Affiliate Marketing… that word either made your heart race with excitement or your eyes roll, right?
Wherever you are on the “affiliate marketing” spectrum, we’re here to remind you that there is so much potential to add a meaningful amount of revenue to your business while adding high value to your audience through affiliate marketing.
We recently sat down with some incredible guests in our Affiliate Masterclass (catch the replay here) who have either built amazing affiliate programs or who have seamlessly incorporated affiliate marketing so successfully into their businesses that they are able to make passive revenue from it every day. One of our affiliate guest experts makes $80k per month – so they know what they are talking about!
Before we dive into what we learned from our affiliate experts let’s first define what affiliate marketing is and how it works.
What is Affiliate Marketing:
Put simply, affiliate marketing allows you to make money (earn a commission) by recommending products and services to your audience. You get paid when your recommendations convert into a subscription or a sale.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work:
In order to make money with affiliate marketing, you would need to join affiliate programs, where you will receive unique links that track every time you send a customer to the program.
Sounds easy right?
So now onto the juicy stuff…
These are the top 10 tips we learned from our successful affiliate marketers that we interviewed:
(Number 10 is our fave)
1. Shift your mindset about affiliate marketing!
It’s easy to get a bad impression of affiliate marketing as being “salesy” and “sleazy” – no one wants that! Shift your mindset to understanding affiliate marketing is about providing a tool and resource that people will love and need. Your audience loves to hear what products you like and what works for you. When affiliate marketing is done well, your audience will convert when they know you genuinely love and appreciate a product. This leads us to tip 2….
2. Choose products you genuinely love and use
When you love and use a product yourself, you will be able to speak authentically about the benefits and value a product offers. This is the kind of affiliate partnership you should look for. The best affiliate products are those that you are familiar with.
3. Treat the affiliate product as if it is your own product
Find something that pairs perfectly with your services. For example, if you create websites or website templates like Tonic, you know that every website needs images, so partnering with Social Squares as an affiliate to promote beautiful images to populate their website template is a match made in heaven. (Shameless plug, if you want to partner with us as an affiliate you can sign up here!) When you treat a product as if it was your own and it is seamlessly and strategically interwoven into your product or service offer, it will feel very natural to talk about it genuinely. Which leads to the next tip…
4. Talk about it, talk about it, talk about it!!
Consistently and organically share about your affiliate products and why people should buy them. If you don’t talk about them, then your audience won’t know about them or even know that you have a discount to offer them, which is a loss for you and your audience!
5. Strategically place your affiliate link in multiple and easy-to-find locations. Here is a quick list of great places to add your affiliate links:
- Your Instagram bio
- Your email signature
- Your Youtube captions
- Your website footer
- Create a dedicated Instagram highlight for all your affiliate links
- Create strategic blogs that include your affiliate links
- Create a resources page on your website with all the affiliate links
- Join online forums such as FB communities where you can be an expert and share your affiliate links (*in a non-spammy way of course)
- When speaking at conferences, mention your affiliate products
- Strategically add your affiliate links to your email marketing campaigns with either dedicated email sequences or one-off campaigns
6. Create valuable content around the affiliate product
Create educational content in the form of videos, blogs, guides, checklists, how-tos, top tips, and so on around the affiliate products that you love. Your audience will find so much value in seeing how you use a product or service in your own business and are more likely to sign up using your affiliate link.
7. If you’re promoting a product be good at using that product
This one is self-explanatory, but very important. If you’re promoting a product that you love, it works in your favor if you are excelling in the way you use that product. For example, if you are an affiliate for an email marketing provider such as Flo desk then being good at creating engaging and beautiful emails will lead to people asking what platform you are using.
8. Customize the promo materials
When you sign up as an affiliate for a product or service you will usually be provided with marketing materials to help you promote the product to your audience. Successful affiliate marketers will spend a little extra time customizing the promotional material to connect with their own brand and audience. This adds another level of authenticity and trust to your promotional efforts.
9. Add a disclaimer that you will make a small commission
It is important to be transparent and open about where you will make a small commission. Many people get concerned that this will turn people off from clicking their affiliate links, but in fact, the opposite is true! People appreciate transparency and will be happy to support you when you are providing high value. As an extra bonus, say thank you to your audience for supporting you. Here is an example text: “By clicking this link I will receive an affiliate commission, thank you so much in advance for your support.”
10. Add a bonus to the affiliate offer
This is our favorite tip and this is the next level. When you offer your affiliate link for a product or service you love, offer an extra add-on gift or freebie. This increases the value and incentive to click your link. Some examples of a freebie are templates, information guides on how to use the product, or a 15-minute free consultation call. It can be anything that takes the value up a level and makes it worthwhile to click your link. Adding a unique bonus will increase the value you are offering and customize the promotion to your audience.
So those were the top 10 incredibly valuable tips from our expert affiliate marketers, which ones did you find the most helpful? We’d love to hear in the comments below.
Interested in partnering with Social Squares as an affiliate?
Here’s all you need to know:
We believe in generosity because we know you have the power to be the heartbeat of our business, which is why we offer 30% commission for the lifetime of every paid subscriber! That is a really exciting opportunity. Plus we offer bonus incentives throughout the year.
If you love the beautiful imagery we create here at Social Squares and you feel that our product pairs perfectly with your services or product offerings, then let’s partner together!
Are you ready to:
- Create extra business revenue?
- Create additional avenues to find business success?
- Want to work smarter, not harder?
Then sign up today and get started as a Social Squares affiliate:
We thank our guest experts for giving us such valuable affiliate marketing tips:
- Allie Fernando, Director of Brand Experience, Kajabi
- Jen Olmstead, Co-owner, Tonic Site Shop
- Graham Cochrane, Author of “How To Get Paid for What You Know” and Business Coach; Top Affiliate for Kajabi
- Kaitlyn Parker, Founder & Lead Copywriter of Copy Uncorked™, Top affiliate for Tonic
- Martha Botar, Founder & CEO of Flodesk
*We earn affiliate income when you click through the affiliate links on our website, we thank you in advance for your support.
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