College students always need a little extra money. There are the usual low-paying low-reward campus jobs available – you can sling burgers at your favorite fast food eatery, deal with drunks at the local dive bar, or try not to doze while shelving books at the campus library.
Or there’s another option that’s flexible, interesting and could possibly lead to more – Affiliate marketing. In this article, we’re going to look at… Exactly why affiliate marketing is a good option for college students, how it works, and the steps for getting started.
Why Affiliate Marketing Is Great for College Students
After reading the three regular part-time job options above, you’re probably on-board already, but let’s look at several solid reasons why affiliate marketing is a good choice for college students:
- You can work for yourself, anywhere and anytime. You don’t have any boss to answer to. The flexibility is great because you can work around your school schedule.It involves a good deal of writing, but it’s not “term-paper writing.” Blogging and social media updates are as easy as typing or writing an email, so you won’t need all of the index cards and footnotes.
- There is a wealth of topics you can choose from for your website and affiliate marketing business. You can choose something you’re interested in. Any niche is okay as long as there’s money in it.
- College students are internet savvy, so the huge technological hurdles that trouble older folks (how to create a WordPress blog!) are nothing at all for you. If you can maintain a Facebook account, you’re ready to get started.
- It’s not hard to build a steady but modest income, and if you find that you’re good at it, you could actually make a great deal of money. Many entrepreneurs got their start with affiliate marketing.
- Finally, it’s the easiest way to start an online business and you don’t need your own products to sell. You’re an “affiliate,” so you sell the products of others.
The Basics of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very simple business model. You are an affiliate. You sell products for a vendor. You can find vendors through affiliate networks, where you sign up to sell their products of your choosing. You promote these products online and whenever you make a sale, you get a cut of the money. Affiliate commissions depend on the network and the vendor, but they’re often quite generous.
The way you promote and ultimately make a sale on products is through your website, blog, social media content, YouTube videos – wherever you produce content online.
Producing great information (content) is a major part of what you’re doing in affiliate marketing. You build an audience through your blog or social media, and then you introduce products to them as solutions to their questions & problems. But before you recommend any products, you do have to build this audience, and you do this through a steady stream of valuable info that’s entertaining and helpful.
In fact, once you learn how affiliate marketing works and get some success at it, you’ll realise that you can automate or outsource a big chunk of your business and run it on autopilot.
3 Examples of Affiliate Marketing
In case it’s still a little confusing, here are some examples of affiliate marketing.
- Let’s say that you’re an avid camper. You travel everywhere, always checking out new camping spots. You write about your experiences, share photos and shoot video, and blog about camping, providing advice on places to camp, good activities, tips on saving money, reviews of campsites or products, and so on. Along with all of this helpful content and these tips, you also provide information on camping products, which your readers can buy through your site. They could be anything from hiking boots to a tent, if someone buys one of your recommendations you get a cut of each sale.
- Maybe you have a podcast where you talk about books you’ve read for class with your friends. You have lively, funny discussions and your podcast builds an audience of loyal listeners. You can then tell them about audiobook services like Audible, or offer links to the book reviews on Amazon. When a listener signs up or buys a book (or anything) from Amazon, you get a cut for referring them. That’s the beauty of sending visitors to Amazon, you’ll get a commission on everything they buy on that visit.
- Or, maybe you’re a guitarist. You produce YouTube videos that teach people how to learn guitar basics, improve technique, play popular songs and master soloing. You could also review guitars and guitar products, which you sell through links along the side of your blog. I have personally made sales of guitar teaching programs by simply videoing my friend playing guitar and adding a link to a “learn to play guitar” offer!
Hopefully now you can see how you can take whatever interest you have and earn money from it through affiliate marketing. You’re basically “nerding out” online with your audience, which you may do already through social media. The only difference is that you’re also offering products for sale that you think your audience would like.
Hopefully now you can see how you can take whatever interest you have and earn money from it through affiliate marketing. You’re basically “nerding out” online with your audience, which you may do already through social media. The only difference is that you’re also offering products for sale that you think your audience would like.Is Affiliate Marketing for You?
