Get Your Free Affiliate Marketing Machine Report...
Just enter your details in the form below and we'll send you the free bonus resource that goes with this article.
Just enter your name and email below to get instant access!
Affiliate
6 Product Types You Can Promote As An Affiliate Blogger
A common question that comes up for affiliate bloggers is…
“What kind of products or services should I actually promote?”
Of course, this is dependent on your niche. The short answer is that you should promote things that your readers actually want, and hopefully, need!
Products that help to solve issues, elicit an emotion (recalling a memory, making others laugh, etc.), or that meets a need are the best ones to promote.
Yes, items that people just “want” are also excellent choices, but if you want your site to rock out the sales, focus on the aforementioned.
Sticking with products that have worked for you, that you’ve tested for yourself, that come from reputable brands, and that are evergreen (unless you have a seasonal blog) are also good “rules of thumb” to follow.
All of the information I’ve given you thus far is useful in general, but now let’s speak about specific product types.
Services Offering Recurring Commissions
This is listed first because I want you to go find as many of these as you can. Being an associate for items that pay recurring commissions is fantastic because you sell it once and get paid again and again. This is the closest thing to passive income you can get.
Now, depending on your niche, you will be able to find these types of products and how many there are, but for most niches, you should have at least a few possibilities. Because certain niches have numerous alternatives, you could have several of these functioning for you at the same time. Consider having three, four, five, or more of these programmes paying you every month.
People tend to pay for services longer than any other form of recurring product you might promote, therefore services are the ideal option for this.
Make a list of all the services you think that individuals in your niche would want to use. You may also do a Google search for “your niche + service” to find some that you might not have considered.
Once you’ve compiled your list, look for affiliate networks that offer those services and start promoting them on your site.
Membership Sites Offering Recurring Commissions
I just got you all pumped up about recurring commission affiliate programmes, so let’s move on to another type of programme. The membership type.
Again, depending on your niche, this may or may not be a possibility for you, but you can find these by searching on Google for “your niche + membership site or “your niche + membership.”
Look to see whether they offer affiliate programmes that you may join once you’ve found them. If you don’t see anything that indicates they do, simply contact the site’s owner and inquire. Many will likely say yes!
Find as many as you can and start promoting them for many recurring income streams.
Digital Products
This is my favourite type of product to promote because the commissions are usually the highest. Whereas a lot of physical products (which we’ll speak about next) pay extremely small commissions (like 1% to 5%), digital products can pay you anywhere from 30% to 100% of the transaction in some niches.
Ebooks, software, courses, pintables, and other types of downloadable products are types of digital products.
Return to Google and begin searching for digital products in your niche. Look for all of the product kinds I described above, and then check if any of them offer affiliate programmes.
You can uncover a number of these types of products to promote as an affiliate in a lot of niches.
Books
Even in this digital age, many people like to hold a physical book in their hands and read it. If you have written a blog post about a particular topic, see if there is a book about it that you can recommend.
This can be as simple as going to Amazon and doing a topic search. Then simply grab your Amazon Associates link for it and include it as a tip for additional reading in your posts.
This is a terrific strategy for popular topics for which you want to develop content but can’t find a product to promote and profit from as an affiliate.
Physical Products
Because there are so many physical things out there, and so many affiliate programmes for them, this is a really broad product category.
Only promote physical products that you have personally used and liked, or that have benefited you in some way. There’s no need to promote a tangible product merely for the sake of promoting it when there are so many other options available.
Although it is not a requirement, recommending things that you have used and enjoy will almost certainly earn you more money.
There are now a number of affiliate marketplaces where you can look for physical products. ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, and the ever-popular Amazon Associates programme are just a few examples.
Do a quick search on these or go back to Google, and you’ll find that there are many options to choose from.
Food
One thing that we all have in common is that we all eat food, and most of us enjoy eating, therefore this is an excellent product to market.
Aside from obtaining your Amazon Associates connection for different sorts of food you write about or recommend, many businesses now offer cooked food delivered to your door, food boxes with everything you need to cook, shopping boxes, and speciality food boxes.
