Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online as a stand-alone business or as a source of additional income for an existing business. While it's not as easy as making money from ads on your website, it's still relatively simple to do and has more profit potential than just advertising on your website.
Choosing the right affiliate network:
There
has to be a perfect match between you and the merchant who is going to
benefit from your promotional efforts, otherwise it just won't work. The
easiest way to get started with affiliate marketing is to select an
affiliate network. There are many affiliate networks, some of which are
linked to well-known companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple, while
others specialize in specific types of products and services.
Find and select the right Affiliate Products:
A
good product strategy is a must for new affiliate marketers. Ideally,
you should choose a niche that you can make money with online and has a
lot of product providers. This will give you a wide selection of
products to offer to your online community. However, when you are just
starting out, you should limit yourself to two or three products at a
time.
Consider purchasing the product before promoting it:
As
a new affiliate marketer, you don't have to buy every product you want
to promote. However, it goes without saying that owning and using the
products is huge in building credibility and trust. An intimate
knowledge of the product can be the difference between making the sale
and moving prospects elsewhere.
Share Your Product Reviews:
Writing
reviews for a product is a great way to improve your credibility as an
affiliate marketer. This is especially easy with information products
like e-books which are relatively inexpensive. After establishing a
steady income, it may even be worth buying high-end products, as long as
you contact the creator of the product to develop a strategic marketing
plan that will take you to the next level.
Use 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 showcase your expertise
through commentary, screenshots, and live demos when needed. At present,
making videos on Facebook and Facebook Live are extremely effective and
use YouTube for a longer term approach to video marketing.
Consider using redirect / "pretty" links:
The
cloaking or use of anchor links has been a controversial issue in
Internet marketing circles, with some affiliate marketers swearing by it
and others who feel it is unnecessary. On the one hand, long, ugly
affiliate follow links are a direct 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 "prettier" will make it look
more professional. One of my favorite plugins for making links "pretty"
is the Pretty Links WordPress plugin. This makes the link much shorter,
more user-friendly, and easier to type in case they can't click the link
for some reason and want to type it in their browser.
The Bottom Line on Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing:
Whether
you are 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 is recommend relevant
products or services to your audience and the seller of the product you
are promoting takes care of everything, including the creation of the
product, the sales process, customer service, reimbursement, etc.
The
key to success with affiliate marketing is to start and keep learning
new tips and tricks to grow your affiliate business as you continue to
build and grow your affiliate business.
Why it is different from Referral Marketing:
Using reviews and word-of-mouth, referral marketing is risky but effective way to grow a business. Referral Factory
is a great example of the success of this strategy and is known for its
tremendous growth (over 3900%) thanks to a referral marketing program.
The referral marketing model is simple and but a bit tricky to track.
Customers promote your products and services in their network and you
give them something in return. For example, do your customer's friends
sign up for your product or service? Then the customer receives a
discount or thank you.
Some examples of referral programs are:
- A payment when an existing customer brings in new customers.
- An online gift when new customers are referred. This can be, for example, free access to an online tool, or a downloadable e-book.
- A free service or product. Think of a free Uber ride for both the existing and new customer, if an existing customer refers a new Uber user.
- Of course, the possibilities are endless and you can decide for yourself how you reward your customers.
