Starting a blog or a website is very exciting. You have this new, pretty, and insightful medium. More than ever, you have the freedom to speak your mind, promote your products, and reach a worldwide audience hungry for your advice and knowledge.
But it’s also a good time to make money by monetizing that blog or website you just spun up. In order to be successful, though, you’ll need to focus on your affiliate marketing techniques.
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.
In this post I’ll share ways to promote products and services that I’ve identified in my research and experience as the 5 most important techniques to make money with affiliate marketing.
Here they are:
Content is King
Writing quality, relatable content about the products and services that you are marketing is easily the most effective way to make money online. By quality, I mean well-written, authentic, researched material. And by relatable, I mean writing and promoting products and services that your audience cares about.
For example, if you are a food blogger, promote cookware. Avoid reviewing things like the new iPhone X, for example, so that it’s clear to your audience where your authority is.
Reviewing a product or service will give your readers the insights they need to make a purchase. Imagine the questions someone might have about a product, and answer them with clear and concise descriptions and explanations.
An issue I run into often managing MOJO Marketplace affiliates is “I am a fashion blogger, how do I write quality and relatable content to promote websites?”
This is about knowing your audience, and finding everything that might be useful for them.
Now, being focused on a particular niche doesn’t mean you can’t help people in other ways. I run into this problem a lot at MOJO, as we help people build websites, and offer commissions to affiliates promoting our products and tools to their audience.
Let’s say you’re a fashion blogger. There is most likely a portion of your audience that wants to build a blog as well; who wants to be just like you. So, in the case of MOJO, I suggest that people write a simple “how to” article about their experience creating a website, and give some advice about how they can reach that goal using MOJO’s products and services.
In other words, there are a ton of ways you can increase your affiliate footprint online, so long as you’re open to the opportunities.
Newsletters Keep Your Readers Up to Date
When blogging or managing a website, collecting emails from visitors is imperative to building a loyal audience and distributing content.
Sending newsletter emails to your audience about new content, updates, or promotions is a great way to keep them coming back for more. Using tools like OptinMonster makes collecting email subscribers very easy.
Newsletters are another content avenue for putting the product or service you are trying to promote in front of the right audience. They also serve as reminders, and people save emails to reference in the future.
Some newsletter formats that are effective:
- Product roundups. This could be a link to a single article rounding up products that are relevant to both your audience, and to each other.
- Announcements for big promotions or product releases.
- Content roundups. Package a week’s worth of content or a suite of related articles to send your audience back to the blog. Giving these some kind of theme often boosts engagement.
Social Media Expands Your Audience
Using social media to promote your content or products is a huge part of managing your blog or website. It actively puts your content in front of users rather than waiting for them to reach your site the old way.
It also puts your blog or website in front of people who normally would not see it and allows people to share your content or products effectively.
You can also reach different audiences and run content tests through advertising on social media.
Much like using Newsletters, Social Media is a great way to put the product or service you are promoting in front of your reader base. Using the reviews you have written, or writing status updates about products or services will drive a lot of traffic.
The credibility and trust that you build with followers across platforms will help you see a boost in conversions.
Exclusivity Breeds Value
Offering products and services with exclusive deals only available on your website is a great way to drive traffic and convert at a higher level. Advertisers are usually happy to give you an exclusive offer, so don’t be afraid to ask. (They know it works).
Check out this MOJO Marketplace exclusive offer on one of our top affiliate’s sites:
This is the ages-old incentive to buy: the deal.
Featuring exclusive deals also helps create the perception of your site as an authority. When you partner with brands that are well-liked by your audience, and you can demonstrate that you have a deep connection to those brands, it works magic.
Even If the advertiser won’t give you an exclusive offer, they’ll probably settle for monthly or seasonal coupons, which you can still spin to your advantage.
To do this effectively, you will need to make sure that you are keeping up on your advertisers coupon offerings through the affiliate network you’re using.
Technology Puts More Tools in Your Bag
Even when advertising technology has come so far, you still see a ton of banner ads all over the internet, used in the most traditional fashion.
How many times have you seen an ad in a sidebar?
Most of the time, these ads aren’t relevant to the content on that page, because they’re just running one ad sitewide.
But there are a ton of plugins available that allow you to experiment with creative ways of placing ads. We all know that pop-ups can be annoying, but they also demand your readers’ attention and can provide useful discounts or info.
Having a pop-up with a coupon code or link to an article that relates to the content on the page you choose to serve the ad on is a better way to serve a less irritating and more useful ad. You can easily create better popups using the OptinMonster WordPress plugin.
As an affiliate it is very important to try all the techniques available to you. This will help you understand better what your audience responds to, and in turn, enables you to convert at a higher rate and earn more money with your advertisers. Try these five techniques and experiment with your audience. If you have any questions or additional ways to make effective affiliate promotions, share your knowledge in the comments below!