Smart Affiliate Marketing Strategies | 5 Suggestions

Smart Affiliate Marketing Strategies | 5 Suggestions

Congratulations, you found a product you would like to promote, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.  So now you have to do some marketing.  I have outlined a few smart affiliate marketing strategies that you might find helpful.  In fact here are 5 suggestions you can incorporate in your marketing strategies.

Before I outline the 5 suggestions, I can’t overlook the 2 most important rules.

THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT RULES FOR AFFILIATE MARKETING

Before I share the marketing strategies that I’ve used to generate affiliate commissions, there are two extremely important rules I use when promoting products that are not my own. You don’t have to use these rules in order to become an affiliate or be successful, but it’s what has helped me grow my affiliate income over the last couple of years:

1. I only recommend products as an affiliate that I’m extremely familiar with—preferably products that I’ve used and have helped me achieve some success. If I’m not confident in the product and I don’t feel it will positively help people, I will not promote it.
2. I never directly tell anyone to buy a product. I always recommend products based on my experience.

Keep these two rules in mind whenever you are promoting and affiliate product.

Here’s why so many people are going into affiliate marketing.

THE BEAUTY OF AFFILIATE MARKETING IS THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO INVEST THE TIME AND EFFORT TO CREATE A PRODUCT TO SELL. YOU CAN BEGIN OFFERING SOMETHING AS AN AFFILIATE AS SOON AS YOU HAVE A PLATFORM TO SELL IT ON.

EASY MONEY WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING?

While affiliate marketing can be incredibly lucrative it is important to know that affiliate marketing is not easy money.  Success with affiliate marketing relies upon numerous factors:

• traffic (high traffic helps a lot)
• finding relevant products (products you like)
• finding quality products (no fad, no cheap products)
• building trust with your readers (big one)
• having readers who are in a ‘buying mood’ (trust)
• you being able to write good copy (practice)

A word about good copy; if you are not a good copy writer…practice.  Learn how to write good copy.  It will take time and practice but believe me it is worth the time and effort.  I was not good at copy writing and even today, I learn something new.  Practice…practice….practice.

5 SUGGESTION ON SMART AFFILIATE MARKETING STRATEGIES:

1. Picking Your Niche

By picking your niche means to sell the products according to your area of interest. You should select a niche according to your expertise. For example if you are a landscaper you will be more comfortable to promote products associated with lawn equipment, lawn furniture, lawn care… rather than some off beat gadgetry.

2. Do Your Homework

Before signing up with any affiliate company you need to do your homework.  Who is the affiliate company?  Know the product or products you are promoting.  How is the commission structured? What type of support does the affiliate company offer?  Is their brand recognized?

If you are signing up with an affiliate marketing company, do they offer training/coaching?  Who are the leaders?  What are their background?  Are they growing?  Do they have a beginner package and advanced programs?  What type of training or coaching format do they offer?

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My personal recommendation on the top professional program available.

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3. Choosing An Affiliate Program For Your Blog

When choosing an affiliate program you need to make a thorough research in affiliate marketplace as to which affiliate marketing program is performing well basing on your blog style. It is also important to be aware of the latest products publishing in blogs of your niche. So that you remain updated with your blog.

4. Signing Up With An Affiliate Company

After selecting your niche, something you like and want to promote,  you need to sign up with the affiliate company who is offering that niche. Signing with an affiliate company, most will not have a cost associated with it.  Make sure you know what you are getting and if there are any restrictions.  Of course, you need to know your commission on the sale.

After signing you will receive a tracking line or an affiliate ID, and from then onwards while promoting that company’s product, you will offer that affiliate link to direct the buyer to the company’s website or product offering.

5. Are the Product or Products In High Demand?

It doesn’t make sense to offer a product that no one wants.  Like wise, offering a “fad” product may make you money in the short term, but long term?  Choose a product that has a high demand, easy to offer and appeals to many.  The broader your audience, the more sales and the more money you will make.

A word of caution:  Do not be too broad in your niche.  You want to narrow your audience to a “Buying Audience.”  For example:  Your niche is “Weight Lost”….way to broad.  Narrow weight lost down to “Weight Lost In Men”  “Weight Lost In Women” “Weight Lost Exercise for Men/Women”  “Weight Lost Foods for Teenage Girls”

Narrow your niche to a specific targeted audience.  Use the “Rifle” approach rather than the “Shotgun” approach.

UNIVERSAL APPEAL

After years of trial and error, I have found that the universal appeal are educational products, health related products, financial products and “How To.”  Security & surveillance equipment is on the rise.  Smart TVs, and smart hubs for Smart Homes.  Drones have really grown in popularity.  Virtual reality products are finally taking off.

Tips for the Future

Being an affiliate, you should always stay updated with the current market trends. Many of the products and services that you choose might have a short-lived trend and will soon become irrelevant. It is best that you keep a close watch on the viability of the products and the things that work best for your affiliate business.

More importantly, if you want to make things easy and validate what you see online, use tools like Google Trends or popular and best selling products on marketplaces like Amazon.

6th Marketing Strategy

If here were a 6th marketing strategy it would be Blogging.  Now don’t forget social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and others.  However, the power of a blog is that you can produce a well written blog today and that article will remain around for years.

In fact many professional bloggers will say that they still get followers and/or sales from a blog post they wrote many years ago.

