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Understand Affiliate Marketing and How it Works

Read time: 11 minutes

What is the thing that is not possible today with the help of the internet. You need to learn a course, browse through the internet. If you want to know how to cook a particular dish, go to its numerous recipes on the internet. 

Content marketing. Copywriting, blogging, creative writing. Female cartoon character sitting on megaphone. SMM, Internet promo flat design element.

Are you thinking to start a business? You just need the internet. Yes, the internet is the boon that has made your life easy and has shown you how easy it is to get things done, from getting a small piece of information to starting your own business, you can totally rely on the internet. 

People have grown fond of doing their own business and one such way to start your one thing on the internet is to get yourself into affiliate marketing. You are thinking that you have heard this word before. Of course you have- on the internet, by word of mouth, or might have eavesdropped someone telling that they are earning a good amount of money through affiliate marketing. 

Can you remember now, what affiliate marketing is? Okay let’s not stress out. Let’s first get our thoughts clear on what exactly affiliate marketing is.

Affiliate Marketing:

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Okay, let’s start from a fact: Today the global affiliate marketing industry is worth $17 billion

Affiliate business model is increasing every year at the rate of 10%. Why? Because it is a platform, a type of business model that would generate income without investing huge sums of money. 

Affiliate marketing is a business mode where you can earn by promoting a merchant’s goods or service. It all started when amazon started an affiliate program where the third party promoted their products and the publishers got a commission from the sales made because of the advertising. 

Third party publishers earn a percentage of the sales or web traffic generated by their promotion. It is a new and easy way to earn money without any hassle of heavy investments which makes it a great career option in today’s digital marketing era. 

Making money in any way is not as easy as seems on the internet because the people you follow makes it look like that. Any business or marketing model will take time to walk at the expected pace. You need patience and perseverance to develop a platform that would help you make a strong network where people could buy products and services that you are promoting. 

Affiliate marketing models are effective for both the merchant and the publisher because they fulfil both their needs. The need of the merchant to make sales and meet their marketing needs and affiliates are getting an option to generate passive income. 

Basically, affiliate marketing is a platform where revenue is shared with an affiliate like a blogger, vlogger on YouTuber for advertising the products and services by a business. The affiliate’s traffic will become the business customers and affiliates will get a share of the income generated through their efforts. 

How does the model of affiliate marketing work?

Affiliate marketer helps earn an affiliate passive income or they can go full-time by applying strategies. But for the model to work there are just four things that are a crucial part of the marketing strategy of affiliate marketing. They are basically the four partners who are the four pillars of the model.

The Affiliate: 

The affiliate or the publisher is the person or entity who is responsible to promote the product or the service and earn the percentage of the sales or the web traffic. 

The Merchant:

The merchants are the businesses or entities who are paying the publisher to promote their product and generate sales or generate web traffic. Ensure that the money they pay to the affiliate is the part of the sales and they do not get paid just for promoting the product but only if the results are visible. 

The Affiliate Network:

An affiliate network is the platform or an intermediary that connects the affiliate and the merchant. An affiliate network is essential to build relations between the merchant and the publisher. 

The Customer:

Customers are the kings and queens of business and for affiliate marketing. They are the people who make the purchase or take required actions. An affiliate audience becomes the merchant’s customers. Merchants and an affiliate collaborate to connect with the affiliate audience to generate sales for the business. 

These four together form the core of affiliate marketing that would help an affiliate build a business of their own and a merchant will get desired results by increasing their sales without spending heavy money on advertisement. 

How to kickstart your career in affiliate marketing?

Now that you know that affiliate marketing sounds like an impressive option to build your career in and all you need is a laptop and a good internet connection, it is time for you to know more. You must be thinking about what and how you would start your career as an affiliate marketer. Here is a step to step guide that would help you understand easily how you would kickstart your career in affiliate marketing. 

Know Your Niche:

You have to pick your niche to establish a strong network of audience by analysing if they are composed of potential customers for a specific product or a category of products, like people who would be interested in skin care products or gadgets. The three highest income generating niches are education/e-learning, travel and beauty & skincare. 

You have to think of your merchants and build an affiliate platform that would benefit all the three parties including yourself, your audience and the merchant you will pay you. 

Try to figure out what are the topics that have not been touched yet and if you would be interested in working along with those topics. Even if you are interested in already existing topics you can figure out how you can use a different perspective that would hold the attention of your audience. How can you ensure that the topic is covered and you are using your skills as well. 

Pick a Platform:

After choosing your topic, audience and products that you will cover as an affiliate marketer, it is time to choose the platform that would serve you the best. It could be your social media platform like Instagram, or snapchat or your blog. YouTubers usually use their channel for affiliating the product or service. 

