In 2022, the affiliate marketing industry is on track to be worth more than $8 billion! If you're looking to make passive income online, become an affiliate marketer. This is a simple way to share the brands you love with your own community and make a percentage each time they purchase.
Learn all about affiliate marketing programs and affiliate marketing jobs right here.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
In affiliate marketing, the marketer themselves earns a commission from promoting another company. Whether that's good like an athleisure brand's new leggings or a service like an online yoga subscription, affiliate marketers can earn supplemental or entire income just from sharing brands they love.
Affiliate Marketing Definition: Promoting a brand's products or services on your own social media or internet presence in exchange for a percentage of the sales you drive.
How To Become an Affiliate Marketer
To become an affiliate marketer, you'll need to do a few things before you even start looking for affiliate marketing jobs. Use this step by step guide to starting your affiliate marketing journey.
Choose Your Niche
Before you even consider your choice of platform, it's important to have an idea of your niche. The aesthetic for your brand and platform will follow.
Start with what you already know. What are some products you love and use religiously? Are there any services or subscriptions you really believe in? Make a list and draw comparisons between your interests and these goods or services.
Be sure your niche is something that you enjoy talking about each day. Here are a few examples of successful niche ideas.
- Hobby Niches: Photography, Reading, Travel, Sports, Art, Beer, Coffee
- Business Niches: Money, Investing, Budgeting, Bitcoin, Home Ownership, Marketing
- Health and Wellness Niches: Fitness, Healthy Eating, Veganism, Yoga, Nutrition
- Lifestyle: Self-branded (Moving on from another niche or expanding niches)
A lifestyle niche may evolve after you've decided on the main niche like fashion. Those followers trust you and may start looking for your opinion on other things, too, like home decor, skincare, or anything!
Build Your Platform and Gain Followers
Social media is the best way to start with affiliate marketing. These platforms allow users to be creative and have access to the most crucial part of affiliate marketing: an engaged audience.
Starting with Instagram is a great way to see how well your brand takes to the masses. To gain organic followers, you'll need to use keywords and hashtags that your target audience is following.
For example, if you're interested in building a following that loves to travel, each time you post using #travel #traveling #traveljunkie, or similar hashtags.
You can discover which hashtags are the most popular by digging into analytics and using the platform yourself. Instagram will promote your content on other people's feeds according to an algorithm, and part of that is engaging with other people's content by liking, commenting, and sharing.
Use this guide to learn more about keywords and search engine optimization for Instagram.
If you're more into longer-form videos, YouTube might be a good next step, and it is possible to make millions from the platform. Lastly, you'll eventually want a blog or website to aggregate blog posts and affiliate links. While this can be done through links in your Instagram or YouTube bios, having a landing page for people to engage with your content is crucial.
Create Content and Start Marketing
Now that you've gained some followers and posted some content, it's time to start the money-making part! Start writing reviews for the products you love and share them via a linked blog on Instagram.
A great example of this is taking a product you love, like a skincare product, posting a beautiful photo of it on social media with a description, and how it's changed your life.
Tag the company in the photo, and be sure to add the new post to your stories too. Often, brands have employees scanning Instagram and other platforms daily for mentions. If they reply to your story, ask about getting an affiliate link!
In other cases, you can visit your favorite brands' sites and see if they already have a link made for people interested in sharing. Although affiliate marketing is relatively new, many companies have embraced this and word it as “share with a friend!” or “share and save!”.
If the benefit is a discount on your next purchase instead of a commission, definitely reach out to the company and see if there's an opportunity for a partnership.
Know The Regulations
Before you get started, it's important that you do everything ethically and in line with the law. The Federal Trade Commission has laws to protect American consumers, and therefore, there is a certain language you have to use as an affiliate marketer in your posts.
You can't be deceptive in your marketing, and you should always be transparent with your followers by saying you may earn a commission from their purchases. Using #ad is a common courtesy now on Instagram posts too, but make sure all your language is compliant.
Plus, you should always read the lengthy agreements for becoming an affiliate for a new brand. They will likely have guidelines on what your content should look like and the timeline in which your followers need to purchase in order for you to make a commission.
The fine print is worth reading here!
Ditching 9-5
Congratulations on becoming an affiliate marketer! Now that you work for yourself, how does it feel? Being an entrepreneur and making your own way in the world by sharing the things you love is a great way to earn cash.
If you're feeling a little lost on how to get started or simply need some guidance, check out our array of products to help build your business. Our Affiliate Marketing Business Blueprint is an affordable guide that will help grow your work opportunities and make you a truly successful affiliate marketer!
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