If you’re not in the food niche, this is an often-overlooked type of product to promote as an affiliate, but you’d be surprised how well you can work your affiliate links into this type of product.
So there you have it! As an affiliate blogger, there are just six ideas of products you can promote. Although not every product type may be available to you due to the type of niche you’re in, you should always be on the lookout for new things to promote in order to keep the money coming in from your site!
Follow these affiliate marketing tips, and you’ll be on the way to becoming a successful affiliate marketer in no time. And if you want to know more about affiliate marketing check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
5 Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing
We are living in the age of technology and information. The world is basically a global village thanks to different communication platforms such as social media sites and mobile telephony.
Affiliate marketing is a concept that has been built primarily on the platform of information communication and technology. What are some of its benefits?
Low Investment
To the entrepreneur, marketing costs are considered a necessary evil because they consume a lot of resources but still have to be incurred all the same. You can’t create brand awareness and increase the number of sales without properly investing in product marketing.
Internet marketing has provided businesses with a great way of running marketing campaigns while cutting down on costs.
Affiliate marketing is even better at this because you only pay the affiliates or publishers depending on the number of sales made. Without creating conversions, the affiliates earn no pay and the business does not incur unnecessary expenses.
Efficient
Using minimal resources, you can reach a high number of customers. The program is efficient because it makes use of the internet and social media sites that are frequented by several potential customers.
The traditional methods are expensive and may not even reach the target market. A consumer is more likely to notice an advertisement on the internet as opposed to other media such as billboards and radio.
Work From Home
It’s always nice to be your own boss. The challenge that most people and especially young people face is the lack of capital to start a new venture. Affiliate marketing does not need any premises or capital to start.
As long as you have a computer and access to the internet, you can be well on your way to self-employment and financial freedom.
It is an ideal way to generate capital and also find your footing as you begin your journey to self-employment. It is also a perfect home-based business that can give you some good income.
Little Or No Experience
Once you learn the basic concepts of affiliate marketing, you can succeed in it as long as you are willing to put in work and learn along the way.
You don’t have to possess experience to successfully participate in an affiliate program. There are a lot of resources available even on the internet to help you find your way through.
Track Marketing Campaign Effectiveness
It is very difficult to determine the exact impact of most marketing campaigns but with the affiliate program, that is very much possible. A marketing team can keep track of the sales generated as a result of the marketing efforts and change strategies if the situation warrants it.
It is always important to assess the direct impacts of a marketing campaign because if that is not done, a company may spend a lot of resources for nothing.
It is also possible to get instant feedback from customers and that helps so much in improving customer service by designing products and services that match their preferences.
These are some of the benefits of the affiliate marketing program that merchants, publishers and even customers can get to enjoy.
So, as you can see, affiliate marketing is an incredibly viable online business model and if you want to get started, then you need to start using your blog…
How To Run Successful Affiliate Marketing Campaigns On Your Blog
A blog is fairly easy to set up. The most important thing is usually the functionality. Will visitors find it easy to access the content that they need? Will they find the content useful? How easy is it to use the different icons available on the site?
These are some basic questions that one must ask before setting up a blog. It therefore calls for a user-friendly interface that can appeal to the different types of people that access your blog on a regular basis.
Over the last five years, blogs have become very popular. Not only have they given several aspiring content creators a platform to grow their talent, they are also a part of social media that makes communication and reaching of a target audience easier.
What are some of the principles to observe when using your blog to run affiliate marketing campaigns?
Create A Good First Impression
What sort of vibe will visitors receive when they first visit your blog? This is important because it sets the entire tone for subsequent engagements.
Good first impressions will encourage visitors to read the blog content and even click on the affiliate links.
You therefore also have to focus on the design so that it’s attractive and user-friendly. Too many cluttered advertisements send the wrong signals to visitors. The first thing that will come to mind is that you are only after making money. Let the headlines and lists portray the blog as a place where visitors can actually find useful information.
