Affiliate Marketing for Newbies

Affiliate marketing raises a lot of questions when you hear about it for the first time. When you read books about affiliate marketing you will tend to think that it will make you rich, but is this true? What are the secrets behind being an affiliate marketer? Well, let’s understand more about it here.

What is affiliate marketing?
Simply, affiliate marketing is like a salesperson getting a commission for the products that they sell in a store. A bad sales person will be pushy and will try to get you to buy expensive products that you don’t actually need just to inflate their commission. On the other hand, a good sales person will listen to you as explain the features you want and then they will recommend a product that fits your description.

Successful affiliate marketers take the same approach in their business. They help users choose a product or service by giving/providing reviews that are informative, but at the same time being honest. They use the information to refer people to purchase items online.

The truth is that affiliate marketing is not a walk in the park. You need to know how to learn how to be an expert in generating affiliate sales which is very important.

When we talk about affiliate marketing, there are a bunch of things that we mean:

• Finding the products to promote.
• Building of website.
• Doing market research.
• Search engine optimization.
• Social networking.
• Email marketing.
• Creating or sourcing information for your website.
• Creating ways to promote your product.
• Earning money by displaying ads on your site

… and there is a lot more.

What makes affiliate marketing for newbies a success?

1. Choose the correct niche.
This one of the biggest determining factors of whether you will succeed and make money through affiliate marketing. Look for something that you love doing. Marketing a product that is related to you will be much more enjoyable and you will not get bored in the process.

2. Find the correct affiliate program.
When looking for an affiliate program for your selected niche, consider more than just the amount of commission you will earn. The two most important elements that play a great role in making a successful campaign include:

• Communication- is it possible for you to talk to the affiliate manager in charge of the campaign? A good affiliate program will have a manager who is dedicated, accessible and responsible for helping you make money.
• Desire- do the products and services you consider marketing stand out? Will they turn visitors into sales? Would you buy the product you are promoting? If you answer no to any of these questions, then it might not be a product for you to market.

Different programs meet different needs and you may not know what you can identify with if you do not try out a variety of things and giving yourself the time to learn and grow. Take time to learn what each offers so that you are able to choose the most beneficial starting point to grow your marketing capabilities.

3. Find a mentor.
Starting out on affiliate marketing is a steep learning curve. You need to answer questions such as, how to make a website, What products to promote, how to get visitors to your website, how to convert visitors to sales and much more.

It is important to look for an affiliate network that will offer a personal mentor who is assigned to help you make money.

3. Join a community.
Joining a community of likeminded people is something that you should consider as an affiliate marketer. You will be able to ask questions that you have and you will be sure to get unique answers. Some of the leading affiliate forums include WickedFire, ABestWeb and Affiliates4U.

4. Get a free blog.
Use a free blogging platform like Blogger and WordPress to create a site that is free for you to start making money. These platforms are completely free, extremely easy to use and can be setup in a short period of time.

5. Stay focused.
Affiliate marketing is very enticing and you can be drawn to promoting many different products on the same site. This can be very confusing to a visitor and sticking to one topic on each site is recommended. Give plenty of information for the products you choose. This is a sure way to make consumers feel knowledgeable about what they are buying. Become a master of your niche and understand it inside out.

6. Don’t spend money.
The aim of affiliate marketing is to make money, but spending it is also easy. This makes it hard to see returns. Concentrating on free traffic generation is the best way to start as you find your way through.

7. Content is king.
Until you have made money, content is the way to go. Having many articles, product reviews, visitor feedback and information that you can publish on your website creates a greater chance of attracting visitors to your site. Add new information to your site every few days since search engines like to show fresh information.

8. Use videos and walk-throughs.
Video guides are very powerful and a good video comes close to actually seeing the product itself. Make use of videos that demonstrate the product and how it works. This is a sure way to entice visitors to click on your site.

9. Include the good and the bad.
Whatever format you are using, make sure you talk about the good points and the bad points. Even the greatest products have that one thing that people wish it was changed. If you do not do this, your post is going to look like a sales pitch and it will not be trustworthy.

10. Enjoy what you do.
Affiliate marketing should be enjoyable. The flexibility of when and where you work from comes as an added advantage. Most affiliate marketers do it as a hobby alongside their fulltime job. Choose right and it will work for you.

Tips to choose what to sell:

• The best way to know what to sell is try it out yourself. Are you willing to try it before you sell it?
• The best product is one that is directly matched to your content. A dog lover does not want a cat grooming tool.
• Think about the reputation you are building when selling a product. Is it a product that will please your customers?
• The merchant page that you send your potential clients must be good at turning them into buyers. Let your efforts pay you back.
• Have a merchant that will provide after sale support services to customers.

Being an affiliate marketer is making every visitor count. Every visitor to your site is either a customer or a potential customer. Never let a visitor leave empty handed. The most common thing in affiliate marketing is collecting email addresses from customers. It is a fantastic way to build business.

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info. I do get a small referral if you buy via my links – that´s why all informations are free for you on my website.