Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make passive income online and it’s also beginner friendly. But you’ve to uncover every secret which super affiliates is using to earn top dollars on the internet in order to hit a home run.
Frankly speaking, affiliate marketing business is not as
easy as many gurus would want you to believe. It’s even getting harder by the
day when you try to make money with affiliate marketing without building an
email list of subscribers in the process because of cutthroat competition in
every niche you may decide to venture into on the World Wide Web.
If you really want to experience affiliate marketing success
on a large scale as soon as you get started, you’ve to take a close look at
these top business secrets which I’ll be sharing with you shortly in this blog
post. Over the years, I’ve been a fan and keen observer of so many affiliate
marketers who know their onions and are consistently making money online, month
in and month out.
So, I’ve decided to spill the beans and distill every
information you need to make money online by simply promoting merchants’ products
and services for affiliate commissions. Come with me and learn one or two
online business success secrets which you can take to the bank any day and at
any time without breaking a sweat.
Secret
#1: Use, Show and Tell Your Readers About an Affiliate Product
In today’s marketplace, it’s no longer business as usual.
Every potential buyer or prospect is getting wiser and wiser by the day when
they read product reviews by fake affiliate marketers and snake oil salesmen
and women who are promoting products and services they have never used or
tested or know little or nothing about its efficacy.
Buyers are very wary now and they only want to identify with
affiliate product promoters who can prove the efficacy or otherwise of a
product they are promoting. The only way to get this done is to use the product
yourself, prove its usefulness or otherwise and then go ahead to promote it “as
is”.
I simply tag this system of promoting affiliate products to
prospects and leads as “use, show and tell” to your readers the benefits of
what you are selling on behalf of your vendors and merchants. Let’s consider a
personal example. My money sites, blogs and niche websites are hosted with HostGator web hosting services.
Because I’ve been using HostGator hosting for a long period
of time to host my blog websites, I can tell a lot about them to my subscribers
and even show them my invoices from HostGator if need be.
This way, any aspiring blogger or online entrepreneur who
wants to build a website or create a blog will be convinced of what I’m saying
or writing about HostGator website hosting company. Gone are the days of
selling affiliate products from the sidelines with strong copywriting skills and
then cleverly making money online without anything about the product or service.
Even till this present day, Pat Flynn who is the owner of SmartPassiveIncome.com
blog uses this method of using an affiliate product or service before promoting
it and he has been successful at it. He used this method to promote CovertKit
affiliate product so well that he has been making tidy sum of affiliate
commissions from it over the years.
Personally, I’ve only used GetResponse email marketing
software and not ConvertKit to build an email list of subscribers. So, it will
be out of the way for me if I’m trying to promote ConvertKit on my blog and
writing product review about it when I’ve never subscribed to it. This is how
to make money with affiliate marketing business with peace of mind.
The question now is, “Must you buy or use every affiliate
product before promoting it?” The answer is yes and no, and I’ll explain it to
you for clarity. Using before promoting every product places you in pole
position to sell that product with confidence.
Imagine yourself selling an affiliate product such as an
ebook on personal finance. If you’ve bought and used it, you can write a
product review and refer to specific pages in the PDF ebook for emphasis. For
example, you can say in page 50 of the electronic book, the author clearly
outlined 10 tips to pay off your debt without borrowing.
From making use of an affiliate product, you’ll be able to understand
the strengths and weaknesses inside out of the product or service which can be
a guide, ebook, video, app, software, e-course, and so on. The essence is
telling the “true and fair view” of any product or service without any hype or
bogus claims.
From your personal experience of using a product or service,
you’ll be able to know the pros and cons of it. This way, your product review
will not be filled with vain philosophies, abstract commentaries, or fiction
narrations.
This is why the Federal Trade Commission which is a federal
agency in the United Staes of America is aggressively scouting for online
businesses using deceptive marketing tactics of any kind or type to fleecing
the unsuspecting consumers.
