So you are ready to unlock your financial future. You have decided the 9-to-5 day job lifestyle doesn’t suit you and you want to work for yourself. How exactly do you start and affiliate marketing business. Lets take a look, and get you one step closer to making money online!
This all guide will not only cover what affiliate marketing is, but also demystify the entire process, the hows, wheres and the whys. So you have your computer, an passionate eagerness to start making money online, but have no idea where to start.
So let’s dive in and get you started on unlocking your financial future and by learning how to start affiliate marketing. But first lets start with the basics!
If you are serious about making money online sign up NOW for the 15 Day Business Challenge:
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Investopedia defines affiliate marketing as an advertising model where a company pays compensation to third-party publishers to generate traffic or leads to the company’s products and services. The third-party publishers are referred to as affiliates and the commission fee incentivises them to find ways to promote the company.
So to dumb that down, someone gives you a commission to sell their product for them. Some programs may have you managed the entire process from lead generation to sale, others will just ask you to push the lead to them.
To sell those products you need to have an audience, which most people do not have when starting out. That’s not a problem, as long as you understand when starting out you will not be making sales immediately.
Whether you start a blog writing about marketing or develop a YouTube fitness channel any way you can reach your audience will help grow your business. The key is reaching the correct audience. Traffic is great, but if the wrong people are landing on your site you will have a much harder time converting them. Great! So what are the first steps?
How to Start Affiliate Marketing?
You understand what affiliate marketing is, albeit a very simplistic version, but that’s the great thing it really is simple on face value. As you may know by now, or seen in your searches, there are many different types of affiliate marketing.
There are countless models but the three I will focus on, and believe you should, are referral based programs, product based and money based. Each have their own pro’s and cons, but if you right the right program in any of the categories, you will success! So lets break them down.
NEED HELP? Take the 15 day business challenge now and team up with your own adviser to plan your business today!
Product-based Affiliate Marketing
Product based affiliate marketing is common place amongst social media influencers. Rather than gain a monetary commission, the affiliate receives a service or product.
Due to the nature of the commission, these types of programs are generally a one time offering, but not always. Take for example a body builder, promoting a supplement line. They may receive a monthly allowance of supplements for their personal use.
This type of model is great for would be affiliate marketers who are interested in different experiences, and a dynamic environment, rather than a purely monetary relationship.
When starting out, with a smaller audience base some companies are reluctant to actually pay the lesser-known affiliate, so this is a happy middle ground for both parties.
This allows the company to check if the partnership is a long term option, and gives the lesser-known affiliate a way of starting out and increasing their own personal brand. All while getting free stuff!
Get on the phone and call BMW! Not quite. If you landed on this post you are undoubtedly starting out and you cannot expect high end, high value products. So how do you get these relationships? Generally the companies will contact you. But when you are starting out don’t expect the phone or your DMs to blow up. Be proactive. Identify your interest area and contact the companies yourself. Don’t make your ask too big. Starting out slow will help you understand how the system works and the traffic will start to increase gradually.
Referral Affiliate Marketing
One of the main and most well-known types of affiliate programs is referral affiliate marketing. You see this one all the time, and on my site. After signing up with the company, you are given a special link that credits any sales towards you. This in turn earns you a % commission of the sale.
Generally, the links then direct to a landing page that the company has created themselves, although some affiliates design their own bridging page as a way of capturing lead information before the sale.
This type of affiliate marketing is the most common, due to the ease of entry. You really don’t need to know much about affiliate marketing, closing a sale or website creation. You simply need to grow and audience and promote the product.
This is especially common amongst YouTubers, who invite you to click the link in their bio. This method of “how to affiliate marketing” is also very popular as there is little downside risk for both parties. As the affiliate you do not carry any product or overhead. As the company commissions are only paid on sale, the affiliate does all the marketing for them.
If you want my opinion this is the BEST way to make money in affiliate marketing. When choosing a affiliate partner in this space, you want to ensure the product is desirable to ensure longevity of the program. Even better if what you are selling can teach you how to make money online.
Great news is you need to look no further. I have found the perfect program that checks all those boxes. And the great thing is the product you are selling will TEACH YOU HOW to make money online as well. Win Win.
If you are serious about making money online sign up NOW for the 15 Day Business Challenge:
Money-based Affiliate Marketing
For obvious reasons the most sought-after category of affiliate marketing. I think of it money based affiliate marketing as a paid sponsorship.
