Affiliate Marketing For Beginners: A Step By Step Guide
Many people think that it is difficult to earn money through Affiliate Marketing. It’s probably because of the jargon and the use of technology like affiliate links. Some people believe that making money through direct sales is easier to manage. What many don’t realize is that the earning potential with Affiliate Marketing is limitless. Let us now take you on the journey of your affiliate marketing career.
What’s affiliates marketing?
Simply put, affiliate marketing is an activity where you sell other people’s goods or services, not your own. In return, these merchants give you a fraction of their profits.
How much can you earn from these sales? Many affiliate programs offer a minimum of 10% of the sale price. Some will offer up to a whopping 50%. So imagine if the sale price is $100.00 USD, you get $50.00. Multiply this by 100 sales per month and you get $5,000.00 USD per month. And this is only for a single product.
In a nutshell, you should look for merchants that have affiliate marketing programs. Once you find one, you need to register with the program and you will receive a link. This link is unique to each affiliate marketer. This is your identifier.
What you have to do with this link is publish it on the web. You can hyperlink to a word or to an image. Anyone who clicks on this link will be redirected to the merchant’s website. If this person makes a purchase, the merchant will know that you were the sender. After the cut, the merchant will distribute the commissions to all of his affiliates.
select what to sell
What exactly is a niche? We’ve heard this so many times, but its definition remains elusive. A niche is a specialization. It’s a topic or an area that you can break down further. A niche example is toys. You can further divide this niche into drones or remote control cars. Another example is beauty products. You can go deeper into this niche in makeup or perhaps whitening products.
Without the right niche, you won’t be profitable. How can you sell something when you are selling everything?
The niche you select should be something that you really find interesting. Better yet, it should be a niche in which you have some degree of experience. Selling a product you like makes work enjoyable. As a result, you don’t see your efforts as work, but rather as fun and fulfilling activities.
The niche you select should also be in high demand. Despite doing what you love, you cannot make money if there is no demand for the product you sell. There have to be enough people willing to buy what you offer.
A profitable niche is something that has a lot of potential to scale and develop. The best example we can give you is digital products. Selling digital products can be a great way to achieve your financial goals. The product you choose should also be endorsed by many companies that offer affiliate programs.
A great example to demonstrate this is the weight loss niche. You might find it exciting to help people learn and understand ways to lose weight. He takes pride in helping people live healthier lifestyles. Weight loss is considered an “evergreen” niche because it is a product that people will always be interested in.
Another example is pets. This is a multi-billion dollar industry and pet owners spend enormous amounts of money for their pets, from food to toys to pet clothing. You say it. You can sell books on pet training and health care.
The key to selecting a niche is finding the right balance between your interest and your earning potential. You need to focus on the topics you love, and at the same time, these topics need to be marketable.
Plan your business and stay focused
The common pitfall of affiliate marketers is their inability to focus. They do so many things at once that they lose sight of the meaningful things and the activities that make sense. They try to sign up for too many affiliate programs at once, in different niches, and they get bogged down with the ton of work they need to do.
Although many experts will tell you to launch multiple niches at once, we can’t agree with this because there is no way you can get organized and focused if you tackle too many niches at once. We believe that people should start with a niche, plan the approach carefully, focus on the activities, and then launch the product. Once it becomes profitable, it’s time to move on to the next one.
People who are new to the online marketing business must also have a marketing focus. Simply posting online won’t make the cut. You must have a focused strategy as there is too much room for error. And a mistake can cost you. What we recommend is that you start a blog. Be sure to upload articles regularly. After you’ve mastered blogging, and only then, it’s time to move on to social media. As is often said, you have to lay one brick at a time to build your house.
If blogging isn’t your forte, the other route to take is YouTube. You can create video content and upload it to your own channel. The idea is that you provide your subscribers with valuable information. Subscribers must learn something new from you every time they watch your videos.
It is important to note here that you should not try to sell the product. Your blog and video posts should teach your audience something. It is in these matters that you will subtly insert the product you are endorsing.
