Putting your digital skills to work and getting paid has been one of the means of earning a passive income online. Affiliate marketing serves as one of those digital skills to earn you such income, in this article we would on what affiliate marketing is all about and how to get started.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
It is a way of earning commission through promoting another person or company’s product or service.
Affiliate marketing involves joining an affiliate platform, finding a good and reliable product to promote then sharing the product to your audience through your affiliate link.
Affiliate marketing is one of the cool ways of earning online. It does not require you to have a product or business of your own.
Those involved in the affiliate journey includes:
Affiliate Platform=The product or service=Affiliate marketer=The Audience
How Does Affiliate Marketing Works?
The first step is to join an affiliate platform
Get your unique ID and affiliate link to use when promoting a product or service
The affiliate link is used in your marketing effort to generate leads to the product owner’s website
When a potential buyer clicks on the link and sale is generated, the product owner is credited identifying your referral links as the source
Once the product owner finds the affiliate ID, the affiliate marketer is being credited
The product owner pays the affiliate commission at the end of all sales made
How to get started with affiliate marketing
Choose a good and reliable product: This is very important in your affiliate journey, as this would go a long way in making your affiliate marketing a success
You don’t want to go about promoting a product or services you know nothing about, in your affiliate journey, trust would help in building up an audience and you can only get this through providing solutions to their problems with your product.
There are two ways in which you choose a good product to promote:
By promoting a product you have used and have an experience about
By choosing a product to promote through an affiliate network: what this implies is promoting a product recommended by the affiliate network and also has a record of being reliable, but in doing this you must observe your due diligence by making research about the product owner, going through reviews on the product or purchasing the product yourself to get a first-hand experience. Example of product to promote on an affiliate platform includes: Digital product (online course, e-books, videos etc), Health product, Fitness product, Financial product, Software product, Beauty product and Travels. However, you are not limited to these examples, you can also look for a product suitable for your niche.
Set your affiliate profile up: This is done by providing your personal information on the affiliate platform and also your bank details to be credited when you close a sale.
Begin to promote your affiliate product: You go about this by positioning yourself as an authority, getting your prospective audience to know, like, and trust you. Ways to achieve this is by providing your audience with valuable content that would solve their problems. You can also share reviews about the product. Also, through a bonus offer, people get to pay more attention to you when you promise them an offer that can solve their needs without having to pay for it. When you get to do all of these, it helps you build trust and authority with your audience and this would make your affiliate business easy. The major reason for doing all of these is for you not to appear salesy to your audience. People have a way of not listening when they perceive you are all about making sales than helping them in solving their problem.
Go through all legal requirements provided by the affiliate platform and ensure to comply with the requirement
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is one of the ways of making passive income online. It’s achievable to earn with affiliate marketing from the comfort of your home.
Affiliate marketing is for anyone not for everyone, as it requires a lot of patience, consistency, and hard work. If you are looking for an easy and fast way to earn cash then affiliate marketing is not for you.
Affiliate marketing is an internet marketing skill and not a Ponzi scheme.
Finally, you get to make success with affiliate marketing when you are focused on creating value for your audience, providing solutions to their problem.
It is not just about selling and earning. It’s about building authority, earning trust, and creating value, providing all of these brings about the money because creating value brings about sales.
About the Author
Ogungbenro Rita is a digital marketing analyst, an online-prenuer who teach and help people to grow business. She is a growth addict.