When discussing booming startups these days, you cannot miss out on affiliate marketing since it’s one of the most popular and promising of all. Unlike most others, affiliate marketers make money without a single investment, which makes it a more attractive career option for many.
However, if that makes you tempted too to become an affiliate marketer, here are some things you would need to consider before you jump into a decision.
It is not Your Usual Marketing
Being an affiliate marketer is very different from having a regular marketing job in an organization. Affiliate marketing is a marketing tool that a company’s marketing team may decide to use to promote their product. Therefore, to become an affiliate marketer first, you need to know_
What is Affiliate Marketing?
It is an agreement between a company and an influencer who influences their followers with their reviews/recommendations to try the company’s offerings, increasing traffic and revenue for the company.
There are several ways an affiliate marketer can deliver his content. Such as_
1. Review Posts:
You are promoting through writing review blogs from the influencer’s website. For your better understanding, here is a blog post on inbound closing by StocksReviewed.
2. Email Marketing:
You are promoting a product through an automated mail to the influencer’s email contacts.
3. Social Media Marketing
You are utilizing popular social media platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc., for a visual demonstration of the influencer’s affiliate product.
How does the Selection Process work?
When a company decides to promote through affiliate marketing, they put the program on their website for influencers to apply. So if you are an influencer who is as well a satisfied customer of that particular product or service, you can apply for it.
If the company approves your application, then a unique referral URL will be provided to you, which you will use within the content you will make for the company and share it with your audiences. Therefore, if your viewers click on the link in your content and buy the product, you’ll receive 30% of the revenue generated from the transaction.
There can be one or multiple programs on a website. You can apply for as many as you find comfortable; it can be all of them, or just one, doesn’t matter as long as you can handle them.
On a side note, if confident enough, an influencer too can approach a company for their product or service he is fond of, and influence them to initiate an affiliate marketing program with him. Being an affiliate marketer is all about convincing people to trust you and ensure the benefit for both parties.
Who can be an Affiliate Marketer?
You have to be an influencer, with a fan base who trusts you, if not idolize you, and follows you regularly. That means whatever content you create, they go through it, and whatever you say there, they take it seriously, which has a strong influence over their decision-making.
Therefore, one needs to be very creative, communicative, convincing, confident, popular, and trustworthy to be an affiliate marketer- something you can’t do overnight! Preparing yourself to start as an affiliate marketer, you get to build your name and reputation step by step.
First, you need to be seen and noticed for the thing you do. For example, if you are a writer, you start writing blogs reviewing different products or services. Once people start liking you and trusting you, and your number of followers becomes significant enough to make your application look impressive, you are good to start applying for affiliate marketing.
An influencer usually gets the contract based on the significance of their followers and the market reputation. The more authentic fan base you have, the more likely you are to succeed as an affiliate marketer and make a wholesome independent career this way.
Why Companies Prefer Affiliate Marketing?
No matter how well a commercial is made, people may like it, but they look for references for the trust. However, reviews from anonymous people don’t work much these days since they can be falsely generated.
Therefore, affiliate marketing is an excellent tool to convince people through the person they count on to trust in the products that companies wish to sell and end up buying them.
You Don’t Sugarcoat a Lie.
Unusually for an affiliate marketer, your business is your audience; your sense of judgment and loyalty is your investment here.
So never hide a lie, or tell your followers anything but the truth, even though you are promoting something and want them to buy it.
Therefore, you only promote the product or service_
1. You know very well about it.
2. You have used or experienced them personally for a convincing period.
3. You are impressed enough to influence your followers to get it,
Or the company is ok with your honest review, even if it contains negative remarks in it.
Your Creativity will Make You Stand Out.
With many pros of affiliate marketing, there are a few cons, too; competition amongst them is one of the significant drawbacks. Another is a dependency, which means you will only earn if your audiences buy the product. The answer to both problems is creativity!
Practice regular research on public sentiment and behavior and the ongoing trends and come up with new approaches to make your reviews more relatable and compelling, and free from boredom.
You have to continuously upgrade yourself with new creative ideas while holding on to your authenticity and uniqueness to keep the companies interested in you and your followers always influenced by what you say.
Finally, It’s a Win-Win Game
If done well, affiliate marketing benefits all parties involved. Suppose an audience gets influenced by the affiliate marketer and buys a product. In that case, the company earns money – and so does the influencer, and at the same time, the viewer finds a reliable product.
While ensuring his or her value of money, the audience may become a dedicated client bringing more business for both the company and the affiliate marketer, which can be you making a lot of money! Thus, it works like a chain reaction where you become the power source.
Now, it’s your turn to decide, are you ready for it?
