With the ever-increasing importance of affiliate marketing, people are looking for ways to increase their revenue. However, most people don’t know where to start. This small guide will give you all the necessary tools to become a successful affiliate marketer and hopefully make more money in the process.
Let’s start from the beginning.
What is affiliate marketing?
A lot of people use the term affiliate marketing interchangeably with “affiliate” or “referral marketing.”
However, there are two types of affiliate marketing: direct and network. Direct refers to an individual who is paid a commission for bringing new customers to the seller’s website or products, while network marketing is when a company distributes its marketing funds to potential independent sales reps and those sales reps recruit individuals to sell products for them.
Is it worth starting an affiliate marketing business today?
I am sure you’ve heard that affiliate marketing is a great way to make money on the internet. It is a business model that has been around for a long time and is still going strong. In fact, it is the most popular online marketing strategy in 2022 and beyond.
The question for you today is whether or not it’s worth starting an affiliate marketing business today? In this article, we will be answering this question by looking at the pros and cons of starting an affiliate marketing business in 2022.
Pros of Starting an Affiliate Marketing Business
Being an affiliate marketer is a great way to make money online. You can be your own boss, have the freedom to work from anywhere and set your own hours.
What are the other benefits of being an affiliate marketer?
- You get paid for what you know.
- You have complete control over your time and schedule.
- You can make a lot of money with minimal investment.
- You can work from anywhere in the world.
- You can earn a passive income.
And that is why everyone is talking about affiliate marketing.
But is it all that good?
I want to show the ugly side of being an affiliate marketer.
Cons of starting an affiliate marketing business
The biggest disadvantage of starting an affiliate marketing business is the risk of it not being profitable. It’s a long-term investment and you have to be careful about how much money you put into the business.
As such, it is always recommended to start small and scale as you go.
Another disadvantage of affiliate marketing is that you don’t control affiliate marketing programs. Once you’ve joined a program, you play by its rules. This means that they may change anytime and you don’t know where that leaves you as an affiliate.
At the same time, freelance work is not for everyone. I mean, working for yourself without supervision requires a certain level of mental stamina and risk-taking, much more than anything else you’ve done. If you find it hard to push yourself, if you are not a self-motivated individual, you will have a harder time making money through affiliate marketing.
As an affiliate marketer, you need to be savvy. You need to find ways to be efficient. This means that you’ll need a lot of time to invest in marketing.
You’ll need to find a way to automate some of the tasks, so you can focus on what needs your attention. It also means that in order for affiliate marketing to work out, you must be able to sell your products or services on your website.
Even with all this ugliness, affiliate marketing still rocks. And there are those who have cracked the code of making money fast!
How the Best Affiliate Marketers Make Money
#1). Build a blog
Affiliate marketers make money by promoting products on their own websites or blogs.
They are able to do this because they have a website that is already in existence, with a good amount of traffic. This means they can make money from either selling the product or selling advertising space on their site.
So, if you want a chance to be the best, you need to create a blog where you promote your affiliate products.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
- Create a niche that you are passionate about and make sure it is relevant to your audience (more on this in a minute).
- Make sure your blog is easy to navigate and has a clean design that is pleasing to the eye.
- Make sure your content is valuable and useful for your audience, not just selling products or services in an affiliate way.
- Promote yourself and your blog on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., so that people can find out more about you and what you have to offer them. This brings us to point #2 of how to be good at affiliate marketing.
#2). Use social media platforms
The best affiliate marketers are able to grow their businesses by using various techniques that allow them to get as much traffic as possible and convert it into sales for them.
These techniques include using social media, building relationships with influencers, and creating niche content for particular audiences.
Yes, social media is a great way to reach out to your target audience. It also helps in promoting your brand. But, social media can also be tricky. It is difficult to know what posts will attract the most attention and what posts will convert. The right strategy can help you get the best results from social media marketing.
The right social media strategy can help you get the best results from your marketing. Many people start sharing content on social media without a plan to see what type of content resonates with their audience.
With that in mind, you need to understand what your audience wants and then create a social media strategy around that.
Here’s how:
- Choose social media marketing goals that align with affiliate marketing business objectives.
- Learn everything you can about your audience.
- Get to know your competition.
- Do a social media audit.
- Set up accounts and improve profiles.
- Find inspiration.
- Create a social media content calendar.
As mentioned, to be good at affiliate marketing, you need to understand your audience. The best place to start is picking the right affiliate marketing niche.
Continue reading to learn more.
#3). Choose the right niche
A niche is a specific market that an affiliate focuses on. A niche is often defined by the products or services it offers. For example, if you are promoting fashion products or services, you would be considered to be in the fashion niche.
Niche marketing is often considered to be one of the most effective ways of marketing because it works on the principle of finding a target audience that is interested in what you have to offer.
The key to success for affiliate marketers is choosing the right niche and knowing how to use social media effectively in order to reach out to people who will be interested in what you have to offer.
With that said, there are different ways to find out if an affiliate marketer is picking the right niche. One way is to check if there are many affiliates in their niche, which means that there’s high demand for this type of product.
Another way would be to check if there are many affiliates with similar products or services, which means that it’s not too competitive and you can get into this niche without much effort.
There are many different niches out there that you can choose from, but some of them may not be profitable. To help you pick the right niche, we have compiled a list of some of the most popular niches in affiliate marketing:
- Hobby Niches – Photography, Travel, Sports betting, Event Tickets, Casino.
- Money Niches – Debt Settlement, Bitcoin, Investing, Credit card, Mortgage.
- Health and Fitness Niches – Weight Loss, Fitness, Yoga, Organic, Nutrition, Vegan.
#4). Build an email list
As mentioned earlier, you have little control over the affiliate program, once you’ve joined. Once you have referred a customer to them, that’s it, you won’t see them again.
If that’s the case, how will you drive repeat sales?
Heck, how are you going to build a scalable business?
The only solution is to have an email list of your own.
A subscriber list is a list of subscribers that are subscribed to your website or blog. It is a list of people who have agreed to receive updates from you.
This subscriber list is typically used for two purposes:
- Personalization: The subscribers on your subscriber list will be the first to know about new products and services, special offers, and more. You can also use it to send emails that are relevant only to your subscribers.
- Marketing: You can use a subscription list as a lead generation tool by sending emails that are tailored for specific audiences.
With an email list, you can keep promoting products to the same people, even if they have bought before.
This gives you a chance to make money again and again from the same client.
What are the Tools & Resources You Need for Successful Affiliate Marketing?
Here are the 5 tools and resources that you need for successful affiliate marketing.
1. WordPress
A self-hosted website, WordPress is an easy-to-use platform that allows you to create a blog in minutes, build websites with plugins and themes, and manage your content easily. In addition, it comes with a variety of integrations like MailChimp or Google Analytics that allow you to track your success on the go.
2. SEO Tools
SEO tools help optimize your website’s structure for search engines like Google and Bing so that it can rank higher on their respective search engines for keywords relevant to your business. These tools also let you create content for your website to attract new visitors.
3. MailChimp
A free email marketing service, MailChimp allows you to create and send emails with templates, integrate your website with their tool for stats, and target your list with notifications or automated messages.
4. Google Analytics
Google Analytics helps you track the success of your website in the eyes of major search engines like Google and Bing. It allows you to track your website’s traffic, search engine rankings, and more.
5. Trello
Trello is a web-based project management tool that allows you to manage projects and tasks visually on boards that can be edited by anyone on the team. It’s a great way to keep everyone updated, and have clarity about each project.