How to Make Money in Your Sleep with Affiliate Marketing
Waking up at ungodly hours and driving through traffic jams only to be subjected to mind-numbing emails and wait for the sweet 5 o’clock release. Does this sound like a happy life to you? What if I told you that there is a way you can make money in your sleep? You won’t have to wake up before the sun and not go through heaps of emails, and the best part is that no one can boss you around.
Making money is easy if you know how to. There are plenty of ways you can earn more than your average daily wage and not work for long hours. I believe one should only work for their own self, not others. Why sacrifice your 12 hours so that someone else can buy a Lamborghini while you drive a Prius to save gas money?
In my quest to unravel the secrets of making money, I stumbled upon a magnificent achievement that I once thought was too good to be true until I embarked on my adventure and practiced it. This money-making secret is called affiliate marketing, and it has changed my life. If you want to know how to make money in your sleep, know that I can teach you. All you have to do is follow through until the end and practice everything you’ve learned. Even little by little, but something is better than nothing – right? So, let’s get started with ‘what is affiliate marketing?’
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
If you are new to the digital marketing world, you have a lot to learn. However, if you have some idea of digital marketing and how it works, this guide is perfect for you. Technically, affiliate marketing is performance-based marketing where a business rewards one or more affiliates for increasing their sales.
Affiliate marketing is the art of reeling in customers through your content. Most businesses have eCommerce stores, but no one to review their product and write about them. As a content writer, you can cash your writing skills for not just money but a share in profits. All you have to do is build your website, partner up with a brand, and start writing about their product. Don’t worry; the brand you work with will give you a tester.
Just use your writing flair to help people understand the product you are marketing for, and each sale made through your website will reward you with a set percentage amount of the revenue. The best part about this is that you can write multiple blog posts on various products and just let them get shared on the internet.
How Does it Work?
Now that you know ‘what is affiliate marketing,’ you are probably impatient to learn how it works. It’s quite simple, actually. Three parties need to be actively involved in making affiliate marketing work like a charm.
- The Buyer/Consumer
- The Brand
- You (Affiliate Marketer)
1. The Seller/Brand
Everything starts with the seller. The first step to becoming an affiliate marketer is to partner with a brand. Of course, this step comes after you have created a website. However, you don’t have to worry. There are plenty of online tools that allow you to create a website by dragging and dropping items.
Your partnership with the seller matters a lot because it defines your niche. Try to work with a well-known brand or at least someone who has a product you think you can test and write for. Working with sellers whose products are a one-time purchase is not a good strategy for beginners. By going this route, you might make a substantial amount of money in 3 months, but you will have to pay for the marketing expense from your pocket during the time you didn’t make any sale. So, make sure the seller you go for has a liquid product (that sells fast). You can use various keyword tools or Google Trends to know what sells.
2. The Buyer
A buyer is a person who will read your blog post and make a decision about buying your product. Your content needs to be focused on convincing the buyer that your product is a necessity unless you are marketing an exceptionally expensive product. Try to step into your reader’s shoes and understand what they are looking for in a product review. Write according to it, and you will definitely convert traffic into sales.
3. You (Affiliate Marketer)
As an affiliate marketer, your job starts from maintaining a relationship with the seller to capturing your buyer’s interest. Your content is like a bridge between the buyer and seller, making sure it looks exactly as the buyer wants is your responsibility. In simple terms, just make your content according to your audience’s tastes and make sure it’s easy to understand for readers.
How Do I Find Affiliate Marketing Programs?
If you are wondering how to get your feet wet in affiliate marketing programs, I have a few options that might pique your curiosity. The easiest way of finding affiliate marketing programs is by visiting an affiliate marketing platform. Here are a few you can try. Just reach out to the brand, and ask them if they are open to affiliate marketing programs.
Another option is to visit the website of the products you like. Reach out to them, and they will surely be open to affiliate marketing. However, it would be best to find your niche before you start hunting for affiliate marketing programs.