Content Before Affiliate Link
It’s like building a relationship. It takes time and a little convincing. Create content that is useful to the customer before guiding them to an affiliate link. T
he information provided will be enough to build trust and convince them to take a look at what the blog is promoting. You should also make sure that the content created is tied to the product being promoted.
Promote Genuine Products
There is nothing more difficult to rebuild than trust once it’s lost. When customers click on the affiliate links and then end up buying the products, they are in actual sense buying your advice.
You convinced them that the product was great and that’s why they made the decision to purchase.
If their expectations are not met, you will be viewed as a liar who is only out to enrich himself or herself. Promote only genuine products on your blog, more so those that you have already used. You can try and describe them well and at the same time share your experience.
Focus On What Brings You The Most Income
Do not fill your blog with adverts that will not bring you any meaningful income. Focus on brands and products that will give you reasonable commission.
After all, the reason why you are carrying out affiliate marketing on your blog is so that you can make some cash.
Make Use Of A Tools Page
Such a page on your blog consists of useful links to products or websites that are related to your area of specialization. Visitors can find these links helpful and discover products that they were originally not looking for. It’s a win-win situation.
Follow these affiliate marketing tips, and you’ll be on the way to becoming a successful affiliate marketer in no time. And if you want to know more about affiliate marketing check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
6 Powerful Strategies To Help You Make More Sales As An Affiliate Blogger
6 Powerful Strategies To Help You Make More Sales As An Affiliate Blogger
So, you’ve got your blog all setup, you’re cranking out content, you’re getting traffic, and sales are… meh! This can be disheartening but hang in there!
If you’ve put in all the work and are at least getting some sales, it’s time to bring in some tactics that will help you make more sales from your efforts.
And if you ARE making sales, that’s a good sign as it shows that people are looking to you for your opinions and you can build on that.
So, here are six strategies you can start using right now to start making more sales blogging as an affiliate marketer.
Check Your Content
As an affiliate blogger, your content is everything! It’s got to be absolutely incredible content that your audience wants to read. You can’t just throw some words together and expect the sales to start pouring in.
There are many online resources that will tell you the content that is getting the most engagement and you can look at that content and get ideas for your own content.
Also, if you’re not good at writing content then you can pay a professional content creator who can create amazing content for you that brings in more sales. You only have to pay for that content one time, and you can continue to profit from it over and over again for a very long time.
You could also try using PLR (Private Label Rights) content to use as a starting point for some of your blog posts, and as inspiration.
You Need Traffic
Now this is a little obvious, but if you have content on your blog that is already making you sales then if you can get more traffic to it, you will make more sales.
Of course, you can use free, organic traffic and SEO, but it isn’t really free as it takes time. But it is a good place to start and probably best for new marketers who will likely be watching their budget and may be nervous about spending money on ads.
However, if you have a post on your blog that is making you money you could take some of that money and invest it into paid advertising. This will get you targeted traffic to a post that is already making you money.
Wouldn’t you invest $1 in ads to make more than that $1 investment back? Of course, so find out which blog posts you have that are doing the best and pay for all the traffic that you can.
Just make sure to test and track so you can ensure you’re making money on your advertising investment. This is not a novice strategy so don’t go running into this too quickly!
It’s Not JUST About Blogging
As an affiliate blogger you may think that they only way you can reach your audience is to… well… blog!
However, you can also use your blog to build your email list! Honestly, if you’re not doing this, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.
The number one asset for any online business is their email list, so start building it from day 1. There are many posts on this site about email marketing and list building, such as Simple Email Marketing Tips and How To Write Emails That Get Read.
If you can get your blog readers onto an email list, you’re going to be able to reach them whenever you want. You can email that list directly about things you’re promoting as an affiliate, you can engage with them via email, you can email them about new blog posts that will make you money, and so much more.
If you don’t use anything from all of the strategies I’m giving you here, make sure to at the very least use this one!
Build your list even if you’ve labeled yourself as a blogger because you will watch your sales go way up every time you send an email to your list!
