How to Crack Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has been with us for a few years now. The digital space has made it easier for the best affiliate programs to take root, with thousands of people enrolling to secure a passive source of income. Unfortunately, only a paltry 5% succeed, while 95% are left struggling, and many give up, sometimes too quickly.

Unfortunately, affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, even though some people claim it is. You need multiple skills, such as communication, marketing, writing, and networking skills. It takes a lot of hard work and a diverse network to succeed in affiliate marketing. 

Choose a Niche

Before joining any affiliate program, you need to know the niche you are likely to thrive in. You have probably heard enough about how crowded affiliate marketing is, so I won’t go into that. However, there is still room for more people with new ideas. You just need to be strategic, and the first step is to pick a niche that you can market and easily stand out from the crowd. 

For example, if gifting is your love language, you are a perfect fit for the Luca's Gift affiliate program.  Promoting products that you are familiar with will be easy, and you’ll build a following among people who share the same passion. Even people who are not into gifts will follow you for ideas on what to get their loved ones for Mother’s Day, birthdays, and all the other events in the year.

People who fail in affiliate marketing sometimes pick the wrong niche and products. Selling products you don’t understand is difficult. What’s worse, you may be targeting an audience more knowledgeable than you. So, before promoting specific products, ensure you have an interest in learning more about them and can market them confidently. 

Avoid Duplication

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and I appreciate that affiliate marketing has been here for years. What can be done, has been done, but you can be outstanding even when you use the same techniques. You just need to use a different approach. 

Remember, you have one shot at capturing your audience’s attention, so what will you do to get it? I’m not saying that you shouldn’t see or follow what other affiliate marketers are doing. You can get pointers on what they are doing to succeed, but try and be unique.

Affiliate marketing is not just about posting content, making social media posts, and highlighting your affiliate link. Think about it, how many posts do you scroll past on social media? Millions of people do this, so what will you do to make someone stop to read your post? Even better, how do you get them to be interested enough to click the affiliate link or the link to your website?

The answers to these questions will help you determine the path to take in your affiliate marketing journey.

Test & Tweak

Do not be fixated on one marketing technique. Instead, use the test and tweak technique on all your product promotions. Initially, this may not be necessary since it takes time to get audience engagement and build a following. However, as your business grows, you can gauge the response you get. 

It is easy to tell the kind of content your audience likes over time, so you can tweak your promotions to fit their interests. For example, pay attention to tone, and headlines that catch your audience’s attention. You should also identify the best way to integrate affiliate links without spamming.

Think Long Term

It is easy to get caught up in the present when you’re doing affiliate marketing, but you should have a plan for this month, next month, or even Christmas, even though it is six months away. However, with this in mind, you should also consider the online foundation you are setting. You need to get things right today for you to reap in the future. 

Whatever marketing strategy you use, whether it is using blogs or short videos, they should captivate your audience. Even if they don’t buy anything today, they will remember you when they need something in the future. Having long-term plans will help you overlook current disappointments, especially if you don’t get the response you expected, despite your efforts. 

Avoid Spamming

I’m yet to come across anyone who doesn’t get offended by spam. Even Bill Gates once vowed to get rid of spam emails, but two decades later, spam is an even bigger nightmare that has found its way into social media and affiliate marketing. Even the best affiliate programs have not been spared, since affiliate marketers use every means possible to make a sale, including spamming.

There are distinct differences between affiliate marketers and spammers, but some affiliate marketers do not know the difference. Some people think affiliate marketing is all about pasting the affiliate link all over social media and in forums that sometimes have nothing to do with whatever they are selling. 

You have probably encountered some Facebook or Instagram posts where individuals paste links consistently. Additionally, some people write great blogs, but rather than use their content to convince their audience to convert the visit into a sale, they keep posting affiliate links. This causes some people to unsubscribe or unfollow them.

When you join affiliate marketing, you should look beyond posting affiliate links because your audience will soon tire of them.

Leverage Your Relationships

Successful affiliate marketers have one thing in common; they focus on the relationships they build with their audience. Meanwhile, those who fail in affiliate marketing don’t encourage engagement with their audience. Instead, they assume that their core responsibility is to promote products or solve technical problems. 

The advantage of building a relationship with your audience is you remain in their minds, even when you are not actively posting on social media or any other media. If, for example, you are in Luca’s affiliate program, if they are looking for a birthday gift, they will remember you instantly, not because of a specific post, but because of the relationship you have built with your audience. 

Make Helping a Priority

Affiliate marketers join affiliate programs for the money, and there is nothing wrong with this. This is why you should look for an affiliate program with the best terms. Consider the cookie life, commission, and other benefits. Luca’s Gift has a 30-day cookie life, a 10% commission, and a 20% affiliate link discount. All these are great and will help you make money in affiliate marketing. 

However, choosing an affiliate program is just part of your affiliate marketing journey. The next phase is product promotion and this is where you will need to make a critical decision - are you selling just to make a sale, or do you want to help your audience? 

While selling is at the core of affiliate marketing, approaching it with the desire to help your audience is most likely to earn you a bigger following and more sales in the long term. This approach is better than focusing on only making a sale.

Make Your Content as Specific as Possible

One of the strategies that work for most affiliate marketers is blog writing. You can use other media, including social media, to promote products using short-form posts and videos. Alternatively, you can create content that perfectly fits a specific search query. Pick a topic that is less competitive and more targeted.  This will help you navigate the competitive world of affiliate marketing. 

In the Luca’s Gift affiliate program, you will promote a range of personalized gifts for different people and occasions. You have a lot of flexibility on how to target your audience and can be as specific as you wish. 

Promote the Best Products

Here is where the game of numbers is, and you have to look at this critically because you are running a business. Products with the lowest price tags will earn you relatively low commissions. 

For example, if you are promoting a $10 item and a $50 one, and are getting a 10% commission, you will earn $1 and $5 commission, respectively. 

Suppose you aim to make $2000 per month, you would have to sell 2,000 of the $10 items to get to your target. If it is the $50 products, you’d have to sell 400 products. 

Based on the above example, you may be tempted to promote high-ticket products because you won’t have to sell as many as the low-ticket products to get to your target, and you would be right. 

However, you have no guarantees that promoting high-ticket products will give you these results. If anything, the low-ticket products may surpass the sales of the high-ticket products, earning you a handsome commission.  

So, before choosing the products to promote, you need to consider the probability it will become a hit and help you get your commission target. The size of your audience and traffic to your site has a direct impact on your income, so you should always be persuasive and relevant when promoting products.

Affiliate marketing gives you the flexibility to operate a business when you’re working full-time. If you make it a success, you can easily quit your 9-5, and focus on affiliate marketing. However, the approach you use will determine if you’ll be part of those successful at it. You may need to be a little patient and work really hard to build your business, but it will get easier and the money will come in faster.