If you do not want to mingle your side hustle with your main accounts, you can start a new page that would be totally dedicated to your affiliate business and let your audience know that it’s you who is promoting the product to ensure reliability.

An Affiliate Marketing Network:

We talked about an affiliate networking platform that is one of the four pillars of the affiliate marketing models, right? It is essential to find a network that would connect you and the merchant only then you could show your willingness to work as an affiliate marketer. 

Some might not find it essential to be a part of the affiliate marketing network but is necessary for you because a network will help you be consistent in finding business to collaborate with hence, maintaining a consistent source of passive income. 

Affiliate marketing networks like Amazon Associates and Flipkart Affiliate can help you build better relationships with your merchant. 

Expand Your Network:

A stronger network means more business for the affiliate marketer. A strong network is the result of patience and consistency. You have to use a mix of digital marketing strategies and tactics to expand your network and increase your audience size which will include content marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), social media marketing and email lists. 

Enhance Your Skills:

Being consistent with your work will help you master your skills and enhancing them over time will help you be better at your craft. Affiliate marketing needs a mix of skills, hard and soft skills both, to be applied in pursuing your audience to turn into potential customers. That could include your:

Communication Skills:

Having communication skills that are clear and concise will help you to deliver your message. You will farme the message in a way that would align with the interest of both the audience and the merchant you are pitching for. The portrayal of your message is a direct reflection of your communication skills. 

Editing Skills:

Every affiliate will use a different platform and medium for the purpose of promoting the product or service. Some might use writing content or others might be good with video making. 

No matter if you are writing content or making a video, editing skills are essential in both the mediums. 

Editing before posting your content will help you ensure that you have not committed any mistakes as it will not be a good reflection of your work and you might get in trouble by making such mistakes. An edited piece of work will ensure you are giving out the right message to your audience. 

Researching Skills:

Before promoting a product or service you have to ensure that you have done enough research that would vouch for your review.

For example if you are promoting a skincare product, let’s say a sunscreen, you need to first research about the company and their other products. Research the type of skin that the skincare is suitable for. And if there are any precautions one needs to take before using it. 

Presentation Skills:

You have to present the product to your audience and it is your presentation that would convince them to buy the product or service you are promoting. Make sure you are making the best use of your presentation skills. 

You can try adding a new perspective to your presentation that will make your message more attractive to your audience. Audieces’ attention span is close to minimal now. Various factors are responsible for the same. It is difficult to hold the attention of your target audience, but a pinch od creativity can do wonders. 

What to expect if you are working as an affiliate marketer:

Marketing composition

An affiliate marketer can work from anywhere in the world and we mean it. Take Your laptop with you and enjoy your day in a cafe, on a beach, on a mountain top, on a ferry or enjoying a hot cup of tea on a winter day clutching to your blanket. Yes, being an affiliate marketer comes with its own perks.

You do not need a tangent office as you and your laptop are your office. This is what a typical day as an affiliate marketer will look like:

Waking up and checking your mail:

Take your time once you wake up, take a shower, eat something, drink your tea or coffee and then sit in front of your laptop to check your mail and important messages on platforms where you have built affiliate networks. 

Do not use your phone or check mails first thing in the morning because it is not good for your health. Take an hour before you actually go to your screen because after that you would be spending most of your time on your laptop or phone screen. 

Create Content:

You have to sell the product, once you have checked your mails and see if there are any leads, you would start working on the crucial part of your work by creating content. The content includes your messaging about the product to convince your audience to click on the link to buy the product/service you are promoting. 

Strategise Your Content:

Your content will only produce results if you will work on it strategically. See what can you add that would enhance the value of your content. Add pictures, quirky texts, visuals that would attract your customers and if you are a blogger make sure your research is good enough to create your content on which people can rely. 

Take a Break:

It is time to take a break from your computer screen and have your lunch or snacks as per the time on your watch. You can take a walk in your home (if your home is your office). See if your pet has eaten something, or play with them. Recharge your energy by having a warm cup of tea or coffee and get back to work.

Data Analysis:

Data analysis is one other vital aspect of being an affiliate marketer. It helps to understand what measures are working and which ones needs improvements. 

Conclusion:

Being an affiliate marketer would need your will to start your passive income source. It is an effective way to earn extra money until you can establish yourself as a full time affiliate marketer. 

You don’t have to make huge investments as all you need to do is have a laptop and basic knowledge about affiliate marketing which you did get from this article. Make sure you are working on your skills that would help you enhance your affiliate marketing strategies.

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