6 Figure Writer: Steps to starting your affiliate Marketing
As a writer, starting an online business, like any endeavour, can be tasking. However, one online business that is relatively easy for even an idiot to start is affiliate marketing.
With your knowledge of content writing and creation, you can start making good money selling products that are not even yours for a solid commission.
Affiliate marketing (for people who understand the business) is agreed to be one of the easiest online businesses to start. This online business model is growing in popularity. According to statistics, the industry will become an $8.2 Billion industry by the year 2022.
This is why you cannot miss out on this moneymaker, especially as an online content creator and writer.
Most businesses are employing the affiliate model of online marketing because it is cost-effective on their part.
Just imagine you started this online business a decade ago, you would presently be experiencing financial freedom. However, it’s never too late, the next best time is now!
So join me, as we examine ways you can make money with affiliate marketing as a writer and content creator.
Table of Contents
What is affiliate marketing?
If you are new to the term Affiliate Marketing, You might want to ask, what is Affiliate Marketing? Before I give you a complex definition of the term, let me simplify the term thus: Affiliate marketing is an online business and marketing model, where a person helps another person or business get a consumer to buy their service or product or take a certain action, in other to get a commission for their effort.
Now let examine an even more complex definition of the term, Affiliate Marketing.
According to Investopedia, Affiliate Marketing is an advertising model in which a company compensates third-party publishers to generate traffic or leads to the company’s products and services. The third-party publishers are affiliates, and the commission fee incentivizes them to find ways to promote the company.
To break it further down, I will use an illustration. Let assure Shop A deals in wristwatches, you as an affiliate will sign up for Shop A’s affiliate Marketing Program, you will be given the license to go ahead to promote their product. If you succeed in getting a sale, you earn a commission, depending on the percentage you agreed on with the shop owner.
How Does Affiliate Marketer Work For a writer?
As a content writer, you can write content that either entertain, inform or educate. This means you can shape the opinion of people concerning a topic, brand or product. It is even better if you can write persuasively.
And of course, you will agree with me that content is the currency of the internet. Your ability to create content will resonant with your audience and very much be your earning power.
All you have to do is to convince your audience, whether, blog readers, your subscriber or email list, to see reasons they should buy a product you are promoting.
After they buy the product, you earn a commission ranging from 5% to as much as 70% depending on the product and niche.
To help us answer the question, what is affiliate marketing and how does it work? Here are simple steps that explain how Affiliate Marketing works.
- Signing up for an affiliate platform
- Picking a niche
- Picking a product
- Promoting the product
- Earning commission from sales (See more details below)
Is Affiliate Marketing Worth it?
As a human, it is natural to what to question the validity of a claim. You might be wondering if it is possible to earn in top dollars consistently with this online business model.
Well, the snippets below point to the reason you should embrace Affiliate marketing now before you regret wasting precious time.
- Little or no startup fund
- You can start from anywhere in the world.
- You don’t need to own a product
- Anybody can start this business.
- It’s easy to scale
- The Knowledge of Affiliate Marketing can help you in other areas of your life.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing in 2021
As I stated earlier, starting an Affiliate marketing business is surprisingly very easy to start, however, some processes are required. You don’t have to be a guru in digital marketing or a sales expert (although these skills can help you) to start making good money in digital marketing.
If you follow the steps I’m about to share with you religiously, you are well on your way to join the ranks of affiliate marketers making it big in the online space.
Note: I am not saying it will be easy in the beginning, however, with consistency you will find your way to financial freedom. Please, underline the word, CONSISTENCY.
Pick A Niche
One mistake I made when I started with affiliate marketing was not picking a specific niche to start with. When you fail to pick a niche and stick to it, you will hardly be able to build an audience who trust you enough to buy the products that you promote.
Your niche could align with a topic you are passionate about or one that you are professionally conversant with.
Picking a niche helps you focus on building a community of people who share your ideas and passion and also offering products that solve their problems.
Create A Website/blog
A website is your online office, your blog is your consulting room. When you create a website or a blog, you are creating for yourself credibility. Your audience will find you via your blog through search engines. You can promote your product to them as they visit.
Although I usually advocate you start with a website, if you don’t have the resource to get a website, there are other ways to start. I will share this with you in a subsequent post.
Sign Up For Affiliate Programs and Platforms
At this point, you will need to sign up for affiliate marketing programs and platforms. All you have to do is to find platforms and programs in your niche. Some of the affiliate platforms are free to join.
Click here to see a list of top affiliate marketing platforms to Join.
Choose a product
When you are done signing up for the programs and platforms, you will have to choose a product that solves the problem of your audience, a Product you can defend. Advisably, a product you might have used yourself.
Create Content
You will need to create content that will educate, inform and entertain your readers about the topic in question. Afterwards, you will introduce this product to them. Products that will help them solve their problems.