AFFILIATE MARKETING WORKS WELL WITH BLOGS

Affiliate marketing and a blog is a great way to make money and a good blogger can be profitable with this format. Perhaps the biggest of these reasons is that affiliate marketing seems to work best when there’s a relationship and trust between the affiliate (you) and their readership.

I’ve found that as this trust deepens that readers are more likely to follow the recommendations that a blogger makes.

Of course this can also be a negative with affiliate marketing – promote the wrong product and trust can be broken.

Trust is extremely important.  Provide good well written sales copy to your readers will build trust you need to make a recommendation (Notice I Didn’t Say SELL).  That trust will result in sales and commissions.

A word about good sales copy;  If you are not a good copy writer…practice.  Learn how to write good copy.  It will take time and practice but believe me it is worth the time and effort.  I was not good at copy writing and even today, I learn something new every day.  Practice…practice….practice.

Do I consider myself a good copy writer?  NO!  However the more I write, the more I learn, the more I study copywriting the better I have become.

Just today, I learned some new tips on Alt Tags.

A STUDY IN BLOGGING

Take the blogger who is offering weight loss to their readers.  Do you think they would be interested in how to write good copy?  Of course.

How about the blogger who is just starting and needs information on “How To Blog.”  Do you think they would be interested in knowing more about how to blog?

What if the blogger wants to know more about on how to promote the product and blog on video.  Do you think they would be interested in a Video How To?  Of course.

Educational products have a universal appeal across many aspects of people’s interest.  The smart affiliate marketeer will have these type of products to offer to the readers.

Blogging and making mistakes go hand-in-hand.  Remember this an on-going learning method of marketing.  Learning from your mistake is a valuable lesson.

Here is how to avoid 13 common mistakes.

It is also worth nothing if your blog style or approach does not match the product or products you are promoting.  For example:  If your product is all about weight loss or how to lose weight or any kind of  weight lost programs, don’t blog about how to build a bird house (extreme example).

Your blog style and blog articles must stay with the theme of your products.

CONCLUSION

Affiliate marketing, with its unique set of advantages has brought many people into the affiliate business. This boom in affiliate marketing has resulted in record sales by people such as you and me.

There are rules to be a smart affiliate marketer.  The smart marketer will use proven tools and knowledge to build a Successful Affiliate Marketing Business.

In my years of marketing, I have offered various products.  Some were good and some were ????  But I found that I can always offer help and advice to a wider audience by using training, educational and “How To” products.

There’s also some risk associated with affiliate marketing in that if you push too hard or promote products of a low quality you can actually burn readers and hurt your reputation and brand.

With the low start-up, low overhead, starting part-time with a full-time income, ability to work form home and no product development to worry about, affiliate marketing is a perfect business.

— You do need to promote a product or products your interested in or have experience with.  Never “sell” a product, but instead “recommend”a product.

— You should promote a product or products that are in demand.  Use social media as part of your marketing strategy such as: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest….

— Blogging has many advantages, it is a flexible method of marketing and promoting your affiliate product with ease and comfort of your home at any time and your convenience.

— Affiliate marketing and blogging are a perfect fit.  Produce a high quality blog post or article and that article will be on the Internet for years.

However, to produce a quality blog post, you need to be good at copywriting.  How do you become good?  Practice…Practice….Practice….

Also pick of some good books or article on copywriting.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this article:  THE BEAUTY OF AFFILIATE MARKETING IS THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO INVEST THE TIME AND EFFORT TO CREATE A PRODUCT TO SELL. YOU CAN BEGIN OFFERING SOMETHING AS AN AFFILIATE AS SOON AS YOU HAVE A PLATFORM TO SELL IT ON.

Affiliate marketing is a win-win situation:  Your blog readers benefit from your recommendation on the product, the affiliate company benefits from the sale and you benefit with making money.  Thus, it’s a win win situation for all, the advertiser, the affiliate and the consumer.

Your advantage with affiliate marketing are many.  Here are just a few:

• No product development
• No Inventory to stock
• No shipping cost
• Low cost to start
• No risk
• Work from home
• Easy
• Good commission structure (do your home work here)
• No long term commitment
• More

Before starting affiliate marketing business its disadvantages should also be taken under consideration:

• It takes time and commitment.  Many amateur marketers are looking for a quick buck…affiliate marketing is not one of those.
• Choosing a niche is and can be difficult.  Choosing the wrong niche can be costly in your time commitment.
• Unfortunately there are affiliates that may engage in false advertisements to mislead the buyer only to get a commission.

Affiliate marketing with all its advantages and disadvantages is still one of the best home based online businesses. Its advantages can be overcome easily by taking simple security checks and measures.

My Affiliate Program just happens to be Wealthy Affiliate.  I found this program works for me since I like offering help and advice.  The commission program is excellent, the support and coaching is what I wanted and needed and the management team are the top people in the industry.

Wealthy Affiliate is known in the affiliate marketing community as the top learning program available, plus the only program to offer a FREE 7-Day Starter Package.

I have outlined a few smart affiliate marketing strategies that you might find helpful.  In fact I outlined 5 suggestions you can incorporate in your marketing strategies.

Your next article to read are:

Internet Marketing Is A Plan and Success Comes With A Plan

Why You Should Start Affiliate Marketing Business

Click this link to be taken to:  “Here Are 10 Rules To Be A Smart Affiliate Marketer.”

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Here’s to your success with the  Smart Affiliate Marketing Strategies,