Affiliate Marketing as an Online Business Model

[Diana]

Affiliate marketing is the practice of partnering with a company and promoting their products or services in exchange for money, usually a percentage of the sale. Some companies compensate based on clicks or impressions instead of sales.

In essence, it’s a revenue sharing system between a product creator and someone who agrees to promote it. Affiliate marketers promote products on websites, social media channels, and specialized channels such as YouTube. This gives merchants and product creators access to a much wider base of internet users and shoppers than they can create on their own.

Consumers then follow the affiliate marketers’ customized links to purchase the product. The affiliate is then paid, typically when a payout threshold has been reached (say, $100 in commissions.)

Affiliate marketing is often an excellent sideline business because you don’t have to create the product. You can get started quickly. And yes, many entrepreneurs grow their affiliate empire to earnings of six figures or more and use it for their primary business.

Also, learning affiliate marketing teaches you a lot. After working for yourself and figuring out what works and what doesn’t, you can offer marketing services to clients. That can make you a lot more money.

If the idea intrigues you, then let’s discuss the two biggest decisions you will need to make – what to promote, and how to do so.

How Do You Choose the Right Products or Services to Promote?

Three recession-proof niches are health, wealth, and relationships. You will always find people who want to improve their health (lose weight, stop snoring), make more money (invest intelligently, start a business, learn a new skill) or enhance their relationships (find their soul mate, become a better parent.)

You will never run out of physical products or courses (information products) to promote in these three general niches!

Do you really need to be passionate about your niche? While some people suggest that you choose a niche that you’re passionate about, many people have found that they can become passionate about anything that makes them money.

There is an advantage, however, in promoting products you’re familiar with or that would be used by people you can readily reach. It’s easier to write blog posts about losing weight following a keto diet if you’ve been overweight and have followed that eating plan, right? You can better relate to your target audience and earn their trust.

You also need to consider whether the manufacturer or product creator does a good job of describing and pricing their products. If your marketing directs potential customers to a horrible website you’ll lose a lot of sales, even if the product is terrific.

We’ll go into detail about 3 big mistakes affiliate marketers make in another post.

How Do You Promote Your Chosen Products?

There are many methods and many places to promote affiliate products.

Perhaps the most common method is building a website related to that niche and putting articles or videos on it that inform or entertain people who might find it interesting. This does require the ability to write or source  content, although it is possible to hire people to write for you or use specialized software to help you write.

Some people create ecommerce stores and fill them with products from one or more manufacturers. 

You can market affiliate products using videos, too, and fill entire channels with videos related to that niche, and which lead to the company’s main sales page.

There are many variations of these ideas, and the best approach is highly dependent on the type of product and who you want to reach. Your affiliate links need to be seen by the people most likely to buy.

You will need to do some research. What problems does this product promise to solve? What search terms (keywords) do people use when they go into Google and look for answers to those problems? What’s the competition like, in this industry?

Figuring this out upfront will help you make money much more quickly – or help you decide whether to ignore this niche altogether! We have a lot of training about keyword research in this forum, and we highly encourage you to review it.

While many people believe that affiliate marketing is difficult, it’s a proven method of marketing and a business model that we heartily endorse.

The costs of promoting products as an affiliate will vary. Much depends on what you already know or have access to. You may want to buy tools to help you do your research and promote your content, such as YIVEVideo, which helps you create and distribute videos. Still, since you do not have to create the product(s) you promote, you can often get going with a smaller investment than other online business models.

Suggested reading:
Pros and Cons of Being a YouTuber Business Model

What Is an Ad Network?

During a Gold Rush, Sell Shovels

The Niches forum has a couple of great video trainings about keyword research too!

 

 

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• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Diana.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Diana.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Diana.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Diana.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Diana.
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