Being a successful affiliate marketer doesn’t happen overnight, no matter what you’ve heard, or who you heard it from. Talking about who you heard it from, surrounding yourself with like minded people who you aspire to be like is part of the process of becoming a successful affiliate.
10 steps to being a successful affiliate marketer isn’t actually my title its for title from a PDF I got from Stuart Walker of Niche Hacks. I recently subscribe to Stuart’s blog because quite frankly he’s got some freaking awesome information and tips on their.
You’ll see plenty of changes on Mission0ps which are in part due to Stuarts suggestions.
I have written a post before on 7 things to avoid when starting affiliate marketing, however I think the 10 points below are just as important for when you’re up and running.
I am going to use the same headline titles as Stuart, and elaborate a little with my interpretation and experience.
1 – Make sure everything you promote solves are real and pressing problem your audience has
There’s a guy called Travis Sago who explained it to me very well a while ago. We want to target an audience and obviously offer a solution, as Stuart says it has to solve a real and pressing problem. Travis suggests we offer solutions to problems folks think about every hour of every day.
The obvious niches being ‘curing acne’, or ‘weight loss’, but thinking a little outside the box..
College students worry about their grades and their student debts daily. New mothers worry about the best buggy for newborns, some mothers worry about processed foods and how to ensure their baby get’s the best. New affiliate marketers want to know what niche to go into, and what products will give them the best commissions.
Start to think outside the box at ‘everyday problems‘ you’ll start to see niches popping up all over the place. Remember solving immediate problems is the goal.
2 – Build credibility and trust but only promoting high-quality products
This is a mistake that so many new marketers make when starting out, I won’t lie to you, I’ve also made the same mistakes. I used to do launch jacking, where I would target new products coming out and build specific sniper sites just to get commissions. Problem being that half of most products ended up being crap, and I had just associated myself with them! That something that takes a long time to crawl back.
Building credibility takes time, it comes a price of re-searching properly. If you’re going to market a product make sure you check for the product reviews, vendor reviews, complaints. If possible try and get hold of the product s you can give a really honest opinion. If you don’t like something saying what you don’t like, remember it’s all about building trust and credibility.
3 – Give value to your user at all times – never just send promo after promo
Value and trust are two different axis on the same graph, the more valued you give the more your trust factor goes up. I see it as a bit of an educational process.
“The more I learn the more I’m able to teach. The more affiliate products I test, the greater to my knowledge of what works for affiliates and what doesn’t.”
Adding value can be a simple process of sharing my learning curve and promos need truly be what I have found and used that really rocks! It’s worth going over your email sequence every now and again to ensure you have a value packed follow messages.
4 – Take a long-term approach it can take months to win a customer and just seconds to lose them forever
One thing that I realised about affiliate marketing early on was that I was in it for the long-term. However I didn’t necessarily equate that to winning my customers over for the long-term. I was very lucky with my first niche, I picked I really popular Forex product and was making two or three sales a week, this went on for months, however, I was sooo green, as I look back on it now, my follow-up emails were pretty spammy.
Everybody on that list earned me a $94 commission with their first purchase, if only I had nurtured them and added more value to their purchase (rather than crap forex offer after offer) that one initial sale could have been worth $1000’s on that list – important lessons were learnt back then.
5 – Only promote products you actually bought used and can personally vouch for
If you’re creating the review site, or whether you’re just placing a review on any sites having a personal perspective and experience with the product gives you that edge. It’s been able to pick up what works brilliantly and what could be better that could make all the difference. Offering a quick fix if something doesn’t work quite the way you wanted to.
Not only does this approach work to make sure you can personally vouch for products. It also means you can create tutorials, PDFs, also video on how to get the best out of the product. Further building trust and elevating your credibility.
6 – Do your research on the product vendor before promoting – if he has a bad reputation or history of poor support and high refunds then avoid
The game this is a point well worth following, there are lenders who are notorious for launching great looking products on a sales page but in reality they just don’t work or very is no support or both! There are many websites highlighting scams to avoid. So doing a Google search for “vendor name + complaints” is well worth the time.
And there are some vendors known for having excellent products and brilliant support like Suzanna Theresia from Instabuilder-2.0
Not only does it ensure that you are promoting great quality items from trusted sources, it adds to building your own credibility and trust. Plus, there is nothing worse than a buyer requesting a refund and you losing your commissions… best to promote something where there’s going to be no refunds requested – don’t you think?
7 – Don’t treat your audience like idiots or they will lose all respect for you
The whole point of us communicating with audience is to build a relationship with them and in the real-world we would always do bats respectfully. You talk to them in a manner that’s encouraging, in a manner that you would with your everyday friends hopefully.
Your readers need to know that you have their best interest at heart, if we treat them what idiots, why on earth would you expect them to come back and visit our websites or open the next email?
There’s a saying I heard that I love, and its “lift up as you climb” if we do about our audience will respect us and will always be eager to hear from us. Someone who demonstrates this brilliantly is Matthew Woodward, his blog post really do encourage you to learn more and he gives great examples of his methods.
8 – Avoid hype wherever possible it’s a great way to p*ss your audience off
This should be so obvious however you’ll see it every day in your email inbox. Brand-new revolutionary system promoting some Silver Bullet. Hype comes in many forms and the worst you will see off on those guru marketers promoting products launch of the product launch saying everything is the next best thing since sliced bread!
Soon enough you’ll get wise often it comes at a price. Don’t be that guy wet everything is fantastic and brilliant and awesome. Be that guy who is real down to earth and trustworthy.
If you get really excited and into a product your readers will know it in your voice, or your text and know it’s genuine excitement because YOU are hyped about the product..
9 – Get to know your audience people buy from someone they trust and connect with not from a slimy salesperson only once they cash
There is a saying I have –
“people buy from people not from websites”
I think it fits kind of well what Stuart means here. All the above points if we put them into action properly Will be uncovering the layers that have previously cloaked online characters.
We’re showing ourselves to be someone who can be trusted, someone who they can rely on a lot for honest advice. We’re probably showing them in the real-life world would be friends.
I was a trainer in hospitality for over 20 years. I often would tell my teams you can buy a couple coffee in any store you want, but you pick a store based on your own user experience and the quality of the products… In that order.
10 – If you have to ask yourself “should I really be promoting this” then you definitely shouldn’t
It comes down to ethics suppose, if you truly believe that what you’re promoting ‘solves are real and pressing problem’ you’ll have no should I be promoting this worries. It’s when you haven’t done your research when you’re not sure of the product or the vendor that’s when these questions pop into your head.
Ref: 10 Steps To Being a Successful Affiliate Marketer from Stuart Walker
Stuart of NicheHacks.com
Matt of MatthewWoodward.com
Suzanna of InstaBuilder.com
You see being a successful affiliate marketer isn’t hard but it’s a long road to travel. A road where you will learn plenty along the way. I suggest you take the best of what you learn and leave the rest…
But do keep going.
Have you any more? What would be your #1 piece of advice for budding affiliate marketers? Do let us know in the comments below – you could be really helping someone out!
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