You’ve probably heard about affiliate marketing, but you don’t know what it is.
…Or you heard about it from the lips of people who call it a scam, and so you waved it off…
Maybe you’re someone who was actually interested in it before, but it didn’t work immensely well for you.
And it really used to upset you when you’re seeing testimonials from people who it has worked for.
So….
You conclude they’re doing magic or maybe you just don’t have the luck that they have.
So you give up.
If you fall into any of the categories above…
Chances are that you don’t even know what affiliate marketing is yet or how it really works.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
In simple terms, affiliate marketing is the process whereby a person (an affiliate) promotes the manufacturer’s product to buyers and receives a commission upon every sale of that product.
In other words, an affiliate is a middleman between the seller and the buyer who earns a cut(commission) upon every sale he/she is able to achieve.
Put in mind that affiliate marketing is a business model, not a skill.
Google trends show that the keyword affiliate marketing was shown interest in Jan 2023 on a scale of 100, Back in January 2015, the interest was just 50.
According to the demand sage blog, affiliate marketing is currently worth 17 billion U.S. dollars as of 2023. That’s to tell you that there’s enough money for everyone in this industry! Knowing the right way to go about affiliate marketing also helps you to have your share of the international cake.
That’s to tell you that there’s enough money for everyone in this industry!
Knowing the right way to go about affiliate marketing also helps you to have your share of the international cake.
- The right mindset.
- A niche
- A product.
- How to recommend this product to people (A traffic source ).
- Sales funnels (have a great sales pitch and offer)
- Patience and perseverance
THE RIGHT MINDSET
AFFILIATE MARKETING IS NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME, you probably saw the mouth-watering earnings of affiliates’ earnings on social media and that’s what probably made you feel that it’s easy to make those earnings . Maybe, it was one of those online affiliate gurus that you were captivated and motivated by the profits that they post online that told you that all you need is just your phone and internet connection and then the money starts rolling.
Sorry but you’ve been told a lie.
You don’t need just your phone and an internet connection, you need hard work and an understanding of how affiliate marketing works.
So before you embark on your affiliate marketing journey, have a positive mindset that you need to understand how it fully works and that you need to put in the work.
A NICHE
A niche is a category of any market you want to specialize in. The Affiliate marketing industry has so many niches the most lucrative being;
- Health and wellness
- Dating & Relationships
- Business and Money
- Travel & Visa (This most especially, for Nigerians).
- Softwares.
Other promising niches include;
- Gaming
- Technology
- Sports
- Beauty
- Luxury Items
- Pet Care
A Niche is necessary because it helps you operate, specialize and get good at promoting products in a particular field. Take for instance, the business and money niche, if you promote products in the business and money niche for a good number of months, you’d learn about your target audience(prospective customers) better, what they like and what they don’t, plus you’d also have a relationship with them which allows you to build them;
- Know
- Like &
- Trust factors.
So it makes it easier for you to make sales in the business and money niche because you’re already conversant with your audience.
But If you’re jumping from niche to niche promoting different products due to a lack of patience, you might just be a joker and never make any sales.
So look for a niche, capitalize and milk it.
A PRODUCT
Once you’ve found the niche that you want to specialize in.
The next thing for you to do is to look for a hot-selling product in your niche.
DON’T JUST PROMOTE ANY PRODUCT BECAUSE YOU LIKE IT AND YOU THINK IT WOULD SELL.
The ways that you can know the hot-selling products in your niche is by conducting product research.
Conducting product research entails;
- Research on the product owner/ producer.
- How many units of that product have been sold?
- Unique mechanism (selling points) of the product.
- Testimonials/ Case studies from the product.
- Sum total of people promoting the product,
- Negative customer reviews,
- The refund rate?
- Similar products analysis.
- Keyword search rate(This entails how many people are searching for this product worldwide, you can use Google trends to search for the keyword search rate, this also helps you know if the product you want to promote is trending & hot )
Promoting a product without conducting proper product research is like jumping into marriage without knowing the person you’re getting married to.
A TRAFFIC SOURCE (HOW TO RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT TO PEOPLE)
Once you’ve found a niche you want to specialize in and a hot-selling product in that niche…
The next thing for you to do is to have a defined target audience that you are going to promote that product…
Most mistakes affiliate marketers make when starting out, is that they promote products to anyone and everyone….
DON’T DO THAT!
I mean…
Do Children smoke?
So if you know that children don’t smoke and cigarette brands won’t even think of advertising to them ..
Why promote your products to everyone, without having a specific audience?
Soo..
The first step to promoting your affiliate products is to identify your target audience.
The next question you’re going to be asking is, where are my target audience (dream customers) gathered and what can I do to attract them?
The ways you can attract your dream customers and target that traffic to your affiliate products/website includes…
- Organic traffic
- Inorganic (paid) traffic
Organic traffic
This can take a lot of time, especially if you have no prior audience relating to your niche.
How you can draw organic traffic to your social media pages, website or any site you’re using to promote your affiliate products includes..
- Posting mind-blowing content/ useful content based on the affiliate product you’re promoting
Take for example, if you’re promoting a skin care product, you’d want to post on your social media, ways/tips one can take care of their skin to prevent blemishes.
This attracts people to your page.
It doesn’t just attract just any kind of people to your page/site, it attracts your dream customers (target audience).
This strategy might take time…
But it is worth it in the end.
Inorganic (paid) traffic:
This involves running ads to get your target audience (dream customers) to your social media page/website where you’re promoting your products.
This strategy takes lesser time, as you can get your dream customers (target audience), when you run ads the right way
You can run ads through ;
- Facebook ads
- Google ads
- Instagram ads
SALES FUNNELS
In as much as people are rational beings, they cannot be so easily persuaded.
It takes a whole lot to persuade someone, it’s psychological.
It’s also the same amount of time, it takes for a customer to buy your product.
What is a sales funnel?
A sales funnel is a series of processes through which your prospective customers will pass through before they buy from you.
This is done using the AIDA formulae above…
Awareness: This is the process whereby you create awareness for your affiliate product through social media platforms, websites and blogs…
It’s similar to the traffic sources treated above…
Interest: Once you’ve created awareness for your affiliate products, you create a desire/ interest in your leads( prospective customers), the best thing to do at that moment is to hook them by having a great sales pitch or offer, in order for you to fuel their decision to purchase your product.
Decision: This is the most crucial part of the sales process, your prospective customer’s decision to buy depends on the level of desire/interest that you’ve been able to create in them.
This is the stage in the sales process/funnel where you handle any objections that your prospective customers might have, as an affiliate marketer.
You have to be able to handle objections well as an affiliate marketer and you can only do that through proper product research.
Think of the scenario in a courtroom, when you want to handle objections.
You’re the lawyer defending the accused and it’s only the judge that can persecute.
It’s the same way you handle any objections your prospective customers might have on the product that you’re promoting.
You’re defending your affiliate product for the prospective customer to judge.
Action: This is the last part of the sales funnel process, where you close the sale and the customer purchases your product.
There are many types of sales funnel which include;
- Affiliate marketing funnel
- Webinar funnel
- and Others…
I’d buttress more on the types of sales funnels we have in my sales funnel series (SFS), where I’d be revealing and explaining the types of funnels and how they’ve helped me pull in massive figures over the years.
PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE
As I said earlier, affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
You need to have patience and put in the work..
You also need to persevere and be consistent if you want to see results in your affiliate marketing journey.
“Slow and steady wins the race“
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