Affiliate marketing is an interesting addition to a business model. Up until two months ago, I didn’t know much about affiliate marketing or how it worked. After reading and consuming countless articles, blog posts, and videos about affiliate marketing, I decided I would implement it as part of my business model for Creative Boost. I was truly fascinated with the concept and wanted to see for myself how impactful it could be. I will share my affiliate marketing progress later in the post, but what I want to focus on first, is implementing affiliate marketing right for YOUR business.
*This post is written with the assumption your business already has a website.
*** This post contains affiliate links, please read the disclosure here.
What’s in this post:
- What is affiliate marketing
- Why is it a great addition to your business model
- How to analyze and determine if it’s right for your business
- Affiliate marketing strategy
- How to find the right programs
- Program recommendations
What is affiliate marketing
If you are as clueless as I was about affiliate marketing, here is a simple way to understand it:
Essentially, you’re the middle man between the product and the consumer. You introduce the product in your content and have the consumer decide if they are interested or not. If the consumer decided to buy through the link you provided then you make a certain percentage of that sale.
More sales = more money.
There are many ways you can implement affiliate links, here are some examples:
- Create a blog and make good content that features products/ services with embedded links
- Make videos and refer people to those links
- Email marketing
For Creative Boost, I choose to implement a blog as part of my business model. The reason I choose to create a blog was that I wanted to create valuable content to interested people and potential clients. The main purpose of the blog is to provide people who are interested in social media, branding, and business with valuable content that will benefit them. I only write about topics I am passionate about and that align with the services I offer. Also, all the affiliate links that I attach in my posts are heavily based on me using those products/services or know someone who greatly benefited from those services/products. I never write information about products I don’t know anything about. Everything in the posts is based on experience or in-depth research.
Why is it a great addition to your business model
Affiliate marketing could be a great addition to your business because it is a strategy that if implemented correctly can earn you quite a lot without doing too much. An important thing to note is that affiliate marketing is a long term strategy; you won’t be making money (or a lot of money) immediately.
In order to make money from affiliate marketing, you need to create content that is:
- Solving a problem
- Has valuable insight
- Of high quality
Besides these 3 things, you need to have motivation, drive, and patience. Don’t bank on affiliate marketing from the start, let it build itself. In the beginning, you will have to put a lot of effort into your affiliate marketing strategy until you get validated by your customers/ readers. Once you gain that trust you can reduce the effort level, but still remain consistent. The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can make money from the content you created five months prior.
PRO TIP: Create content that is timeless, so whenever someone stumbles upon your content they can relate and it won’t be outdated.
How to analyze and determine if it is right for your business
Affiliate marketing is great, but will you benefit from it in your business? YES, there are many opportunities to benefit from affiliate marketing for all types of businesses. However, it is not for everyone and not all businesses are in a profitable category.
Here is how to analyze your businesses compatibility:
- What niche does your business belong too?
- If you create additional content for your business would it be beneficial, educational and will solve a problem?
- Can you create 3 specific categories that will have rich content in them?
- Are you willing to put in the effort into creating fresh content on a DAILY/REGULAR bases?
PRO TIP: to see if your business is in a profitable niche, check out Niche Hacks
Often the most profitable niches are within:
- Saving money services/ businesses
- Fitness
- Food
- Beauty
- Lifestyle
- Fashion
- Technology
- Motherhood
- Internet marketing
If your business does not fit into one of these categories, it’s ok. You can still create a blog or videos as a side business that is not part of your main one. This will also be easier because you’re doing this as a pleasure and after hours investment. The best way to create a successful blog/video is by taking on a topic you’re passionate about and highly knowledgeable about. Remember, adding value and solving a problem is KEY to affiliate marketing success.
If you do find that your business could be profitable with affiliate marketing but you don’t have the time to create the content, you can also hire a freelancer that will create this valuable content for you. One of the best websites to find freelancers for a good price is Fivver. They have freelancers offering their services on any possible topic, and rates start as low as $5! Check it out.
