Do you work a full time job but feel like it just isn’t enough for you to be making money successfully? If you answered yes to that question, stick around. In this guide you’re going to learn the five easy steps to becoming a successful affiliate marketer on Youtube.
By including affiliate links to products in the description of your Youtube channel and reviewing the products linked, you are able to make money. This is done when someone makes a purchase using your affiliate link. You then receive a small commission for the sale.
Step 1- Choose the product you want to review
When selecting a product to review you want to make sure it is a product that you would recommend to a buyer. Your audience needs to not only believe you love the product, but also believe that this product is something that you actually use. A good way to do this is to focus on something you love. For example, a lot of Youtube channels exist for makeup tutorials. The person leading the tutorial will not only show themselves using the product in the video, but also spend time talking about the product and why they love it. When you scroll to the bottom of the video, you’ll find a list of the products they used and a link to buy them. These are the affiliate links.
You need to find something you are passionate about to talk about. Someone who is passionate about reading books may review books with an affiliate link in the description to the book. Someone who is passionate about cooking may include links to the appliances used in their videos, so on and so forth. Luckily Youtube is a widely used platform for almost any hobby or interest you could think of. There is likely an entire section of Youtube dedicated to whatever your specific topic you want to review. You just have to find the right audience.
Get the idea?
The audience you are going to be speaking to is on Youtube for one of 4 reasons: to learn more about products they enjoy, to figure out how to DIY something, to choose an item to put their money towards, and to enjoy whatever it is they are viewing. To understand that more, you need to break those down.
Viewers who want to learn more about products they enjoy-
Because of the vast amount of videos on Youtube and the ability to find videos on just about anything, most people go to YouTube as a learning source. Not just to research, but just to learn in general about things they like. It’s almost like a huge online video encyclopedia.
Viewers who want to learn to DIY something
These people are looking for video instructions on how to do or create something. Let’s bring back the makeup example- if someone’s prom night is coming up and they want to learn how to do a smokey eye look, they’d probably go to Youtube and search something simple like “how to do smokey eye” and a list of tutorials would pop up. In this case they’d probably want to know what brands of makeup to use and what specific shades or tools to use.
The viewers who already know they are looking to make a purchase
The people who fit into this category already know they are wanting to put their money towards a product. Now they need to do their research to find out exactly what product they want to purchase. What better way to do so than by watching a variety of videos on what type of product they need to see what best suits their needs. They want to know which product will bring them the most bang for their buck.
The people who want to enjoy what they are viewing because they like it
This is the final category of people who are on Youtube. They are simply there just to check out the content that they enjoy watching. Whether that be sports, books, makeup, software, clothing, etc. These people want to know just enjoy the video. If they find themselves interested enough, they may scroll down and click on one of your affiliate links and make a purchase.
Step 2- Choose an affiliate program that best suits your content
Once you’ve figured out what type of videos you want to create and what type of products to review, the next step is to choose an affiliate program. There are tons of affiliate programs out there. If you have a company in mind they likely have an affiliate program. The way to find this out would be to simply go to your google search bar and type in the company name with ‘affiliate program’ and hopefully it will pop up. If not, try to find contact information for the company and send an email to ask if there is an affiliate program for that company.
One of the easiest affiliate programs out there to become a part of is Amazon Associates. This is a great way to get started in an affiliate program because all you need to do it is an Amazon account. It is easy to sign up, you just visit the Amazon Associates homepage, build a profile, and from there you choose your products to create your affiliate links. For a more detailed guide on how to do this, visit this guide from Hubspot which will walk you through a detailed step-by-step guide to creating an Amazon Associates account.
Step 3- Creating your Youtube channel
Setting up a Youtube channel is simple, fast, and easy. All you need is a Gmail account to get started. Once you’ve created your Gmail account you’re going to want to head to Youtube and click on your profile icon and under that click “Create channel”. Once you do this, select “get started” which will bring up a pop up where you will choose what type of channel you are creating. After this, you will then input information about your channel, such as profile photo, channel description, and media links. Then click save and continue, and now you can upload videos to your channel.
When creating your Youtube channel there are some things you want to remember as you upload content. Upload a trailer video. This should be a short 2-3 minute video that will play automatically when someone opens your channel. Once you start creating videos it is good to organize them by topic. This way you are able to create sub-themes and shorter videos around each sub-theme and topic. This also helps with navigation on your channel so people can find what they are looking for easier and are more likely to stay on your channel longer.
Title your videos something that is going to draw your viewers to watch it. You could have great content but it won’t matter unless people click on it and view it. Which is why a good title is so important. Another important aspect of this process is your video thumbnail, the cover photo for your video that someone will see before they click on it. Professional content creators create their own thumbnail and then upload them to their video so that they can choose what it will look like when someone views it on Youtube.
When creating videos, instruct your viewers to like, comment, and subscribe to your channel. Once they have subscribed to your channel they will get notifications through Youtube and through email when you’ve uploaded a new video.The likes and comments on your videos help get your content in the search engines. The tags on your videos are another way to help more people be able to find your videos. Don’t just tag the product or category that you are talking about. Also mix in some broader tags to make your videos more likely to show up in a search.
Step 4- Inserting your affiliate links
Once you get affiliate links to the products you want to talk about in your video, you will then make your video and insert the affiliate links into your description. When inserting the links, you should put them in the beginning of your description. If they are the first thing someone sees in your description, they are more likely to click on it.
When putting affiliate links, you can also include links to the type of computer you are using, the type of camera, microphone, etc. If they like the quality of your videos and want to do some Youtube-ing themselves, they just may click on the links to what you use to get their computer and supplies.
When putting your affiliate links in your description, you want to make sure that you tell your audience in your video where to find your links. It is very important that you tell your viewers that the links are in fact affiliate links and that you will get a commission from them if they click on them or purchase the products. This is something especially important because it is a legal requirement.
Step 5- Collect your commissions
Collect your commissions from sales and clicks and continue to repeat and practice these things in all of your videos. The more content you upload, the more viewers you will have. It may take a little time at first to get started and get viewers. The more dedication you put forth, the more viewers you will have and the more sales you will get commissions from to collect.
If you enjoyed this guide on how to get started with affiliate marketing through Youtube, consider checking out our free online webclass to learn more affiliate secrets.