Get On Video
One of the best strategies you’ll ever employ is video marketing, but in a very specific way.
Get on camera and show your blog readers the products and services that you’re recommending and promoting.
This should go without saying, but you should only promote products that you love and use yourself. By showing your readers that you use them too, you will build more trust, more authority, build more bonds, and a whole bunch of other psychological selling strategies that I won’t get into, but this is a multifaceted strategy with a lot of selling power!
You also have many options for doing video marketing in this way. You can do comparison videos, screencam videos (you don’t even have to show your face with these) review videos, unboxing videos, and videos where you’re actually using the products.
You’ll be able to come up with many more ideas when you’re actually using the products and services, so make sure and take notes of any ideas you have and use this strategy!
Do Your Competitive Research
Ok, I’m not recommending something illegal here, but I do recommend you find your competition and spy on them. I’m talking about the other affiliate marketing bloggers in your niche that you KNOW are making money and building a huge audience.
Take a look at what they are doing and take notes of their strategies, blog design, and anything else they’re doing that you can do for yourself.
And of course, I am not saying to copy anyone. That’s ethically and legally wrong, but you can definitely research your competition and get ideas for your own strategies!
Always remember… Success leaves footprints and you should always be looking for those footprints.
Don’t Be Afraid Of Making Calls-To-Action!
I see a lot of affiliate bloggers out there with great content and they have a healthy size audience, but they just aren’t making a lot of sales.
The biggest reason is they aren’t telling their reader what to do.
You can’t just casually mention a product all of the time and expect sales. You have to actually tell your readers what to do and what benefit their going to get by doing it.
Of course, we want to tell them to click the link to get the thing that will solve their problem or help them or whatever the benefit is.
Most of us hate to seem “salesy”, but that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. We want to make money and there is nothing wrong with that, and don’t let anyone tell you that there is.
If making money is your number one reason for being an affiliate blogger, and your number two reason is to help and educate people there is absolutely nothing wrong with making money being your number one reason, so don’t be afraid to ask for the sale.
Start studying how to create “calls to action” that will make your readers click and buy through your affiliate links, and you’ll see your affiliate sales go through the roof!
There you go! That’s 6 different strategies you can use right now to start increasing your sales as an affiliate blogger. You don’t have to use them all at one time.
Pick one to start with right now, put it into use, tweak it until it’s working, and then come back and add another strategy. As you stack these strategies on top of each other your sales will continue to grow!
Follow these affiliate marketing tips, and you’ll be on the way to becoming a successful affiliate marketer in no time. And if you want to know more about affiliate marketing check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
How To Make Affiliate Sales With No Website Or Money!
Every single day, droves of people get on the internet hoping to make money online. Very often, they have a plethora of reasons for wanting to do so – ranging from wanting to quit their day job to having more money for the finer things in life.
One common thread that binds most of them is that they’re often on a tight budget… and is also probably the reason why they want to get into online marketing to boost their income.
And if they are looking to get up and running fast, they will probably want to try affiliate marketing first as you don’t even need your own product to get started.
However, they’re often told that they’ll need to purchase their own domain, pay for hosting, fork out more cash for autoresponder fees and so on. It’s almost as if they need money to make money.
While motivational gurus may spout motherhood statements such as, “It’s not about your resources, but your resourcefulness…”, the truth of the matter is that you can’t multiply by zero.
You’ll need money to pay for different fixed and recurring costs in your business. That’s a given.
If that means getting a second job to earn extra to pay for your business, you may have to do it – and that is resourcefulness, but ultimately you still need cold, hard cash.
However, if you’re financially strapped and can’t possibly get a second job because your first one is almost working you into an early grave, there are a couple of ways you can make affiliate marketing work, for free.
You Need A Free Website
There are several platforms that will allow you to have a free website. The catch here is that you’ll have no control over the advertising that appears on your site.
Another risk is that you’ll need to conform to the rules of the platform however inane they may seem.
