Affiliate marketing is simply online advertising which entails selling a product on behalf of a client (merchant) in exchange for a percentage (commission) of the profit made by the client.
This business can provide you with a steady flow of income. However, what you earn depends largely on how successful you are in converting your audience into buyers and service subscribers. It is cost effective and you can work from home or any location.
With affiliate marketing, you do not require a fortune or years of experience to get started. Although, it is also very competitive, but by choosing the right products, ensuring they meet market demand, and learning how to promote them, you can become successful at it.
Sounds easy, right? Well, to become a successful affiliate marketer, you would need to follow the steps below:
1. Find a niche
Start with these three basic steps:
- Find your audience,
- Analyze their challenges,
- Provide solutions and help them achieve their goals.
If you are unsure about what products and solutions your audience would need, carry out a research. Start with popular forums and websites in Nigeria. What are the most common questions people ask?
2. Become an Expert in your niche
Unlike the average site visitors, you should know about your niche before writing products reviews. Provide an honest descriptions and factual information. If a client is offering a free trials, ensure you sign up for a test.
It is advisable to start with the products or services you are familiar with. That way, you can easily share your own personal experiences. It’s harder building a website with the purpose of affiliate marketing when products are completely novel you.
3. Find affiliate programs to promote
Once you have a category of products selected, you can either sign up for affiliate networks or choose independent programs run by the merchants. Don’t choose advertisers based solely on the highest commission. There are a couple of important factors:
- Does the merchant have a good reputation and sell quality products? You wouldn’t like to promote a brand that puts your reputation on the line. If you wouldn’t buy it yourself or recommend it to your family, then don’t promote it. To be sure, check review websites and read testimonials from users.
- Does the merchant come off as reliable? You don’t want to promote the business that probably won’t be off shelves in a couple of months.
- Do you prefer high one-off commission or do you prefer making money on each payment your customers make? Be sure similar brands offer similar percentage. But whatever you do, do not fall for a very high commission and get–rich–quick promise.
- What performance model works best for you? Determine if you will be paid if there isn’t a lot of traffic on your website.
- Read and understand the terms and conditions and check for clauses in the agreement that you find unacceptable.
- How about reports? Will you be able to easily track your results?
4. Start promoting
You can simultaneously try out many traffic sources to improve your chances of making money:
- Banners: You can link images and banners to the merchant’s website. Focus on quality, not quantity. One well-placed banner is worth a thousand spread across the entire website.
- Social Media: Testimonials on Twitter and Facebook can bring great results, but you can also try other channels.
- Newsletters: Collect email addresses from your site visitors and inform them when a new post is published.
- Reviews: Share your personal opinion about a service or product. This will spur your visitors into patronizing you.
- Comparison posts: Who’s offering the best deal? What’s the difference between product A and product B?
- Tutorials: Listicles, tips and how-tos on product.
- Resource page: Recommend practical solutions.
- Ebook: If you happen to be a skilled writer and have interesting statistics or stories you’d like to share, you can publish an ebook. Then include your affiliate links in text or images.
- Be creative with new ideas.
Never forget that people come to your website or sign up to your newsletters to get solutions. Focus on your site visitors, the problems they may face, and proffer solutions. With this sole purpose in mind, you are more likely to get clicks on links.
Note: There are a lot of scams online. Whatever you do, stay away from any paid stuff that promises getting rich quick!