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Affiliate marketing isn’t for everybody. Sure, it’s a pretty easy way to earn money and a good introduction to running an online business. But here are some cases where it may not be for you:
- You’re not a “self-starter.” I hate that word “self-starter” and I’m sure you as a college student do too. But it’s true that you have to be motivated to work by yourself to do affiliate marketing. That’s the downside of not having a boss over your shoulder – there’s nobody to tell you to skip the party and get some work done.
- You need BIG money. You can make big money through affiliate marketing but it’s best not to go into it thinking that. Instead, you’ll gradually build a steady stream of income. It might take a little while and it may never become a full-time income. On the other hand, some people hit the jackpot or find that they’re really good at affiliate marketing and build multiple streams of passive income through it quite quickly.
- Your interests aren’t really profitable. Affiliate marketing doesn’t work well for every niche. There has to be money in it. If your interest is too obscure or it’s something where nobody buys, it might be a tough or almost impossible to make money. On the other hand, you can find niches that are close or that you like enough to work in.
- You can’t wait. You have to keep at it over the long-term to get real results. This means a lot of writing, product research, reviewing products, interacting with your audience, and so on. But if you put in a little time regularly, keep at it, and learn, you’ll do well.
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Steps on Getting Started
Don’t let the above list scare you off if you’re not sure. Affiliate marketing takes very little (and sometimes no) investment up front to get started, so it’s something you can try out before you decide whether to dive into it or not.
- The first step is to choose your topic. Start with things you’re interested in or passionate about. What topic can you blab all day about? What do you want to tell the world about? What special skills, expertise, experience or help can you offer people? Start by making a list of topics you love.
- The next step is to take this list and research your topics. What you should look for is:
Is it unique? If you want your content to be popular, it needs to be unique. You can make it unique by taking a topic that’s already out there and putting your own unique twist on it, or tailoring it to a certain audience.
Is it popular? It needs to be a topic that other people are into. You can try googling it and see what comes up. If you find blogs, websites, and social media groups in this topic with good followings, you’ve found something good (this is also a good way to get ideas to set your idea apart).
Is it profitable? This is a little bit trickier to discern, but you can look at online marketplaces to see if people are buying it or not. You can look at Amazon or eBay, or affiliate networks like ClickBank and Commission Junction, which provide data on products sales.
How much competition is there? You want something popular but that doesn’t have too much competition. If there are already lots of affiliates out there selling the same stuff, you’re going to have a hard time breaking in. Try to find something where there’s not a whole lot of competition already.
This may sound daunting – How do you find a niche that’s popular but doesn’t have too much competition? That’s advanced affiliate marketing. For now, find something reasonably popular without too much competition. You can always refine your affiliate marketing campaign later.
Once you have a good niche, you create your site or blog and start filling it with content. Before people will buy anything from you, they need a reason to visit your site in the first place. Content creation is the most work you’ll do and it takes the longest. Plus, it takes time to build an audience and your content is what does it.
You can also build your audience through social media and sites like YouTube. Basically, anywhere you can post content, you should start doing so.
While you’re working on your content, sign up for an affiliate network. There are many different networks, all with their own terms and features. I recommend reading some reviews of different networks before picking one. This might involve some dull reading and math, but it’s really important to choose a good one where you can earn money.
Once you start gaining an audience, make every effort to communicate with them. This is the “marketing” part of affiliate marketing. You need to learn from your fans what kinds of solutions or products they need. If you can offer just the solutions and answer the questions they are looking for, you’re sure to earn money.
Affiliate marketing for students conclusion
This long article is just the tip of the iceberg. There are all kinds of tips and techniques that you’ll learn along the way. It’s not hard at all online to find tutorials, articles, forums, and all kinds of other help to get your affiliate marketing business off the ground.
Affiliate marketing for students works so well because it’s more flexible, interesting and potentially profitable than any of the other part-time options out there. Best of all, you are in total control. It’s not just a job, but also a valuable learning experience that can teach you how to run your own business.
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