Affiliate Marketing Basics for Beginners
Let’s start at the very beginning. What is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is when you promote others’ products and services in order to make commissions. It sounds simple, and while it’s easy to get started, reaching affiliate marketing success takes learning and planning.
So, as with launching any business, building your affiliate presence can be overwhelming, especially for brand new affiliate marketers. To make your first experience more straightforward, here is a short go-to guide on affiliate marketing.
1. Choose your niche
Before you get started with affiliate marketing,you’ll need to choose your niche. A niche is a highly-specialized market, which should be carefully and strategically selected when you’re new. A niche is important because it helps you to build an audience that is interested in your content. Choosing too many focus areas can confuse potential followers; it should be very clear what your website, channel, or messaging is about.
Examples of possible target markets are endless and can range from physical products like cosmetics to digital products like e-books and software. To discover what your ideal market niche is, you can start by asking yourself these basic questions:
- What am I really passionate about?
- Is this a niche in high demand? Is it profitable?
- Are there affiliate programs available in this niche?
2. Start promoting yourself
Once you have focused on a niche, you can start promoting products and earning income. But first, you’ll need to build an engaged audience and a strong online presence. To begin, you’ll want to promote yourself and your content on various channels such as a website (i.e., a blog), a YouTube channel, live streams, social media channels, and more. How you market your affiliate partnerships is up to you, but be sure that your audience is using the channels that you select. When setting up your online properties, think like your audience: where are they getting information? Where do they hang out online? What influences their purchase decisions?
Whatever online space you decide to commit to, start actively grabbing your audience’s attention by:
- Creating content. Put together a monthly editorial calendar where you can keep track of upcoming events, holidays, and other happenings and get ahead of content production. Keep a list of ideas for evergreen content you would like to create in your niche such as product review posts, thought leadership or opinion pieces, educational how-to’s, etc.
- Building on opportunities to get involved in your channels. Start conversations with your audience. For example, always reply to comments and direct messages. Keeping an active presence is essential. You can also hold a webinar or do a live stream product review. Focus on connecting with your audience.
- Allowing for conversations and messaging. Set up ways for your audience to comment upon, ‘like,’ and share your content. Easy communication is essential to growing your online visibility. Always responding to messages from your audience can lead to content collaboration, partnerships, or simply a more loyal audience base.
Remember, your audience can sense when someone is just trying to make a “quick buck.” Make sure your content is genuine and helpful for your audience and prospects and ensure that you’re providing valuable, entertaining, or useful content outside of your affiliate promotions.
3. Build your audience
All new affiliate marketers should focus on targeting and building their audience.
No affiliate marketer can succeed at selling a product or service if he or she doesn’t have a substantial and engaged following. Some ways to grow your audience are:
- By implementing social media marketing
- By researching and understanding strategic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- By email marketing and nurturing leads towards upsells and product recommendations
4. Produce winning content
No matter what platform you’re using for affiliate marketing, producing winning content is a top priority, and monitoring activity and conversations is a close second.
Here are some ways to be sure you’re delivering value to your intended audience:
- Monitor social media closely (i.e., observe the latest trends and social cues for content ideas).
- Get to know your audience actively (i.e., read and respond to reviews and comments).
- Optimize your content for search engines (make sure it is formatted properly and uses search-optimized keywords). This way, new audiences can find you organically.
5. Start promoting affiliate links
Once you’ve grown your audience and delivered plenty of value through content, it’s finally time for you to start promoting affiliate links (YAY!). You can promote affiliate links in a number of ways—all of which will depend on the channel you’re using and what you’re selling. However, before you can begin selling, it’s recommended you spend time researching the various affiliate programs available to you.
If you’re just starting affiliate marketing, Fiverr Affiliates is a great place to begin.
Join Fiverr Today
Fiverr is the world’s largest marketplace for digital services, and the Fiverr Affiliate Program is an excellent way for you to earn commission by promoting its services through a shareable link. It’s great for new affiliate marketers because it provides professional support, maximizes your earnings, and includes high-performing creative assets to help you promote your product or service.
Want to become a Fiverr Affiliate? Join today!