Just a few years ago things like digital freelancing, e-commerce, affiliate marketing, and other techniques to make money online were considered part-time occupations or things that couldn't form the basis of a practical replacement for a day job or a career in the real world. The way the internet has changed in the past few years and the way people have shifted to using the internet for even the most basic things has changed this idea and made the internet lifestyle a reality for people all around the world.
The biggest factor in this change is the volume of people that are now online. Today more than half of the world's population is using the internet on a daily basis and there are barely any places left on earth that are inhabited by humans, that do not have internet access and are not home to internet users. For this reason, a lot of companies have also started focusing on digital marketing and there are countless businesses that rely solely on the internet to market themselves, sell products, receive payments, and carry out every other function that a business needs to.
This is a fantastic opportunity for creative-minded people that have an entrepreneurial spirit and want to get started building a business with close to no investment. Affiliate marketing is a very powerful way to make money online and it is only going to grow in capability as more people look to the internet and more businesses seek out digital platforms that are able to push their products and services out into the world. Affiliate marketing is all about earning a commission from promoting products and making sales through digital platforms. We've curated a few tips that will help you do this more efficiently.
Have Plenty Of Content
Affiliate marketing requires content, not just the affiliate content but also regular content that is going to help build credibility. Just like you wouldn't want to buy from a store that you know nothing about or a store that isn't doing anything to prove that they are a reliable vendor, plain affiliate content without more will not be enough to win you customers. When you first launch your website, YouTube channel, social media page, or any other platform for affiliate marketing the focus should first be on building credibility rather than generating sales. Revenue will be a byproduct of how positively customers perceive your business.
A good approach is to create a good amount of content before you actually publish the website. Keep in mind that it takes time for material to get indexed on Google and consequently get ranked in search results. When you publish an empty website you are giving the search engine nothing to rank you for. Publishing a website loaded with engaging and informative content will start the ranking process and then you can continue to add content as you grow.
Direct Relationship With The Audience
While social media platforms do facilitate a huge amount of traffic, you also need to have a more direct relationship with your audience. For instance, if you are using a Facebook page to monetize your traffic you are completely dependent on Facebook to give you traffic, and more importantly, your business becomes dependent on how Facebook is functioning. A single change in how the algorithm works could compromise your entire business or at least require you to go through extensive restructuring to meet new demands.
Ideally, you should be using these different platforms to generate traffic and then funnel this onto a different platform where you have greater control, for instance, your own website. Even on your website, you want to make sure you are personally connected to each individual that you interact with. This can be done by working on your email list. When you contact people through their inbox you aren't facing any competitor ads and it is a relationship that is going to last as long as they are on your subscriber list and still using that email.
Product Knowledge
Today, customers are more focused on quality than they are on price. When seeking any kind of professional, the customers' aim is to get the best quality service rather than get it at the cheapest possible rate. Quality is a byproduct of information and knowledge about the product or service.
This is what you want to demonstrate to the client: that you are knowledgeable about what you do. Especially in industries that are high-risk or require a substantial investment, gaining customer trust is critical. If you want to earn a good passive income from real estate affiliate programs you need to not only have the right programs, but you also need to show that you are the best person in the business to get people to pay the premium price and buy what you want them to buy. Clients looking for a home or any other kind of property will naturally spend quite a bit of time studying the market and different realtors that they can work with so it is important that you stand out from the crowd as a professional and competent individual or company.
Use Multiple Affiliate Programs
Amazon is undoubtedly the market leader in the affiliate marketing business. There are just so many products and it has such a huge audience that it is the quickest and easiest platform for an affiliate marketer to join. However, this influence and notoriety doesn’t automatically mean it is the most profitable. In fact, Amazon is one of the least profitable affiliate programs you can join as their average commission rate is between 3%-8%. In a worst-case scenario, it can be down to 1% and in a best-case scenario would be 20%. This gives you all the more reason to look into different affiliate programs.
Be Open
One of the most important things that build trust in any kind of relationship is being transparent. Being honest and straightforward with your customers will not drive them away. Instead, it will cement their confidence in you and will make them that much more likely to continue supporting your business. A lot of affiliate sellers make the mistake of not openly mentioning that they are affiliates that are promoting a product. Later, when the customer goes through with a purchase and they find out that the link they followed was an affiliate link, it makes them a little uncomfortable.
Even though the price of the product remains the same (if anything, they will probably have gotten a better deal going through an affiliate link) it still tells them that they weren't told the full truth and this makes you, the seller, seem like an unreliable option. In such a case a client is very unlikely to refer you to other people nor should you expect them to come back to give you more business. Be open about it and state clearly on the pages that you are selling as an affiliate that you will be earning a small kickback if the buyer chooses to go through with a purchase.
Additional Customer Benefits
Another thing that you can do to win the customers' trust is to look for ways to give the customer a better deal than they can find anywhere else on the market. Generally, when a company offers you an affiliate link to share with your customers the price of the product or service will be slightly lower than the market. However, you can also ask the seller if they have any discounts, coupons, or special deals that they can offer customers to make the price even better on your personal affiliate link.
A lot of companies will be running promotions anyway and you can easily get them to sync a promotion with your affiliate link. This will make your affiliate link that much more valuable for the customer, but it will also show them that you are going above and beyond to facilitate them and get them a better deal if they do business with you.
Reviews And Tutorials
If you want to develop authority, enhance the customer experience, and also earn money from other monetization sources, then create reviews and tutorials on your affiliate website. This will give the customers the knowledge they need, it will establish you as an authority on search engine results and through the additional traffic, you can also earn more money through things like Google Adsense or Ezoic.
This will help in both building an audience and also retaining an audience after the purchase. Before people make purchases, they will use your reviews and tutorials to find the right product for them and after the purchase, they will have access to your website that they can use to learn about the product or service. If you want to take it a step further, you could even branch out into making video tutorials and video reviews and then linking those to your affiliate blogs. It’s all about giving customers a complete experience and making them want to stay on your site.
Affiliate marketing has always been a great way to make money without having to reinvent the wheel. It is an even more viable option today with how vast the internet has become and how many people are using the internet to buy and sell things on a daily basis. The key to making the most out of an affiliate program is finding out what the customers’ pain point is and addressing that issue better than how your competition has. However, it’s also important to keep a long-term approach and stay flexible and adaptable to the ever-changing market trends.
Aidan has been writing about personal finance for over 6 years. Prior to this, he worked as a Corporate Finance Analyst where he specialized in Due Diligence, Company Valuations and more. He is a CFA charterholder.
