AFFILIATE MARKETING STRATEGY

 Here are the best affiliate marketing strategies that demand your immediate attention:

1. Leverage Product Reviews

Today’s internet-savvy consumers take help from search engines and social media every time they want to buy something. The sheer variety and choice often put them in a dilemma of what product to purchase. They tend to be skeptical about choosing a particular brand over another. According to a study by gen.video, 77% of the respondents claim to have used social media as an inspiration for buying new products.

You can monetize your audience by publishing authentic and high-quality reviews of the products you want to promote. You can write it as a blog post or create a video for your YouTube channel. The choice of medium depends on where your target audience is most active.

If you are writing a blog post, make it detailed and insightful. While you have to include the affiliate link, make sure you share your unbiased views on the product. List out all its pros, but don’t hesitate to brush past the cons. If your review isn’t genuine and helpful, your audience will immediately sense that you are monetarily motivated.

Make sure you feature the link to the merchant’s site multiple times in your content. This makes it difficult for the reader to ignore the link. It is also recommended that you maintain transparency by mentioning that it is an affiliate link.

Make the review believable by sharing your personal experiences and stories of using the product. Additionally, you should use relevant and popular keywords in your content. This helps ensure that your blog post shows up in relevant search engine results. Optimize the layout of your blog post and use images and videos to make the review more engaging.

Alternatively, you can create unboxing videos and review affiliate products on your YouTube channel. Include the affiliate link in the video description as well as the end card of your video. Make the review interesting by including close-up shots of the product.

Another clever tactic is to publish reviews comparing the affiliate product with a direct competitor. Highlight the features that give it an edge over the competitor. Such reviews will likely send more qualified traffic to the merchant’s website.

2. Harness the Potential of Social Media and Influencers

Once you have published a review, you shouldn’t wait for your audience to discover it. Instead, you should actively promote it using various marketing channels. Share the review across all your social media profiles and include the affiliate link in your social media posts as well.

There are approximately 2.8 billion social media users in the world. Likely, many of them will qualify as your target audience. Yet, they may not be aware of your blog and its content.

The thing about social media is that if users like your content, they will share it in their own networks. This helps you expand your reach beyond your existing audience. It also lets you reach out to an audience that would have remained inaccessible otherwise.

Likewise, an influencer can help drive increased traffic to your website/YouTube channel. Influencers share a friendly rapport with their followers and have the power to shape their decisions and choices. They can be particularly useful when your audience includes millennials and Gen Z members. In fact, 70% of millennials claim they will likely get more influenced by bloggers than traditional celebrities.

This can be done by partnering with relevant influencers in your niche. You can collaborate for a cross-promotional venture wherein each party does a shoutout for the other on their social media profiles. You can even work with them to create fresh content featuring the affiliate product.

It is worth pointing out that you shouldn’t collaborate with any random influencer who has a massive follower count. Analyze their social media profiles to find out how well their audience engages with their content. Additionally, you should ensure that the influencer isn’t already promoting similar affiliate products.

3. Host a Live Webinar

Live webinars presents a great opportunity to interact with your audience and know more about them. It is also an effective technique of educating your audience about a product that you are trying to sell.

Let’s say you have tied up with a merchant and want to sell an online course on digital marketing. There’s no shortage of digital marketing courses available in the market, so what makes your course better? Why should a consumer choose your course over others?

A webinar gives you the perfect opportunity to address these concerns and answer all their questions. This, in turn, convinces your audience further about the product that you are selling. Additionally, a webinar acts as an excellent tool for lead generation.

Here are a few things you should keep in mind while hosting a webinar:

• Announce the webinar in advance and promote it across all your social media profiles.

• Use paid ads on social media and search engines to promote your webinar.

• Send an email to all your existing email subscribers, inviting them to join the webinar.

• Promote the webinar on your blog using a notification bar or popup boxes.

• Create a dedicated landing page where people can sign-up for the webinar. Make sure that the landing page is optimized for only one goal – getting a visitor to register for the webinar.

• Once you have gathered sufficient participants, hosting the webinar is fairly simple. You can use WebinarJam for this purpose.

• During the webinar, highlight all those features that distinguish the affiliate product from its competitors.

• Share your personal experience of using the product. Don’t hesitate to talk about its limitations (if any).

• Set aside a specific time to address all the queries and concerns of your audience.

• Share the affiliate link with all participants at the end of the webinar. Since they have invested so much time hearing great things about the product, they will be more convinced to buy it.

You can make your webinar even more engaging by hosting it in collaboration with a relevant influencer. It can increase the perceived value of your webinar and help you get more registrations. Additionally, try to get a special discount from the merchant for your participants. It will further motivate them to make a purchase.

4. Utilize Email Marketing

Email marketing is an effective way of maintaining direct communication with your audience. We have already discussed useful tips to collect email addresses from website visitors. Once you have built a robust mailing list, you must stay connected with them. You can do this by sending them valuable, engaging, and educational content.

