AFFILIATE MARKETING GUIDE TO GETTING PROFITS
One way to grow a
business is to create a strong sales force. Building your own
sales force used to be very expensive, and due to that it was a substantial barrier
to entry for product creators. Thankfully, due to the advent of amazing online
tracking technology, you can not only become a salesperson yourself for many
different products and creators, but you can also create your own products to sell.
Using affiliate technology, you can also build a sales force that can bring in multiple
six figures and even millions of dollars - all without hiring employees. You only pay
your sales force (affiliates) if they make a sale. As an affiliate (salesperson), you only
earn money if you make a sale.
It sounds simple, and it really is. However, it’s a good idea to learn all you can about
affiliate marketing before you jump in. Learning about affiliate marketing and the
various ways you can maximize your earnings will push your business to the next
level and take you toward being the true CEO of your business.
To be successful with making affiliate marketing profits you’ll need to find your
niche, discover the right products to promote, create your own products, find the
right affiliates to market them, and keep your affiliates motivated. It all starts with
finding and understanding your niche.
Finding Your Niche
The very first thing you need to do if you want to make money as an affiliate
marketer - whether you’re going to make money selling other people’s products or
your own (best to do both) - is that you need to figure out who you want to work
with and what niche you want to be part of.
• Who Do You Want to Work With?
One way to figure out the type of people you’d like to work with or help is to look
inside yourself to find your interests and passions. If you really enjoy being around
certain people and you know about their hopes, desires, and needs due to being
part of that audience yourself, that’s one way to do it as you will already have
insight.
However, don’t let this give you an excuse not to do your research. Your
experiences, even as part of your niche audience, are subjective and real results
may be very different than you imagine. Try describing your ideal customer in one
or two sentences to help you move forward.
• Who Serves That Audience Now?
Once you have identified a potential niche audience, it always helps to look at the
competition. After all, if this niche has no competition, is it really a profitable niche?
Some people will say that you should go for the low competition niches, but it's
better to go for the niche that offers enough potential customers for you to reach
your income goals if your conversion rate matches industry standards.
For example, if there are 1000 potential customers, and according to your research
there is a 4 to 7 percent conversion rate, and you know that you can get your
materials and information in front of those 1000 customers, you may get at most
70 customers from a campaign. Is your price point high enough for those 70
customers to make you profitable?
• What Skills and Solutions Can You Offer This Niche?
Do you have specialized education, experience, or knowledge that makes you
particularly suited for this niche? You don’t have to be part of the audience to do
well in a niche.
For example, if you have identified a niche that needs someone to advise them on
products to use for their love of camping which are different from what’s out there,
you can still learn about it and serve the audience even if you have no camping
experience or appreciation of camping. Maybe instead of direct experience, you
have resources that enable you to pay people with subject matter expertise to
create your business.
• What Makes You Different?
Always look at yourself too. What makes you different from your competition?
What skills can you offer to this niche that others can’t? How can you stand out
from the crowd? Are you going to approach the niche in a different way than the
others? For example, if you’re a business coach, are you buttoned up or a free
spirit? Whatever you are, you’re going to attract an entirely different segment of
your audience base than someone who is different from you.
• Check an Affiliate Network for Products That Serve That
Audience
The other thing you want to do is ensure that any niche you choose is profitable.
Asking yourself if it’s profitable is an important question. Just because you have
internet and passion doesn’t make it a profitable niche. What makes it profitable is
that the target audience exists in enough quantity and has enough money to buy
the solutions you create and offer.
Once you narrow down some options, the primary considerations are whether your
niche idea is profitable or not, and whether you have the skills to proceed or not -
either skills you learn or skills you buy from others. Choose a niche that you like
that can provide enough profit and that you know how to serve.