Affiliate Marketing Action Plan
Affiliate Marketing is a great way to make money without having your own products and the technical issues and support that come with them. Instead, you promote other people’s successful products and get paid about 50% of the product price for doing so.
This post will show you how to start the right way.
Whether you’ve decided to use affiliate marketing as your main business model or you’re looking to promote affiliate offers alongside your own offers, the key to success is to get everything set up correctly.
So slash the learning curve and avoid costly mistakes by using this affiliate marketing action plan…
NOTE: For this action plan I’m going to assume that you’ve already chosen a niche. If you haven’t done this step yet, then do your market research to uncover profitable niches.
If you have no idea where to start, you might begin with large, evergreen markets such as make money online, weight loss, golf, dog training, gardening, home improvement, and similar markets.
Then carve out a smaller niche for yourself (e.g., weight loss for women over 40).
Onward…
Step 1: Find a Product
There are two ways to approach this:
- Find an affiliate network first and then search for a product. Reputable affiliate networks include:
Primarily Digital Products:
1, ClickBank.com one of the oldest and most reputable networks that take care of everything (tracking, paying affiliates, etc.).
2, JVZoo.com Large digital product database with an emphasis on online marketing markets.
3, Zaxaa.com Similar to JVZoo, but not as well known.
4, RevenueWire.com eCommerce for subscription businesses.
5, WarriorPlus.com similar to JVZoo and ClickBank.
TIPS:
- If you’re unsure of the vendor, use a network such as Clickbank.com, which pays you directly (rather than you having to wait for the vendor).
- Digital products usually pay better than physical products, with commissions around 50% and often even higher.
If you decide to sell physical products, here are some of the top affiliate networks:
1, Amazon.com
2, CJ.com
3, Ebay.com
4, Rakuten.com
5, ShareASale.com
NOTE: All of these are reputable networks. In most cases, you will need to submit an application, so get your site up and running first.
Take note that some networks, such as Amazon.com, tend to have higher conversions because people already know, like and trust them.
- Search for a product, and then check out the network. If you have a type of product in mind already (perhaps uncovered during your initial market research), then you can search Google to find vendors.
Next…
Step 2: Review the Product
Don’t even think of promoting something until you’ve purchased, reviewed and used the product. If you wouldn’t recommend it to your best friend, then don’t recommend it to your audience.
Step 3: Do Your Due Diligence
Be sure the product and vendor have a good reputation before you start promoting. Take these steps:
- Search for the product name in Google and look for evidence that the product has a good standing in the market.
- Search for the vendor’s name and website in Google to be sure the vendor is honest and reputable.
- Check the sales letter and overall sales process for commission leaks, such as extraneous links or cookies being deleted and replaced with another affiliate’s cookies.
Next…
Step 4: Add Value to The Offer
No matter what you’re selling, you have a lot of competition. You can stand out from the crowd by adding value to the offer in the form of a valuable (related) bonus.
For example, if you’re selling a bodybuilding course, then here are three ideas for bonuses:
- Create a set of lifting videos.
- Offer a bodybuilder’s cookbook with delicious, high-protein meals.
- Offer a meal-planning app.
Next…
Step 5: Set Up a Lead-Generation System
You’re not going to send your traffic directly to the vendor’s page. Instead, you’re going to get people onto your mailing list, build a relationship with them, and then promote affiliate offers on the backend.
Here are the pieces of this system:
- Lead magnet. This should be tightly related to the affiliate offer so that anyone who wants your lead magnet will naturally want to buy the affiliate offer. Naturally, your lead magnet will include links to your affiliate offer.
For example, if you’re selling an in-depth course on traffic generation, then you might create a lead magnet with “27 Surefire Traffic Generating Tips.”
- Lead page. This is a short sales letter – sometimes just a headline, a handful of bullets, and a call to action – which tell viewers the benefits of your lead magnet and why they should join your list now.
- Autoresponder series. This is a series of around five to seven emails that are related to the main offer. Each email is a mixture of content and pitch.
In keeping with the example of selling a traffic generation course, your email series might be something like: “The Five Traffic Secrets Of Million-Dollar Marketers.”
Each email would include one of the secrets plus a pitch for the paid course. Be sure to promote your bonus offer when you promote your affiliate link.
Step 6: Drive Traffic To Your Lead Page
Once everything is set up, then you can start driving targeted traffic to your lead page. This includes:
- Setting up a blog and using content marketing and search engine optimization to drive traffic.
- Setting up social media pages (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).
- Using video marketing to promote the lead magnet. (Use sites like Vimeo.com and YouTube.com to distribute the videos.)
- Viral marketing.
- Guest blogging.
- Doing content swaps or ad swaps with other marketers in your niche. For example, your partner promotes your lead page from within his newsletter, and you do the same for him.
- Interviewing the vendor on a live webinar. Then distribute this interview as a lead magnet to further build your list.
- Purchasing advertising on niche sites, or by using big ad platforms such as Facebook and Google AdWords.
Conclusion
Many affiliate marketers make the mistake of driving traffic directly to the vendor’s pages, but that results in low conversion rates and wasted traffic.
A better idea is to build a mailing list (which is an asset), and then build a relationship with your mailing list subscribers.
You can then promote multiple offers on the backend over the span of months or even years!
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