4 Important Foundation Steps to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing
Updated On October 18, 2021 | by Kamal
Let’s face it, being consistent in a 9 to 5 job might pay your bills, but it won’t pay enough to achieve your dreams. Almost everyone, working for a corporation, realizes that they need to have a passive income source, without putting their primary job at risk.
Affiliate marketing, one such trending term that has led many people to sleepless nights, in wake of making money. But what is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a marketing technique, in which a person/entity promotes and sells a certain product and gets commission in return, according to the agreement between the person/entity and the product seller.
Now, reading the definition, it looks pretty simple, as in you just have to promote and get money for every sale you make. However, it’s not that simple, as you are not the only one who came up with the idea, there are already millions of affiliate marketers.
Now, there’s no need to get alarmed, you are here because you need to know what strategy to follow, to overcome competition and make money. So, let’s get started.
1. Select a Platform
As a part of your research about what affiliate marketing is, you would have come across a number of articles, stating to start a blog website to start selling products. But, actually, it’s not the only platform where you can put affiliate links; rather there are many options, from which you can choose according to the time you can give, your skillset, comfort, and most importantly your consistency.
You can even choose platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. to put affiliate links, along with videos or reels you make.
Therefore, you need to explore options for starting with affiliate marketing and do not just stick to the conventional means.
2. Choose a Product to Promote
Once you have chosen the platforms to promote products, you need a product to sell, which, someway or the other, depends on the platform you choose.
Let’s take a hypothetical situation. You have chosen Instagram as your platform, and want to sell a software program through an affiliate link. Then, both of these don’t go hand in hand, as you see, you cannot sell software by making reels of it. You need to write or make a YouTube video where you can tell about its specifications, performance, and a lot of other things that are necessary to convince a visitor to buy that product.
Therefore, choose the product wisely, that you can easily promote on the chosen platform.
3. Keywords Research
Now, keywords research and the use of those keywords are important. After choosing a product, you need to see what keywords your competitors are targeting, get a note of the tags they have inserted in their posts, videos, articles, etc.
If you are making a blog website, then go through the keyword and tags competitors have used inside their articles, or, if you have chosen Instagram, then go to your competitor’s page and see the hashtags they have used. Based on the platform, your research will take place.
After noting the keyword, get their search volume, that is, how many people are searching the exact or similar words. Now, there are several other factors as well, that will shape your keyword research and help you choose the right keyword.
4. Be Patient & Focus on Increasing Reach
Let’s face the reality, you are all set with your promotion platform, have chosen the product, made an agreement with the seller, and have done your research, but it is not enough to get buyers.
Remember, what is affiliate marketing and its end goal, at last, you need to sell the products, for which you need visitors.
You would not start earning from day one. You need to be patient and emphasize increasing your visitors and viewers.
To increase visitors, you can make social media accounts, run advertisement campaigns, or can adopt different marketing techniques. But most importantly, you have to be consistent and regularly posting, no matter if your visitors are very few. If you are determined, then the day will definitely come, where you will be making unpredictable figures in a day.
Likewise, consider reading: How to Make Money While You Sleep with Affiliate Marketing