If they feel like you’ve flouted their rules, they could boot you out unceremoniously without giving you any notice.
Countless beginner marketers have lost their businesses overnight by ‘building their houses on rented land’.
So, your goal is to build a free website and once you’re generating sales, you should immediately buy your own domain and hosting so that you’re in control of your business.
Here are 2 free platforms you can use:
WordPress.com – https://wordpress.com/
*Medium – https://medium.com/
*While Medium doesn’t allow you to build your own site, it allows you to post articles on their platform. That’s really all you need for now.
The site gets a lot of traffic and has potential when it comes to ranking for low hanging keywords that you may wish to target. From there, it’s just a matter of publishing more targeted articles and getting affiliate sales.
Getting Your Affiliate Links
It should be free to join most affiliate programs on places like ClickBank, Amazon Associates, CJ Affiliate, ShareASale, Rakuten Marketing and so on. Go ahead and sign up and get your links.
Forget programs that require you to ‘pay to play’ – where you need to have a monthly paid subscription to the software/service/etc. before they bestow upon you the dubious honor of being able to promote their products.
There are tons of excellent affiliate products that you can promote for free without having to jump through hoops.
Free Traffic
Since money is tight, paid ads are definitely not an option here. The next best way to generate traffic to your pages will be to siphon it from high traffic social media sites and platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google.
It’s important to know that free traffic takes time. You’ll not generate massive traffic overnight. You’ll need to create content consistently and almost daily to get reach and traction.
If your content is valuable and top-notch, you’ll build a following and have people clicking on your affiliate links or article links. So, go ahead and create accounts in the different social media platforms and…
- Start making videos with your mobile phone and post them on YouTube
- Set up a Facebook group and a fan page and start posting content
- Write articles on your niche and post them on Medium
- Start tweeting your articles/videos/etc.
- Use Canva.com to come up with attractive creatives you can use. (It’s free!)
Once again, it’s important to remember that social media sites are not your web properties, so you’re never totally safe with them. The goal is to always generate sales until you have enough money to build your own website and list. These are YOUR assets.
Putting It All Together
One way to start will be to write and start posting useful articles on Medium (you’ll embed your affiliate links in the posts). Just remember to disclose affiliate links and DO NOT overdo it. Moderation is key here.
As long as your content is good, you’ll have curious readers clicking on your links and reaching the sales page of the product you’re promoting… which is your main objective.
Point your YouTube videos, Facebook posts, tweets, etc. to your Medium article so that you can pre-sell the reader by providing more information and value. Once you build trust with your audience, your chances of getting the sale will be much higher.
Your Medium account with all your content will act as a hub-site for your affiliate marketing business. The free traffic methods you employ will siphon traffic from different platforms and point them all to your hub site’s content… just like how all roads lead to Rome.
Then it’s just a matter of time for the traffic to convert into sales (if your content is valuable and persuasive).
What Next?
Keep on keeping on until you start seeing sales trickle in. Give yourself 6 to 12 months to see your efforts yield fruit. This is a slow process, but a rewarding one.
Once you see the commissions coming in, do invest in your business by getting your own domain, hosting and an autoresponder.
Being able to build your own mailing list will help to elevate your marketing to the next level and skyrocket your commissions.
This is the best way to bootstrap your way from scratch to affiliate marketing success.
“Every artist was first an amateur.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Once you have started to make progress you should consider taking the next step and investing in your business to take your affiliate marketing to the next level. If you want to know more about this then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download it and take action 🙂
How To Get An Army Of Affiliates PAYING You To BUILD Your List Of Buyers
Yes, you read that headline right. In fact, you might even want to read it again.
You can totally get affiliates to PAY YOU for the right to send you buyers.
I ran across this a couple of years ago, and I have to say I was impressed. In fact, I just about joined this myself, and I’m a seasoned pro. This was done by a group of seasoned marketers, but there’s no reason why a new marketer or marketers couldn’t do it, too.
