What Is Affiliate Marketing And How Should You Use It For Your Business?

As a business owner, you are always looking for new avenues to bring more income into your business. One of our favorite, easy ways to bring income into your business is through affiliate marketing. You may have come across entrepreneurs all over the web lauding the praises of affiliate marketing, claiming they have acquired great wealth through their own affiliate marketing business, and now live in a dream apartment and drive their dream car (usually, a Porsche). With affiliate marketing, the rewards are high, the risk is minimal and it can be a savvy and strategic tool to quickly foster the growth of your business, by leveraging the traffic you are already getting to your site as well as your existing community and followers. And the best part is — it’s passive income. You set up your affiliate links and then when a customer clicks on the link and converts, you reap the benefits. And yes, through affiliate marketing, you can literally make money in your sleep. 

So, this all sounds great, right? 

In today’s post, we will be exploring everything you need to know about affiliate marketing and how to use it for your business to enhance the growth and profitability of your company.

Ready? Ok, let’s dive in. 

What is Affiliate Marketing? 

The concept behind affiliate marketing is pretty simple. Affiliate marketing, essentially, is a way of reselling other companies’ and brands’ products or services. Affiliate marketing allows you to take advantage of your existing audience and community, and create new mutual value streams for you and your customers. After becoming a member of different affiliate programs, all you need to do is post affiliate links on your site or create a review post of products and services you already love, and every time a customer clicks on the affiliate link and purchases a product or service, you will get a kickback. Your community already trusts you and looks at you as a source of solutions for their various pain points — affiliate marketing gives you a chance to bring more value to your community as well as reap value of your own. 

How Do You Choose Affiliates to Promote? 

When it comes to choosing affiliates for your affiliate marketing, consider which brands’ products and services you already love, and stay authentic to your brand as well as what your audience and community would resonate with as well. And you can start out small, at first, perhaps doing an affiliate program through Amazon or Target. Keep in mind that every affiliate program is different in the ways in which it is run, and in regards to the cadence of how often you will get a kickback from the affiliate link. For instance with some affiliate programs, you can get paid every 30 days while others may have a longer window. The payment window is usually in the monthly  to bimonthly range.

Where Do You Find Your Audience to Promote Affiliate Links To? 

One of the best things about affiliate marketing is that it allows you to take advantage of your existing audience and derive new value from your community while bringing value back to them as well. Tap into your community wherever they are! — from your social channels like Facebook, Instagram and Youtube to the organic traffic you are driving to your website. The audience you receive from generating traffic to your site, while perhaps not already a part of your community yet, is a great resource to tap into as they found your website and content organically through the SERPs and have then demonstrated interest in your company by deciding to navigate to your site. Anywhere your audience is, you can promote your affiliate marketing links to. 

Where Do You Set Up Affiliate Links? 

You can easily set up affiliate links on your website, using banner links on your side bar, or you can do a review post and at the bottom of the post and include an affiliate link. Think about where you can post affiliate links that your audience would most respond to. Also, consider maximizing your audience’s options when it comes to purchasing from affiliate links. For example, if a product is sold on multiple websites, you can get affiliate links for each of those sites and include them on your site to offer your audience options amongst which websites they would prefer to purchase the product from. You can also promote your affiliate links on your socials as well. Remember, meet your audience where they already are. 

When Do You Have Too Many Affiliate Links? 

You don’t want to have so many affiliate links that it looks like it’s all your company does, and detracts from your own products and services! It’s up to you to organize and balance your content in such a way that your affiliate marketing feels organic and authentic to who you are and your brand, and acts as an extension of the value you’re already bringing to your audience. Gage your audience and how they are responding and interacting with your affiliate links to know when it’s no longer promoting so much, as it is inundating them with a barrage with ads. 

Also, the key to maintaining trust with your community while you are conducting affiliate marketing programs is to be open and transparent. You must disclose in your affiliate links that you are an affiliate and you can add a short disclaimer such as “This post contains affiliate links and we get a small percentage from them when you make a purchase; it’s how our business stays running, etc.” It is important that you directly call this out to your audience in some way. You can also add a full affiliate disclosure statement on a separate page of your site, and on this page, include all of the affiliates you are members of to once again, maintain transparency with your community.

Ready to take your affiliate marketing to the next level? Learn how you can partner us with digital marketing experts at Firon Marketing to amp up your affiliate marketing services, and take your company’s growth and performance to new heights. Reach out to us for a free audit today.