How to Start Affiliate Marketing - for business owners and marketers

Affiliate marketing is a massive opportunity both for businesses and marketers alike. Businesses can get more of their products and services sold. At the same time, marketers, influencers, and even other businesses can further build out their revenue streams. Learn how to start affiliate marketing in this blog post.

In fact, 15% of total digital media advertising revenue is attributed to affiliate marketing and annual affiliate marketing spend is projected to hit 6.8 billion USD by 2020. So, if you’re not investing in affiliate marketing, you’re seriously missing out. For those who have been scratching their heads at what affiliate marketing is, let’s talk a little about what the hype is all about.

What is Affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is helping businesses sell their products and then making a commission from the sale. It could be anything from a skateboard to an online tool. There are millions of affiliate offers that you can choose from, so regardless of your niche, chances are there are products that you will be able to promote to your audience.

What are the types of affiliate programs?

There are two broad categories of affiliate programs. One-time commission offers and recurring promotions. A one-time commission is as the name suggests - as soon as you help a business drive a sale, you get paid a commission. End of story. There will be situations where a business has upsells and promotes other products to the customer you referred and you make additional revenue, but otherwise, that’s it.

On the other hand, there are recurring offers for products where a customer has to pay a monthly or annual subscription. An example of a subscription product you’re likely familiar with is Netflix or Amazon Prime. As an affiliate marketer, every month that the customer you referred pays for the monthly subscription, you make a percentage of the payment for the lifetime of the customer.

So if the customer stays subscribed for the next 3 years, then you will also be paid for the next 3 years. Pretty amazing, right? So, how to start affiliate marketing?

Which affiliate program is suitable for you?

When it comes to designing an affiliate program, you don’t exactly have a lot of say. It depends on what type of product you already have. If you’re selling one-off water bottles, then you’ll have to go with a one-time commission offer.

On the other hand, as an affiliate marketer, because there are so many offers out there you can afford to be choosy. There are many out there that prefer one-time affiliate offers because you don’t have to worry about whether or not someone will stay on a subscription service or not. They would rather make 100 USD than 100 USD over 5 months.

Tenba Group favors the recurring models for a couple of reasons. First, we believe that recurring payment models are a form of building wealth (as opposed to only making money - a subtle difference). Our perception of building wealth is having assets that continuously generate revenue even when it is left alone. We appreciate the passive income component of it.

Secondly, we feel that the more we make promoting a recurring model the more we are helping someone. The way we think about it is someone won’t pay for a subscription service every month unless they think it is useful. In this sense, we feel like the more we make, the more people we’re helping because we promoted a solid product or service.

At the end of the day, you should be working with both payout program types. However, whether you decide to focus more on promoting the offers that drive your revenue every month or one-time is up to you.

How to start affiliate marketing as a business?

There are many different ways to set up your affiliate program and it depends on where your business is hosted, for example, Wordpress, Shopify, Squarespace. If your business is on WordPress, then you can use tools like AffiliateWP and WP Affiliate Manager. Otherwise, you may want to take a look at affiliate networks such as Shareasale and Commission Junction.

As you’re creating your program, take a look at what your competitors are offering to get an idea of what percentage commission you want to be giving. Think about creating an offer that is enticing and will make others want to promote your product.

How to start affiliate marketing as a marketer or influencer?

You’ll first need to think about your business and niche and the type of products you want to be promoting. ClickBank and Shareasale can be good places to start if you’re just getting into space and want to see the different offers out there. When you’re ready to get more specific, there are several good lists out there that are quite comprehensive. For example, this post by Adam Enfroy on top paying affiliate offers is helpful if you’re not choosy about a one-time commission or recurring. Or, check out this comprehensive list of recurring affiliate programs that you can promote.

Just remember, before choosing your offer that you check out the product. You don’t want to be promoting a product to your audience that sucks. You can easily do this by running a quick Google search on the product’s reviews. If there are absolutely no reviews and it’s not too expensive, we suggest purchasing it and testing it yourself or reaching out to the company to ask for a free trial run. There are many different ways you could promote a product. The below only lists a few different methods:

• Write blog posts promoting/reviewing the product
• Review/talk about it on YouTube
• Run advertisements on Facebook/Google/etc
• Leverage your email list to promote the product
• Create a course that recommends students use the product

How much can I make from affiliate marketing?

The sky is your limit! It all depends on how well you’re able to promote your affiliate offers. For example, there are bloggers making 50 USD per month just from affiliate marketing. Remember, affiliate marketing is just a mutually beneficial relationship. The more you help a company drive more sales, the more money you’ll make. Win-win!

The Takeaway

Now you know how to start affiliate marketing, you also know that it is a massive opportunity to help grow your business regardless if you have a product or not. As a business with a product, you can grow your monthly sales and build a stronger brand as you will have people reviewing (and hopefully recommending) your product. As a business building an affiliate marketing revenue stream, you can promote products that you know your audience will benefit from and make money from it as well!

Not sure where to start? Test Tenba Group’s services with our FREE audit of your website. It’s a unique manual review of your online presence. We check everything from your website’s security to user experience, SEO and legal GDPR compliance, as well as your social media integration. Contact us now! Still not sure? Read the testimony from our successful clients.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://tenbagroup.com/digitalization/how-to-start-affiliate-marketing/

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