01/03/2024
Affiliate Marketing is THE MOST brilliant way to earn a passive, sustainable, ever-increasing income for your business. It takes planning, a little skill, and a good chunk of time to build it all up...
But once you do, the $ky is truly the limit!!
So, what is Affiliate Marketing, you ask? Here are the steps, in simple terms:
1. First, you create and build your own platform: become a public creator, influencer, or media personality. *Authority* is a key element here; lend bold confidence and credibility to all of your content. Your audience needs to be able to trust you. Implicitly!!
2. Speaking of your audience: you'll need to build and maintain a large, clearly-targeted following of individuals who actually need what you're promoting. Content Marketing is the way to do this.
"Content Marketing" is media designed to promote and convert. Articles, social media posts, videos, podcasts - are just a few examples. Much of the time you need to be creating content that simply educates and informs your audience. This helps build the aforementioned trust.
3. Once you have a viable, established audience, you can begin applying to Affiliate and Partnership programs that are relevant to your audience's needs. To be approved, you'll need to be able to submit links and other verifiable proof.
✨ TIP: Some affiliate programs are more strict than others. You may be rejected, or get excited because you were approved, then find out their terms are NOT what you want... But keep going! It's worth it.
✨ TIP: For ideas on where to apply, search online for your chosen industry and add the word "affiliate." Examples could be: "business marketing materials affiliate," "hair and beauty affiliate," or "financial investment affiliate."
4. You promote your contracted businesses and brands (your "Affiliates" and "Partners") to your audience, via Content Marketing.
✨ TIP: Ensure that every single piece of content you put out there has at least one Affiliate link in it.
5. Your Affiliates/Partners give you a kickback for any purchase or donation that results from your promotions. This commission is determined by each individual Affiliate or Partner at the time of contractual agreement, and tracked by a custom link and/or discount code that is specific to you.
TIPS:
✨ ALWAYS get it in writing. Contracts are contracts; it's ALWAYS good to cover your butt. If a brand offers you an affiliate position or partnership, make sure you know ALL the details and agree with them before signing on the dotted line. Some affiliate contracts contain caveats such as "must sell at least $xyz per month, or there will be a fee of $abc." So watch out for that!
✨ In most cases, find your niche before developing affiliate relationships. Each Affiliate relationship requires time, effort, and continued focus, so be *choosy*. Don't just try to promote the whole world. Plus, it's easier to build an audience around a specific concept or industry, than it is to build - and keep - a generic one. You want an audience who will remain loyal and actually purchase your recommendations because they trust that you know what you're talking about!
✨ You can make your efforts 🌲🌲 evergreen (🤩) by writing SEO-rich articles and social media posts containing the links to these affiliate partners, then sharing them and resharing them over time. Again, this is called Content Marketing.
Hope that gets your wheels turning, MindBizzers!! 🤩
🤗 Join us tomorrow here on Mind Your Own Business - the FM Radio Show (Thursday January 4th) for our first show of 2024. This month's theme is "New Year, New Branding," and tomorrow's topic is "BRAND New for You in 2024!"
Watch/listen live or recorded here, or live on 93.7 FM America Matters Media, Reno-Tahoe, at 9am Pacific!!