This type of affiliate program generally only comes after years in the industry, or once you have establish a large and loyal following. A company or brand pay you for an agreed body of work. It may be a specified number of paid social media posts, reviews or video blogs.
You receive no money from any sales, but regardless of how well the campaign goes, you get paid the agreed amount. Unfortunately there is no set rule to how much an agreement like this should pay. Generally it is negotiated and directed by the company or brand doing the hiring. They are governed by a budget, and try and find the appropriate partner who will work for their desired amount.
As this becomes more common place with social media influencers more companies are trying to find a common place and market place for these services. For example Tribe is an influencer marketing platform that connects companies, brands and influencers. At the end of the day it all boils down to what you are willing to work for. What do you believe you are worth?
If you want to work in this space, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances, and how much you will potentially earn;
Develop your network.
This one is self explanatory, the more people you can potentially reach the higher your worth and more chance you have of attracting companies and brands.
Cultivate a brand friendly image.
What this means is brands and companies align themselves with influencers that support their image and wont offend or challenge their followers. No controversial topics, swearing or pornographic material. This one is pretty self explanatory.
Focus on producing great content.
If you cant produce good content, that isn’t engaging or exciting you wont get any followers. You also wont give your potential affiliate partners much confidence in your ability to promote their offering.
Regardless of whether you are looking for this type of affiliate program or not, you should follow the above 3 points any way. They can help regardless of which affiliate program you use or promote.
NEED HELP? Take the 15 day business challenge now and team up with your own adviser to plan your business today!
Tips on Affiliate Marketing
So now you know what it is all about, you know what your options are for a partner, and know the best one you should pick according to me! What else do you need to know and do to prepare to become an affiliate marketer.
Most affiliate marketing programs will sell you the dream, make money online, quit your job, earn cash on the side. But they do not prepare you for the reality of being an affiliate marketer.
It Will Be Slow At First.
Don’t expect to sign up to a program and immediately start earning commissions. Sure you may get lucky and made the odd sale in the early days, but expect to go weeks if not months before making a sale.
You may of read in my post, How Long Will It Take To Make Money Online, that I didn’t make my first sale for 39 days. That’s a long time to be working daily, for no return. If you are chasing a get rich quick scheme to making money online, you are entering affiliate marketing for the wrong reasons. And that will ultimately lead to disappointment.
So tip number one, know it will take time, and be prepared for the journey. IT IS WORTH IT!
Be Consistent With Your Content
SEO and growing your audience all depend on a consistent communication flow. You cannot expect to succeed if you make the odd social media post every couple of days, and update your blog (if you have one) every couple of months.
The internet is a fast paced world, and staying relevant is important. Keeping on top of the sea tweets & posts in socials is difficult. Consistent continuous posts is key to maintaining visibility.
So how do you do that? Plan your communication strategy. Even better build a bank of posts and blogs before launching. That way you have back up content for the days you cannot commit to your business. For scheduling, check out my recent post, Hootsuite – Content Publishers Dream .
Invest In Yourself
Don’t be afraid to SPEND MONEY on yourself. When I first started I foolishly thought I would be conned by anyone if I bought a course, or educational material.
But the truth was, there really are experts out there. And they havce been through it all before, and know the shortcuts. Yes you can get the information for free, if you spend ages trawling through the scammers and blogs. If reading for countless hours isn’t your thing, do your research before buying. Read reviews and see what others are saying about the course. If it is a good program, their will be a lot out there about it!
Start An Affiliate Marketing Business In 5 Steps.
So all of that and we are only now getting to the 5 steps?! Surely I would have lead with this instead of burying the lead. The 5 steps are as important, as everything that precedes it.
Everything prior to these steps were really leading up to point 1. Really know this is what you want to do. Not a passing phase. Don’t let the glamour of potential money blind the work ahead of you. If you get started for the wrong reasons, you will not succeed of make money.
So what are the steps. Well I covered them all above, I just didn’t tell you! But the list would look something like this:
- First really commit and know this is what you want.
- Identify your target market
- Choose your affiliate program
- Plan your content & communication plan
- Launch and sell
Conclusion
So now you know everything there is about affiliate marketing….or you know enough to know this is something you want to do. You are determined and ready to commit to the journey, whats next?
Lets kill two birds with one stone. First click the link below, it will take you through a 15 day business challenge where you will be partnered with an advisory. Plan and prepare your business.
Then once you are blown away by their content, and the free taster sign up to their affiliate program and start your journey to financial freedom!