5 things you'll need if you're starting out with affiliate marketing

5 things you'll need if you're starting out with affiliate marketing

When you're beginning affiliate marketing it may be upsetting because it will feel like you're and unappreciated and underpaid intern lol.  You'll need to do a decent amount of work before you start seeing a good amount of sales coming in, but don't worry, you'll get there eventually if you're persistent

Being an affiliate is when you sign up on a platform or with a website and start listing their products on your website or over social media.  You don't have to make anything yourself, that's already done by the business that is trying to increase it's sales.  You don't have to worry about payments, the company should be tracking all of that and logging all of the traffic you send them.  All you'll have to do is worry about the company sending you a check or digital transfer of funds to your account if you're making them sales   For those couple reasons, affiliate marketing is a big thing with new marketers and those who have massive lists that are legitimate.


Before you start calling yourself an affiliate marketing, you'll need a few things first.  Well, you'll need 5 things specifically



1. You Need A Website
You won't need your own products, but you will need your own website in orde to place your affiliate links on in order to get clicks and hopefully some sales.  You can treat it like your own business by sending traffic to your website and if they click through a link they will get a cookie placed on their computer which will track them for 30, 60, 90 or more days.  If that person makes a person within a specific time frame, you will get a commission.

You'll need to have a good looking website and not something that looks like it was made in 2001.  Get a nice WordPress theme and set it on your own hosting for a few bucks a month.  This will set you apart from 95% of the other affiliates out there who are just spamming links wherever they can and getting banned on certain platforms


2. Content Content Content
You will need a good amount of content in order to pull people in and show them you know what you're talking about.  You're supplying 100% free information to anyone who is willing to come in and read what you posted.  You could be running a legitimate blog about animals and linking to affiliate products related to the niche, and people will gladly purchase if they want the item.  Now your content has to be top notch and readable in order to convince people that you're the authority within your niche, so this could take time.  You could always hire a few writers, myself included *cough*cough*, in order to get content published on your website.  Some writers will charge $5 for 500 words while others will charge $15.  Of course you get what you pay for, so don't be stingy when it comes to hiring a good writer


3. Building a List
One of your main goals is to build up an email list through newsletter sign ups.  If you're posting great content regularly then you'll have people coming in to your website day in and day out.  This will most certainly increase the amount of sign ups you have to your newsletter and that means more people you can pitch affiliate links   Don't overdue it though,  I wouldn't publish too many affiliate links within your newsletters because people want to see your website being promoted through emails, not someone elses.  They signed up to get news from your website, so give it to them in form of an article, and have a link or two on that articles page which you're linking to in your newsletters


4. Giveaways and Raffles
Now you're probably saying "If I'm giving something away, how would I make money?"  And that's pretty simple.  You will be doing a giveaway that doesn't cost you anything, and if it does, it shouldn't cost you much.  Think about it, would you sign up to my newsletter if I said I was the authority in Online Marketing?  Probably not since there are a lot of people claiming that.  What if I told you that I was the authority and you can have a free 100 page eBook that has plenty of money making methods you can use for yourself?  You'd probably sign up since it's just an email address being added to a list and not money leaving your bank account  

Now when you give away this eBook you will have implanted affiliate links throughout it so that people will have to click through and see what you suggest they sign up for.  Of course you will get a commission through these links, and that's how you make money with giveaways   Not only do you make money through the giveaway, you're building your email list

Raffles don't have as much of a draw since not everyone wins, but you will still see people clicking through to sign up for a chance to win something.  A good example of this is when I do my monthly giveaways for 6 months of free SEO and marketing to someone in my list.  On my page it says "Sign up for a chance to win 6 months of Free SEO and Marketing!" so they know they aren't guaranteed a spot.  I don't get as many sign ups because these people aren't guaranteed anything after they sign up besides my newsletters lol.  It still works well though


5. A well configured auto responder
When it comes to email marketing, you will want to automate it as much as possible.  To do this I like using MailChimp and setting up 6 months of emails.  I'll have a few go out within the first week after someone signs up and then once a week after that.  It's said that it takes around 6 or 7 emails before someone will make a decision to purchase.  With my set up they will get 6 or 7 emails in the first month lol   And if those initial emails don't get them to sign up, the next 5 months will

If you don't want to do automation like that, you can always set it up to send out the initial first week emails and then send out an automated email once a month.  I would suggest that you also send out emails containing 5 or 6 of your most recent posts so that you can increase your click through rates to something that a reader might be interested in.  Getting 5 or 6 titles linked in your emails is like throwing out 5 or 6 fishing lines, it only increases your chances of getting someone on your website



In Conclusion:
Affiliate marketing is certainly a difficult thing to do if you're a newbie, but it can be done if you're persistent and set up your system right the first time.  Luckily you stumbled upon this discussion which means you're not going to screw up as much as the other 95% of newbie affiliate marketers out there   If you do screw up, learn from it!



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Thanks!

Razzy