Last Updated on December 5, 2019 by Larious
So, you want to earn a little extra on the side eh? Well, affiliate marketing certainly is a great (if not the best) choice to start earning passively. In fact, if you get into it enough, you’ll find that affiliate marketing will eventually pay you more than your day job ever will. I’ve seen many try their hand on this passive income strategy and guess what? To this day, they never stopped.
I am most certain that none of us want to slave off for the rest of our lives. Being a corporate rat, I mean “staying on the corporate ladder” is far from what you’d call financial fulfillment. Sure, a day job will afford you life’s most basic necessities but that’s just it; that’s all it can afford you.
How about actually “living life”? You can’t really call paying bills, paying rent, and putting bread on the table “living life to the fullest.” You’re barely just surviving in this case. Check out this food for thought: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/are-you-living-or-are-you_b_6419074.
Really now, remember when you used to think that working as an adult would afford your trips to the Bahamas? Well, you can just keep thinking that. If you don’t do something now, that’s all it’s ever going to be – a fleeting thought.
If you’re a fan of scrolling through social media, I’m pretty sure you’ve come across a success story or two already. You’ve probably heard about how one person has managed to make millions from scraps or how some genius kid invented something at a very young age and now he’s the youngest billionaire. Well, let’s assume that you don’t have what it takes to do all that (no offense). What would be the next step for you?
First of all, giving up and just accepting your fate is not your only option. Instead, you should settle for the next best thing. Think about it:
If you can’t invent, if you can’t create, then what can you do? Sell.
I’m not saying this in the literal sense like open up shop and start doing business. Many of us don’t have the kind of money to start a business venture by ourselves. If we did, we would have long quit our jobs already, right? What I’m trying to say is that you should try helping other businesses sell their products. In essence, this is what affiliate marketing is all about. And today, we will be teaching you everything we know about affiliate marketing for beginners.
What You Need To Know About Affiliate Marketing
In an Affiliate Marketing relationship, there are basically two entities involved: The Affiliate (which is going to be you should you wish to pursue this title) and the Business Partner (your actual source of products and services).
The Business Partner is in charge of bringing in the goods, what your role as an affiliate is to simply market the goods sort of like an advertiser or salesman. However, you don’t do this in a conventional way like retailing or brochure selling. Instead, you make use of the best advertising medium we have today: The Internet.
The first thing you will need as an Affiliate is “good following.” You need an audience, consistent and stable followers that would become the backbone of your influence online. The more followers you have online, the higher your perceived influence would be. You can only become an affiliate when you’ve managed to reach a certain level of influence.
The best way to earn influence is through social media. If you are trying to pass off your own person as the “influencer” (there’s also the option of putting up your own website and growing your viewer base there), you first need to build a reputation for yourself. Social media is often the key to tapping large audiences all at once. You just need to be in the right place at the right time, with the right content.
Choosing Your Content
In order to become an influencer online, you first need engaging and traffic-driving content. Why else would people follow you if you don’t have anything interesting to offer? You’re not a celebrity, model, or a politician. There’s no other reason for people to subscribe to your content other than actually having “good content.” So first, you need to find something that would become your brand’s identity.
A very good tip is to choose something you’re already familiar with – better yet, passionate about. You can’t just up and say “I want to be a beauty vlogger” without knowing the first thing about cosmetics.
If all you ever did was sprinkle the powder on your face and trace lipstick on your lips and call it make-up, it would be wise to back-up a little on the idea. You will earn yourself nothing but a few laughs if you go down that road. Read more about this here.
If you really want to start influencing people, you have to create content based on something you’re truly knowledgeable about. For example, if you’ve been working as a kindergarten teacher, you can start a channel or blog about how to handle toddlers or something like that.
In other words, find something reasonable to your passion or profession.
Will You Become An Affiliate After Making Content?
Well, not immediately. In fact, if you don’t work your ass off for a while, not ever. To become an affiliate, you need to grow your influence to a certain degree. You need to have loyal followers – enough to make businesses see you as an asset to their brand.
Business partners often offer contracts to influencers who have an audience that is in line with their target market. Cosmetic brands, for example, would offer a deal to beauty vloggers with at least 500,000 subscribers on YouTube – this requirement can be lower or higher depending on the popularity of the brand as well.
In the same way, a travel essentials brand is likely to partner with a travel blogger or website because they cater to the same audience. To become a true affiliate, you first need to grow your influence with a specific audience and find businesses who would be interested in tapping that niche market (or you could let them find you, whichever happens first).