The content you create could be in form of a product review, tutorial, How-to blog post, ebooks, resources pages, etc. This will help you engage with your prospects.
Share Your Content on Social media and Optimize for Search
This is the part where you distribute, repurpose and optimize your content so that it will be seen, either on social media or a search engine, like Google.com.
Types of Affiliate Product you can promote.
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Physical Product
If you sign up for the Amazon Affiliate program, Alibaba Affiliate, Jumia Affiliate program or product of stores and e-commerce businesses, you will be promoting physical products. The beauty of this is that you will not be concerned with delivering these products, all you have to do is to promote these goods with your unique link, when you get a sale, you are paid a commission.
The disadvantage of this is that the commission is usually very small compared to other types of product, you might earn as little as 5% for a product.
2. Information Products:
Information products include ebooks, courses, apps, books etc. in this case you can earn as high as 70% for these products. They are easy to promote.
3. Services
Services are online-based applications that require the user to pay for its use at intervals. When a user pays for these subscription-based applications, you earn as an affiliate.
The beautiful thing about this type of affiliate product is that you can earn recurring commissions when a user you referred renew their subscription.
How much can You make from Affiliate Marketing?
The possibility of earning from Affiliate Marketing is endless. You can make $0 to as much as millions of dollars. Some factors contribute to the amount you make. Here are some of the factors.
Niche
Some niches are viable and lucrative than some others, this is because people are naturally interested in this niche. In other words, this niche affects the life of people and people seemed to be desperate to solve the problem they contend with within these areas of their lives.
These niches include Finance, online Businesses, health niche, weight loss, sex and relationship. These niches are open fields for online money-making?
Product
The type of product you promote also determines your earnings. For instance, Service-based products tend to be more lucrative than others. This is because there is an opportunity to earn recurring commissions.
For instance, if you promote an email Marketing Service, like Get Response, you will earn for every sign up you get and also earn when accounts are renewed.
Price/Commission
Of course, you also earn based on the price of the product. If, for instance, you promote a product that cost $10, with a 20 per cent commission, you will not expect to earn as much as an affiliate marketer who promotes a $200 product with a 50% commission.
Size of audience
The size of your audience, email list or web visitors will affect your conversion. If you have a 1000 lead on your email list, you would not earn as much as a marketer who has up to 12000 prospects on his/her list.
Traffic
Traffic affects your conversion. The larger the traffic coming to your offer page the higher the likelihood that you will earn. You need to know that traffic is the vehicle on which online businesses run.
Understanding of online Marketing
Your understanding of Digital marketing can go a long way to help you in your affiliate marketing journey. You should know that affiliate marketing is a part of digital marketing.
Learn How to make Money With Digital Marketing Now!Skills To Learn As an Affiliate Marketer.
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Digital Marketing Skill
Digital Advertising skills like Facebook Marketing, YouTube Marketing, Digital Advertising, Search Engine Optimization etc. can help your affiliate marketing game. With these skills, you will know how to drive traffic to your offer page.
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Blogging
Your ability to create a website where you grow your audience through content marketing and engage your readers, will help you grow an audience that knows you, like you and trusts you.
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Content Writing
Content Writing is a very important aspect of your affiliate marketing efforts. With content writing, you will come up with reviews, tutorials, blog posts that will interest your reader. At the end of every post, you will encourage them to take certain actions with your persuasive CTA.
- Copywriting
Copywriting is a form of persuasive writing in which you try to influence your readers’ buying decisions. This skill is a form of online superpower when employed in your sales efforts. With it, you can persuade people to buy a product or take a certain action.
You don’t have to be a pro in copywriting, you just have to know how to influence people’s online behaviour.
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Email Marketing
Email Marketing is a digital marketing skill. For affiliate marketing, it is the most important skill you need to flourish. Every affiliate marketer or even digital marketer will agree with me on this.
Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Network
- Amazon Affiliate
- Click Bank
- Affiliate Future
- CJ Affiliate
- Revenue Wire
- Share A Sale
- Link Connector
- Flex Offer
- Shopify Affiliate Programme
- Avant Link
Top Affiliate Programme in Nigeria
- Expartnaire
- Learnoflex
- Jumia Affiliate Programme
- Konga Affiliate Programme
Best Ways To Learn Affiliate Marketing
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Learn For Free Online
There is a lot of online resources on the internet that would get your affiliate marketing career started. From blog posts to ebooks to YouTube, to podcasts etc. However, this might be enough for you as a newbie.
2. Take Courses
I will advise you to take a course. with a good course, you’ll get insider secrets that have helped top-performing affiliate marketers scale their businesses. Click here to see a course that will help you get started.
3. Get Mentorship Program
Mentorship programmes are the best among these three methods here. With this program, you not only learn but will also be held by the hand through the process of building an affiliate marketing business. Your mentors will hold you accountable so that you can quickly scale your business.
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