Things to look for in an affiliate program
Horror stories about affiliate marketing programs abound. Some of them do not pay the affiliate and some of them are based on pyramid schemes. If you sell one of these products and they crash, your customers will never come back to you and you can kiss your business goodbye. You do not want to be associated with these illegal businesses because you risk being sued.
What you want are high-quality, credible, legitimate products that make your customers buy more. Below are some guidelines on how you can choose a worthwhile affiliate program.
Choose products of your interest
Always choose a product that is within the limits of your interest. You don’t have to be an expert at it, but at least it’s something that matters to you personally. It will be difficult for you to stay motivated if you sell products that do not interest you. If you are interested in a specific product, it is likely that you are not alone, that there are others who are supporting this same product.
It must be of high quality
Look for affiliate programs and merchants that sell proven products. You can verify this by reading customer feedback on forums and comment sections where they vote or rate products. Do some research and locate affiliate members. Ask them about their experience through the forums and check the credibility of the affiliate product you are selling or the affiliate program you are joining.
Choose a growing market
You should join the affiliate products whose demand is growing. This will ensure that you will make more sales or get more referrals. The only way you can do this is by checking reliable reviews and looking at the sales statistics for the product you chose.
Choose a good compensation plan
A 5% commission is simply not worth it, unless the product you are selling is real estate. A great option is a product that pays 40% commission. Always make sure that the amount of money you earn will repay your efforts. A good start is 25% if you can’t find a product that is in the 40% commission range.
read the fine print
Some affiliate programs advertise incredible sales commissions. However, they also require sales quotas. Ask yourself if the fee is possible. Some goals are just too hard to achieve, like a $1,000 mark. Before signing up, check the prerequisites and ask yourself carefully if these quotas are achievable in a short period of time.
Choose programs that offer tools
Lastly, sign up for affiliate marketing programs that offer tools. An example of this is a dashboard of your sales. Not all affiliate programs offer visibility into statistics and this will make decision making difficult. At a minimum, the affiliate programs you join should provide you with their current sales and current compensation. Choose those that allow you to check your current sales performance online anytime, anywhere.
Understanding the most common affiliate mistakes
While we’re at it, we’ll discuss the most common mistakes affiliates make. These mistakes are costly, and as a result, many affiliates don’t reap the benefits of affiliate marketing.
Mistake number 1: choosing the wrong affiliate
Just because a company offers an affiliate marketing program does not mean that it is trustworthy and credible. We’ve mentioned this before, but we have to reiterate this. Don’t join the bandwagon kind of products, products that are a one-hit-wonder. Anything sold as pancakes should be avoided.
Choose a product that is in demand even without hype. Select the products that interest you, products that will still be around even if it takes you a bit of time to get your website up and running. After choosing the right product, do your own research and see if they are in demand. It’s easier to promote a product you believe in than it is to promote a product you couldn’t care less about.
Mistake #2: Joining Too Many Programs
Your first affiliate program may be successful, and this is a good start for you to look for more products to sell. Earning money that easy can be tempting. You may think that you have nothing to lose by joining too many affiliate programs.
On the contrary, you may find yourself growing into a lot of work. Maintaining the quality of a website and its content is demanding enough, let alone managing multiple sites. What happens next is that you lose focus on the very affiliate programs that have made you money. So you won’t realize a program’s full potential if it’s out of focus.
The best way to circumvent this is to sign up for a program that pays a 40% commission. This will produce a reasonable profit if you focus your best efforts and stay constantly focused.
Mistake number 3: not knowing how the product works
Many affiliate marketers choose a product to sell without trying it themselves. Please remember that as an affiliate you are primarily endorsing someone else’s product and service and as such you cannot highlight the qualities of a product you have not tried.
It will be easier for you to sell a product or service if you have experienced it first hand. If the product is bad, you will save yourself the agony of selling something that will never be patronized by customers. Testing the product yourself will give you a personal experience. It will be easy for you to create a desire and a need for the product because you are a living testament to what you are selling.
Also, you can honestly point out the pros and cons of the product you are promoting. Your customers will see and feel the veracity of your blogs and the sincerity of your sales pitches. With such strong credibility, it is very impossible not to drive sales if your customers’ expectations are set correctly. You won’t make ridiculous claims about the product and then end up getting bad reviews.