Affiliate marketing strategy
So how do you do affiliate marketing?Here are the steps I took to implement affiliate marketing into Creative Boost:
RESEARCH your competition
Before I started I looked at everyone who is doing similar things to me. I looked at all the bloggers for bloggers blogs, I looked at experts’ brand services blogs, Pinterest master blogs and many more that relate or have the context to what I wanted to post about. After finding my competition, I looked at what they do and what kind of feedback they get. I learned what my potential audience would be interested in.
Choose three main categories to write in
Next, I chose three specific categories I knew I could write a lot about and could link through a lot of services and products.
Find good programs that have a good commission return
There are a lot of marketing opportunities but not all of them are worth using. You have to search for programs, services, and products that will give you the highest return on your content. You can see more about this below.
The way I found my programs were again based on my research and then I looked at every service and product I used and like. I looked at the product/ service and checked if they offered an affiliate program.
Create good content
You’re probably thinking, whats good content? Well, good content is information that adds value to the consumer and is given with knowledge and research. For instance, if you want people to click and sign up for Skillshare, you won’t simply say: “sign up for Skillshare cause its the best”. You will research Skillshare, you will try Skillshare (99% of the links you will promote will offer a FREE trial) and then you will use it within your post. You will talk about why it’s so great for this given situation or you will create a whole post about it and its benefits.
The kind of content that engages readers are:◆ How to◆ Tutorials◆ 10 ways, signs, reason◆ Must try
How to find the right programs
The right programs are the ones that are afloat with your brand and relate to your topics. Also, a good program is one that rewards you greatly for your customer referral. For instance, Shopify gives you a 200% commission if someone signed up for their yearly membership. This means if someone bought from my link then the first 2 months of their payment is my commission. That’s over $60 a person, and if they upgrade, then it could be over $120 for that person. Isn’t that great?
Look for programs that truly give value and not give you a dollar back on one sale. Think of it from a mathematical perspective. You spend X amount of time creating content for a product that will reward you with one dollar per purchase, meaning you will have to get 100 people to go buy through that link to make $100, but if you get 5 people to buy through the Shopify link you make over $300.
PICK YOUR PROGRAMS WISLEY so you won’t be wasting your time.
Program recommendations
I wanted to share with you some of my favorite programs. Scroll down and find their affiliate program & if you don’t find it on the page google “name affiliate program” :
ShareASale– It is one of the leading affiliate programs that have hundreds of services and products on their platform looking for you to promote their products.
Fivver – Besides having a great affiliate program, it is a great website to use for extra help and receive creative input from a freelancer when you don’t have time to create.
Skillshare – One of the best affiliate programs I found, but I also highly recommend using
Skillshare in general, because when you sign up, you get a free profile and access to endless learning videos about 100s of topics that are greatly beneficial for any business
Shopify – As I mentioned, they have a great affiliate program. If you haven’t started your online business yet, I would recommend reading my post about why you need to start your online business with Shopify, because aside from having a great affiliate program, they are the best tool for online stores.
Tailwind – This is the best tool for Pinterest marketing and traffic boosting and is a great affiliate program where you earn 15% commission from every sale.
Siteground – A great hosting tool for your website and one of the highest paying affiliate programs.
ConvertKit – One of the leading tools in email marketing, plus, you get 30% commission of each sale!
SocialPilot – A social media tool that helps you to keep track of your content & schedule it.
BlueHost – Another very strong commission pay for their affiliate system and like site ground one of the hosting leaders in the game.
Wix – My website is hosted through WIX so I can vouch for how great they are and how amazing their affiliate program is
Grammarly – THIS IS A MUST. I have spoken about Grammarly sooo many times, and I will forever stand by it with or without an affiliate program because this tool saves me every single day! and yes they also have a good program.
These are just a few of the many potential programs you can find and start earning from! DO YOUR RESEARCH on what fits your brand/business best and what will bring you and your reader the most value.
Pro Tip: Simply apply to all programs, most will approve you regardless of the fact that you may not have any content yet.