Secret
#2: Create a Blog to Promote an Affiliate Product
An easy way to promote an affiliate product and make money
on the internet is to create a blog and use it to sell complementary products
and services from time to time. Your big break will come from building a niche
blog around complementary affiliate products and services you’ve used, signing
up with merchants and vendors who own these products as an affiliate publisher,
and then promoting and selling these products on their behalf to earn affiliate
commissions.
It’s very easy to achieve success this way because potential
buyers and users want to hear your personal story about the product or service
before they buy because they don’t want to take a leap in the dark. And as a
matter of fact, you’ll never be short of blog post ideas to create content targeting
these affiliate products you are promoting because it will become a second
nature and your forte.
You’ve to know that investing money, time and effort in
affiliate marketing business is real. It’s not a business of getting rich quick,
or Pyramid or Ponzi schemes of any type. Creating a blog or building a website
will cost you money, learning digital skills, time, and effort to succeed.
For instance, you’ve to know how to register a domain name and be able to set up name servers to
point to your web hosting servers when you buy web hosting and set up your blog
or build your website on your domain from your cPanel account dashboard, and so
on.
However, with less than $100 budget for a start, you can successfully
build an affiliate website and make money on the internet. Although there are no
hard and fast rules on how to start affiliate marketing business and make
money, it’s still important you approach it professionally and treat it as a real
business even if it is your side hustle.
Promoting affiliate products without a website is possible
but not sustainable. If you want to learn how to make passive income online
without breaking a sweat, get web hosting services
in place, create a WordPress blog on your domain name, consistently create and
publish high quality blog posts and monetize your blog with affiliate product
links. You’ll thank me later.
Secret
#3: Build an Email List of Subscribers
If you regularly hear webmasters, marketers and bloggers
saying that money is in the list, there is good reasons for it. Getting
attention on the internet as a business owner is a matter of building
relationship that lasts. And the best way to build relationships with your
prospects is to set up a list building system.
You can do this with reliable email marketing software.
There are lots of email marketing automations which you can subscribe to, but
some are better than others in terms of pricing, ease of use, reliability, and
so on.
If you are working on a shoestring budget and you need
reliable list building software, you can start with GetResponse email marketing
software from this link. There is a free
trial for a period of 30 days for you to get things running smoothly.
Secret
#4: Become an Influencer in Your Niche
Believe it or not, influence sells. Influencer marketing is
the rave of the moment now because a lot of online shoppers follow the
bandwagon effect. Becoming an influencer and using it as a veritable springboard
to promote affiliate products and services is a big winner.
As a matter of fact, there are many benefits that will
accrue to you as an influencer. You can use your social influence to sell any
product you endorse as long as it meets the needs of your target audience.
Firstly, you’ll be privy to new product launches because
vendors will be well disposed to enlisting you as their pioneer promoter and
endorser. This will facilitate your effort of selling more copies of the
affiliate product.
Secret
#5: Create Great Content for Your Target Audience
Great content is what makes the internet thick. Majority of
internet users pass links around to their family and friends when they watch
video or read article that is educative, entertaining, or informational. If you
are good at creating stellar content that resonates with your target audience,
you’re in for a great ride.
You’ve to research and know your audience and where they are
on the customer journey so that you can tailor your blog posts, videos, ebooks,
etc, to their needs. You’ve to also understand the search intent funnel such as
informational, commercial, transactional, local or navigational.
You can continue to use your constant content to nurture
your followers and fans. When you publish high-quality content always, it will
be easy for you to use it to back your affiliate product recommend without
looking too salesy.
Having a mix of different types of web content will bring in
more targeted traffic to your website on a consistent basis. The types of
content you should consider will include how to articles, tutorials, ebooks,
videos, guides and blueprints, special reports, product reviews, listicles,
products comparison, case studies, social media content, landing page content,
email messages, and so on.
In conclusion, adopting and using these my top five secrets
to affiliate marketing success will obviously catapult your side hustle income
to greater heights without fail.
