What is Affiliate Marketing? And why everyone, should do it.
So for those who don’t know, Affiliate Marketing is the process of people, such as yourself, earning a commission by promoting other peoples products. It’s very simple to get started, and what most people don’t realize is that ALMOST every company has an affiliate/ambassador program.
The problem with most people’s affiliate marketing strategy is that they grab every link they can to try to earn money, promoting products they don’t believe in or, in many cases, products they don’t even use themselves. This is the wrong way to do affiliate marketing.
The correct way to go about this, is to not pursue affiliate marketing with the intent of making money but with the intent of connecting people with products you care about and believe in. That’s the number one principle I want to stress, only promote products you believe in.
Remember how I said ALMOST every company has an affiliate program, well this is where my belief that everyone should be doing affiliate marketing comes in to play. Think of all your favorite products, that you probably already recommend to people. Now think if you could earn a small commission for recommending those products you love to the world. Getting paid for something you are already doing sounds good to me.
Take this for example:
Your Favorite Products:
Facial Hair Care: Dollar Shave Club
Coffee: Madrinas Coffee
Shoes: Margarittaville
Software: Adobe
App: Flume
Drink: Bang
All very different products, from very different companies, all of which offer affiliate programs. This example helps reinforce the idea that ALMOST every company offers a program like this. You need to get started! You’re not going to get rich, but if you have substantial traffic, you can make quite a bit, and every bit counts. I see no reason why anyone wouldn’t want to make money for recommending products they love to other people.
How to Become an Affiliate?
Getting Started is easy enough. Take into account everything we have said above, and remember our example as a guide to get you started. Sit down, and think of products and companies you use on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis that you love so much you believe the world needs to know about and people need to buy it. Create a list of all your favorites, break it down into categories if that helps; such as favorite foods, Favorite Technology Company, Favorite Drink, Your Favorite shoe company, etc.
Once you have a list of all your favorites, simply go to google.com, type “YOUR FAVORITE COMPANY/PRODUCT” “Affiliate Program” and hit enter. No doubt a link will come up that will direct you to a page where you can register for an account as an affiliate, after which, you will gain access to unique links that you will use to direct people to landing pages of your favorite products where they can make a purchase. If they make a purchase, you make a commission on that sale. The programs will have dashboards where you can track your traffic and earnings so things are nice and organized.
How to Promote My Product Links?
You can promote your links in a number of different ways; on social media, websites and blogs, in person, anything you can think of. The most important aspect of promoting your links is to come off as genuine and organic as possible, the less it feels like an ad the better. Don’t just be posting your links saying; “but this!, buy this!”. Needs a little more finesse than that. You need to incorporate these products in to your content nonchalantly, its the best way to do it, although some influencers have forgot this and just run straight up ads for the products, we are looking at you Bang Energy Girls. This type of promotion can be looked at negatively as it reminds the user of the once organic no businesses presence ecosystem Instagram or Facebook use to provide.
So everything is about fluid organic product placement within your related niche content. This is why its so important to only promote products you believe in otherwise you come off looking like a d-bag.
Did We Miss Anything?
Affiliate Marketing is pretty straight forward, and anyone can get into it, and everyone should. You just gotta go about it the right way. Let us know if you have any questions or need help getting started, we are always here.