3 Steps For Newbies
To Start Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a deal between online merchants and affiliates.
The affiliates earn a commission for generating sales, leads and/or clicks to the merchant’s web site.
The merchant gets to advertise his products to a previously untapped audience, which means more sales opportunities.
They also save a lot of the time, and money they would spend trying to find new buyers.
As affiliates marketers, our job is to grab peoples attention and create interest in merchant’s products.
Once we have their attention we want to turn it into leads and clicks to merchant’s website.
We get paid when a customer A) clicks on the links or B) purchases a product or service provided by merchants.
The larger commissions, of course, are achieved when our referral leads to a sale.
Commissions typically come in the form of a percentage of the sale or a fixed dollar amount.
The best part is that it doesn’t cost a single dime to join an affiliate program.
Affiliate marketing works as a win-win situation for both parties.
If you want to become a successful affiliate marketer and make money online, follow these 3 most basic steps…
Step 1: Identify your niche
The first step is to identify a niche you are interested in or passionate about.
Find something that you won’t get bored of talking about or you won’t last long.
Focus on a specific area you know well, it will help you share deep nuggets of insight and produce higher quality material.
Check out our post on The Best Affiliate Programs for a list of affiliate networks you can use to do some research.
Step 2: Find good paying programs
Your second step consists of finding merchants and products that will bring in the most return on investment for your time.
Once you have a list of good paying and high converting affiliate programs, for your niche of choice, create your website/social media post/video.
When choosing your products, be sure to consider they level of support provided by merchants.
Eg: Marketing materials such as articles, text links, banner ads, classified ads, reports, etc.
There are many affiliate networks and affiliate solution providers where you can find info on the most profitable products and best paying merchants to ensure you choose the right affiliate program for you and your audience.
Step 3: Promote
Now that you have decided which products or services to promote, which merchant you wish to support, and have created your website/social media post/video, you are ready to promote.
This is the most rewarding and challenging part of your affiliate marketing journey.
Through the right promotion you’ll be able to increase your website traffic and ultimately your sales but do this wrong, or don’t track your efforts and you will be wasting your hard earned money and minimizing your profits.
In affiliate marketing, it is possible to earn large sums of money in a short span of time if you use the right strategies and methods.
The how of promoting products will require a separate discussion.
Continue educating yourself by reading books, purchasing courses or reading other articles online about the best proven advertising techniques.
In conclusion
Remember, there is no quick path to success.
Affiliate marketing may seem attractive due to its numerous, encouraging testimonials from merchants and affiliate marketers who have seen success in their field, but it does really involve a great deal of work and persistence.
You also need to be creative and flexible.
Most people don’t understand these steps, so when their online business don’t make sales in their first week, they quit, look for other programs and make the same mistake over and over.
In the end, they’ll say that it’s just one of those scams on the Internet, any time they hear someone mention affiliate marketing.
If you take your time, educate yourself, and use the right strategies, you can reap great success as an affiliate marketer.