Last time I checked, this funnel I’m about to describe is still up and running and going strong. I don’t want anyone to actually steal their exact system, sales copy and funnel, so I’m going to just give you the highlights and you can fill in the rest.
Build A Basic Sales Funnel
First you start with a sales funnel. You’ve got a squeeze page offering a terrific little “how to do marketing” type of lead magnet. Once visitors grab the lead magnet, or even if they try to click away without picking up the lead magnet, they are then directed to a sales page for an online marketing membership site.
The membership site has several levels, with the lowest level being free to join. Of course, they highlight the free level in the headline to keep people on the page, and then they extoll the virtues of the other levels. Each level has more and better content, better support and so forth.
The free level is fairly basic but does give enough info for a newbie to make a start in making money online.
And of course, each level is more expensive than the previous level, with the prices skewed a bit to encourage visitors to choose the highest level.
I’ll give you an example of that pricing to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:
Level 1: Free
Level 2: $29 per month
Level 3: $44 per month
Level 4: $49 per month
These aren’t the exact price points they used, but you get the idea. You see there is very little difference between level 3 and 4 in terms of price, but in terms of content there is a big difference.
This is a great psychological ploy, because it gets the prospect to study the differences between levels 3 and 4 while forgetting all about level 2.
And of course if they’re going to get a paid membership, they’re most likely to choose level 4.
The content is drip fed each week…
…and if you’ve been paying close attention, you’ve realized I haven’t really shown you anything new yet.
Offer Affiliate Programs!
Here it comes, so hang on to your seat, because THIS is how you get affiliates to PAY you to send you a list of BUYERS:
(I love this bit!)
All of the levels offer a built-in affiliate program that sets the affiliates up to sell their own memberships for all of the levels they qualify for.
This means if they are a level 2 member, they can give away level 1 and sell level 2. If they happen to sell level 3 or 4, they still get paid, but not as much.
But if they are a level 4 member, they get to sell all four levels and KEEP ALL the money.
That’s right – they get to keep 100% of what they sell if they are level 4.
I hope this is making sense. It sounds complicated at first, but it’s actually fairly simple once you understand the concept.
Thus you’ve got affiliates paying (in our example above) $49 a month for the privilege of selling memberships and keeping all the money.
That’s a great deal for the affiliates, right? Absolutely. You can see why I almost jumped on it.
The affiliates don’t have to worry about hosting, fulfilment or any of that stuff, because the membership takes care of all of that.
The affiliate gets a unique sales page URL, squeeze page URL and membership area.
The content is automatically drip fed into that member’s area. The subscriptions are managed for them, the levels are managed for them… all they have to do is make sales by promoting their squeeze page URL.
The affiliate gets to build a list of prospects and buyers simply by promoting the URL, and of course they are earning residual monthly income, too.
The list of prospects and customers stays in the system and cannot be exported. Affiliates can only email their lists from inside the system. So if they drop out and stop paying their monthly fee, they lose their lists.
This can make for some very sticky affiliates who never leave.
Clarify Your Terms And Conditions
Now for the icing… in the terms and conditions, it is made explicitly clear that the membership site operator(s) have access to all of the prospects and customers who sign up.
This means they can email prospects and customers any time they like, making any offer they like. PLUS, the site owners can also place offers in the membership area as well.
Now think about what I just said… affiliates are paying you $49 a month (or whatever price point you choose) to be able to build you a list of prospects and customers.
And the affiliates are getting a terrific deal, too, getting 100% monthly commissions and the ability to email their customers and prospects from within your website.
It’s a true win / win for everyone involved, and done correctly it can yield a tremendous amount of prospects and buyers for you, as well as excellent monthly income to pay for a very nice membership site and have money left over.
When I heard about this, they were making five figures a month from the membership site fees alone. This doesn’t include what they were earning from mailing to their ever-growing email lists, or from the special promotions they continually placed in the members’ area.
Imagine if you were earning 5 figures from your membership site AND having a team of affiliates working hard to build your list of prospects and buyers. Sweet.
I wish I had started my first site this way – I’d probably be retired today.