced knowledge to set up, and due to its popularity, there are plenty of online resources such as WordPress themes and plugins equipped with all that you need during your site-building. After selecting your platform, you need to take care of a few other things, like buying a domain with a suitable name and choosing a good hosting service, and you’re ready to go!
- Make Relevant Content That You Can Get Behind
So, you’ve done everything from the step above, and you need to install your CMS and a theme that best fits your chosen niche. Then, the next logical step is to create compelling, niche-related content.
However, keep in mind that when it comes to writing affiliate content, mere quality isn’t enough. What we mean by this is that you should definitely know what you’re talking about if you decide to stand behind a particular product or service. Also, honesty is key. To be more specific, don’t recommend products you haven’t personally tried or that you don’t like, but don’t sugarcoat its shortcomings either. If you’re faking it, someone will be able to tell sooner or later, and what you definitely don’t want to happen is to lose credibility with your readers.
Finally, you should be natural about the way you review these products to your audience. Just because you’re trying to sell a product, it does not mean that you should also write like a seller. The best approach is to try and talk to your audience like you would to a friend. Of course, this also depends on a niche, but sounding too stiff and commercial-like isn’t a good solution either. A balance between being laid back and having an informative tone should give you the best results.
- Find Your Audience
The most important, but maybe the hardest part is finding the audience you will recommend these products to. Luckily, there are multiple ways to gain an audience online:
- Become a guest poster – this is a great strategy if your website is relatively new. If you try writing for a site that has bigger traffic, you can show its audience that you’re knowledgeable about a particular topic. In turn, this can attract a new audience to your own site as well.
- Promote your content on social media – when it comes to affiliate marketing, the power that social media holds is undeniable. Platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram are all great places for finding an audience that will be engaged in what you have to offer. By building contacts and making connections on these platforms, you also gain the trust of potential customers.
- Build an email list – this is one of the most essential tools for doing proper affiliate marketing. An email list can be useful whether you want to let your audience know about the fresh products, encourage them to sign up to get regular updates or put links that lead to the product websites via newsletters.
Wrapping Up
Affiliate marketing is one of the best methods to make money online. It requires a bit of effort from your side, but the experiences of other marketers show that, when done right, it definitely pays off in the long run. Try applying some of the strategies that we mentioned above, and join others who have also decided to become affiliates and make a profit the easy way.
Affiliate Marketing – Deposit Photos
