If you’re up for creating an income without having to develop products or do any customer service, you’re in the right place. Whether you want to create business income solely through affiliate marketing (it’s very possible) or you want it to work in combination with your own product-based business, here’s a great place to start.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
So that we’re on the same page, let’s first define what affiliate marketing is. We’re talking about the business of earning a commission by promoting the products (or services) of other companies.
The keyword in that definition is “promote”. You’re not selling products, you’re promoting. The distinction is important because it will help you lay the groundwork for your business.
What’s the difference between selling and promoting?
To promote means to actively encourage, advance, or support. If we’re talking about products then you’re actively supporting products and sharing, discussing, and educating about products. If you’re selling them, then you’re going through that process of tapping into buyer emotions, positioning, highlighting benefits, and then closing the deal.
Think of it as the difference between knocking on the door of a stranger and saying, “Hey, have you tried this pet product?” and talking with a group of friends about your pets and saying, “I tried this great product. It really helped me with my pet. I found it at ABC store, here, I’ll give you the website.”
It’s a pretty big difference, right? There’s much less pressure to promote something than to sell it. And when you’re promoting, it’s much more casual and conversational, and it’s often much easier.
Your job, as an affiliate marketer, is to get your audience to click on a link. Once they do, your job is pretty much done. They’ve clicked away from your site and are now visiting the company sales page. They have to do the selling.
Now that you have an understanding of what affiliate marketing is, you might be jumping ahead and thinking about what you can promote and who you might promote it to. So let’s go there next.
So Many Products, So Little Time
Once you’ve decided that affiliate marketing is right for you, or at least something that you’re interested in, it’s time to put on your thinking cap. It’s time to start considering what types of products you’re going to promote and how you’re going to promote them. There are a lot of possibilities so let’s break it down.
What Are You Going to Promote?
The first step is to think about potential niches. A niche is a segment, a subset of a market. Here are a few examples. You might enjoy health and fitness. That’s a pretty broad topic to cover. A subset of that might be home fitness equipment or sports nutrition for women over 40.
The narrower your niche, the easier it can be to build a relationship with them and to build a business. You’re not competing with all of the health and fitness bloggers and business owners, you’re only competing with those who also market sports nutrition to women over 40.
You might start by brainstorming a list of ideas. No commitment here, just brainstorm your potential markets.
Product Research
If the niche is something that’s familiar to you, you might already be aware of many products that you’d like to promote. Many companies have affiliate programs. One of the largest is Amazon. Spend some time online. Visit websites of products that you may be familiar with and look to see if they have affiliate programs.
An affiliate program may be listed on the website as a “partner” as well. You can also head straight for affiliate directories. Companies of all sizes use a third party to manage their affiliate program. These directories are a great place to search for potential products and they are often the source for your marketing content.
For example, you might sign up at CommissionJunction.com and take a look at the wide range of companies and marketing materials a company offers. They may offer everything from emails and articles to banner ads.
Here are a few networks and directories to begin your search:
- Linkshare.com
- CommissionJunction.com
- Clickbank.com
- JVZoo.com
Brainstorming potential niches and looking for possible products to promote is the first step; it can take some time. Before you decide on a niche, it’s also a good idea to explore your competition. Who out there is also marketing to your niche? And who is your audience? Who is interested in the products you’re going to be promoting?
Spend some time researching and exploring the possibilities. Before you finalize your decision on your niche and gather a short list of potential products to promote, it’s a good idea to know how you might promote the products.
How Do You Promote?
The best way to be successful with affiliate marketing is to really understand your audience. Promotion begins and ends with content. And of course, there are many different types of content. You can:
- Blog
- Publish reports, checklists, comparison charts, and ebooks online for your audience.
Content is one of the primary reasons why your niche should be a topic that you’re interested in. Even if you don’t write all of your content (and there are many options available to you to create content) you should be able to plan your content and talk about your niche comfortably. This is a business you’re building and it’s always much more enjoyable if you’re interested in your topic – maybe even passionate about it.
From content to promotion…the missing link.
Your content is what promotes any given product. And yes, you can create structured content like comparison charts that compare three to five products and provide links to them (affiliate links of course). However, much of your content is going to be written. We’re talking about blog posts, emails, articles, reports, and so on.
For this type of content to successfully promote a product, it needs to address something your audience is concerned about. What are their problems?
Here’s a quick example:
Joe is having trouble housebreaking his dog. Joe hops online and searches for information about how to housebreak a dog. He finds your site and a well-written blog post on the topic of tips to housebreak a puppy. Within the body of the tips post, you might mention a specific product that helps. You include a link. Now you’ve not only helped provide a solution to Joe’s problem, you’ve also helped direct him to a tool.
The goal is to figure out what your audience’s problems are and find them a product solution. Make sure you understand both your audience and the products you’re promoting well. This knowledge helps you to educate your audience on both the product and the problem and give them the tools to resolve it.