Finding Your Affiliate Marketing Niche
A niche is a sort of ‘category’ you work in. Some affiliate marketers are into tech, some into pet items, and some others love toys. Regardless of what you promote, there is always a seller out there. All you need to do is find a niche that you like. Here are some of the hottest affiliate marketing niches of 2021.
Once you have decided on your niche, you shouldn’t deviate from it – at least not on your existing website. Making a sudden switch to a different niche would confuse buyers, and they won’t trust you. If you want to explore different niches, have separate websites. The more digital landscape you cover, the better your chances of scoring a sale through affiliate marketing.
How to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing?
Now that you know the three main players of the affiliate marketing program and (hopefully) have a website, it’s time to start exploring the secrets of making money online.
1. Create Content That Generates Traffic and Revenue
Most beginners start writing a bunch of content and add affiliate links to it in hopes of making a sale. This is similar to how a salesperson goes door to door, hoping someone will buy his product. Affiliate marketing is a strategic process that involves writing content that will generate traffic and sales.
Your content depends on ‘keywords,’ and they have several types, but we’ll focus on the important ones for now. To generate traffic, you need investigational intent keywords, and to generate revenue, you need to add transactional intent keywords, i.e., the type of keyword your audience uses right before making a purchase.
Your strategy should revolve around generating traffic by writing a few affiliate blog posts with traffic investigational intent keywords, like ‘how to’ keywords. Once you have a good number of people visiting your website, you can start focusing on ‘transactional keywords’ – keywords that have ‘buy,’ ‘coupon,’ and ‘discount.’
2. Promote Your Product in the Content
Now that you know what keywords to target, your topics should revolve around the questions your target audience might have. For example, ‘best shoes for running’ is a question; people might be searching on Google.
Once you are done with keyword research and have a content idea, it’s time to start adding your affiliate product. Avoid stuffing your affiliate marketing product link everywhere in the content, and try to place your links strategically. Make sure you don’t stuff keywords, and always look out for opportunities within your content to help buyers relate to you and your product.
Building a connection with the reader is important, and without it, you’ll have a hard time making sales.
Make sure to use your site space wisely. You can even add links to your affiliate marketing products in the hello bar, inline banners, and side widgets. Try using keyword tools and affiliate link plug-ins for more help.
3. Turn Your Visitors into Customers
Most new affiliate marketers believe they need to generate 10x more traffic to increase their revenue by the same number. However, this is not true. Affiliate marketing revolves around cost per click (CPC), and you should try to keep it as low as possible. Assuming you make $50 revenue from one sale, and you get 100 visitors per day, out of which you convert only 2%. Your CPC will be $1. (CPC = total revenue/ total traffic you sent) This means you are in a good place for now. However, if your traffic increases by two folds, your revenue will become rise much higher. The best part is that you don’t have to work extra hours to increase your traffic. All you have to do is optimize your existing traffic for more conversions.
4. Take Advantage of Third-Party Platforms
Affiliate marketing is not limited to simply posting content on your website and hoping you get traffic. A bit of creativity can take you far in this field, and there is no limit to how much money you can make from affiliate marketing. By leveraging the power of email marketing, you can increase traffic on your affiliate marketing website. But how do you get an email list?
You can ask customers to sign up on your website to stay updated with new information. This works slowly. However, you can launch email bursts to promote your website once you have an email marketing list.
Moreover, you can think out of the box and start social media marketing as well. Paying a small amount for an online advertisement doesn’t hurt if it increases your traffic. Focus on getting more traffic for starters, and then move to transactional keywords.
The Bottom Line
Affiliate marketing is a gold mine in 2021 as e-commerce activities have increased. On top of this, affiliate marketing is ridiculously easy and pays much more than a 9 to 5 job. The key to success is a time investment and working for yourself. If you have the motivation to change your life, you can make a difference. If you don’t invest time, your affiliate marketing efforts won’t yield positive results.
There are plenty of unique ways you can set yourself apart from other affiliate marketers. By using advanced tools that generate data-driven results, you can make an informed decision about your business.
TheArtofHackingLife.com is a great place to kick start your affiliate marketing journey and go forward. Follow my blog posts to stay updated with the latest industry information and new tips and tricks about digital marketing.