Create a series of newsletters educating your subscribers about the features and benefits of the product. Make sure your mailers aren’t overly promotional. Instead, focus on giving real value to the reader. At the end of the series, you can make your sales pitch and offer them an irresistible deal on the product.

Additionally, if you are already sending a weekly newsletter, you can include the affiliate link in a relevant section. Make sure you don’t try too hard to sell the product. You can make your mailers more engaging and credible by including testimonials from existing customers. You can even announce special discounts or giveaways for your email subscribers.

The key is to ensure that you don’t force your subscribers to buy a product. Instead, you should focus on providing added value to them. For instance, you can include a link to a review of the affiliate product in your mailer, without showcasing the affiliate link upfront.

You can also use email automation software such as MailChimp to segment your audience. Create separate segments based on how specific subscribers engage with your audience. You can then send targeted promotional emails to each segment. Additionally, you can use autoresponders to automatically send the next email based on how a subscriber interacts with your emailer.

Another smart tactic is to create a series of emails unveiling a product. You can conclude the series by offering a special discount or early access to the product. This is particularly helpful when a merchant is about to launch a new product. It helps create a buzz and build an audience even before the product hits the market.

An effective email funnel is one of the best affiliate marketing strategies. It can help drive qualified visitors to the merchant’s website and convert them into paying customers. However, you should maintain a balance between educational and promotional content.

5. Leverage Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC ads are one of the best affiliate marketing strategies because they offer multiple benefits. You can use them to build your mailing list, promote your webinar, and drive conversions. However, you can’t achieve all three objectives using the same ad. Instead, you should create a PPC ad that focuses on a specific goal.

For instance, when you search for “learn LeadPages” on Google, the first listing is a PPC ad by Leadpages. It promotes a 14-day free trial of their product.

When you click on the ad, you are redirected to a landing page. You are offered the aforementioned free trial in exchange for your email address.

When a user clicks on the ad and opts for the free trial, they have to submit their email address. This helps grow your mailing list. Additionally, if they find the product to be useful during the free trial, they will likely return to get the paid version.

While running PPC ads for affiliate marketing, you should carefully outline your objective and select your keywords. Make sure you target keywords that exhibit an intent to purchase. Additionally, you should target keywords used by the merchant and your competitors. The best affiliate marketing strategies focus on using PPC ads to promote email sign-ups and webinar registrations.

Also note that your landing page plays a critical role in the performance of a PPC ad. If your PPC ad links to your blog post or product review, users won’t know what action they are supposed to take. Instead, you should use an optimized landing page with a clear call-to-action (CTA). It immediately tells the user what they should do on the landing page.

You can run PPC ads on multiple platforms – search engines (like Google) and social networking sites (like Facebook). Irrespective of the platform used, the underlying principle is that you pay money for every click on your ad. Therefore, you should run PPC ads only when your affiliate marketing business has garnered significant traction. Otherwise, you may not be able to recoup the expenses of these ads.

6. Announce Exclusive Discounts and Deals

One of the most best ways to drive sales is to launch promotional offers. This is because consumers love discounts and are always on the lookout for good deals.

You can do this by offering your audience with discount coupons and exclusive deals. It is one of the best affiliate marketing strategies that will help you drive conversions. Needless to say, you must do this with the consent of the merchant. Most often, the merchant will provide you with a trackable discount code.

Once you have created the offer, make sure you actively promote it on social media and through emailers. A webinar is also an effective way of promoting the offer to your audience. You can run PPC ads for the offer as well.

7. Create a Dedicated Resource Page

When trying your hands at affiliate marketing, you will likely not restrict yourself to a single product or merchant. You must be promoting multiple products from various vendors. It also helps if you have a specific page on your website that showcases all your affiliate products.

Moreover, make sure the page is easily accessible from different sections on your website. It helps ensure that irrespective of how a visitor lands on your website, they become aware of your affiliate products. It can be a landing page that lists all your affiliate products and links to the merchant’s site. It can also be a detailed blog post that highlights the benefits of each product.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing is an extremely useful side hustle that can help you generate a steady flow of passive income. Being an affiliate marketer, you don’t have to go through the pain of creating and testing a new product. Your responsibility is just to identify the right products and promote them to your audience.

However, the journey of an affiliate marketer isn’t always a cakewalk. You have to utilize the best affiliate marketing strategies to build your audience and engage with them. You must leverage social media marketing and PPC advertising to expand your reach. You should also collaborate with relevant influencers to grow your audience.

A key proponent to affiliate marketing is to establish yourself as a valuable source of insightful content. This is essential to earn the trust of your audience and make it easier to pitch your sale. Moreover, you should utilize webinars and weekly newsletters to educate your audience about the product.

Follow me on my social media handles for more information 

Instagram: Ejiro_gift_praise

Twitter: Ejirogiftpraise

Whatsapp: 09049809399