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Affiliate marketing is performance-based marketing. This simply means that it is an online business where individuals are being paid commissions from promoting and generating sales for people’s products or services. In other words, you don’t need to have a product before you venture into affiliate marketing. The person who promotes people’s products to generate sales is called an affiliate, the person whose product is being promoted is the merchant while the customers are those who buy the product or service. In affiliate marketing, all you need to do is promote a product (through customer referrals, blogging about the products, publishing ads, and posting links on various social media platforms) so that customers can find the product, make a purchase then you earn commissions. Affiliate marketing is a very lucrative online business that helps you earn without limits, gives you the space and time to operate other businesses, serves as a passive income stream, and requires little start-up capital. Below is a step-by-step guide for beginners who would love to venture into the affiliate marketing business:
- Research: Starting a new business without research simply means setting yourself up for failure. You need to conduct adequate research into the affiliate marketing business and find out what it entails. You need to know the different niches in the business, you need to know the skills or level of expertise needed in each of these niches, you need to research on the strategies to use, gain insights on competitors and understand how to attract your target customers and hook them into making purchases.
- Pick a Niche: Having conducted adequate research, you need to select a niche that you’re passionate about. This will help you focus on a particular target market instead of focusing on everybody because the whole world can never be your target market. Some of these niches are health, entertainment, education, business, automobile, family, etc. You can also choose to break down your niche into smaller segments as it appeals to you. In choosing a niche, consider the level of competitors in that area, how large the market is, and the number of products or services already existing in the niche.
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- Join an Affiliate Program: After selecting a niche, you need to join an affiliate program for whom you’ll be promoting and generating sales. This affiliate program should be related to your niche of interest. In selecting a program you have to consider the commission rates, payments terms, types of products and services to be promoted as well as the membership fees involved. Some affiliate programs are Jumia affiliate, Konga affiliate, Wakanow affiliate, Bet9ja affiliate PayPorte affiliate, etc.
- Build a Website: Now that you’ve picked a niche and joined an affiliate program, you need to build a blog or website through which you promote the company’s products or services. The content of your website should be centred on informing potential customers about the products you are promoting. In building a website, you need to ensure that your contents are original, include visual images/pictures, ensure ease of navigation, include social media buttons for easy sharing, etc.
- Start Promoting: The steps above will be utterly meaningless if you fail to promote or generate traffics to your site or blog. Your target audience needs to see what you are selling before they can make purchases. Never forget that the sole aim of promoting your blog or site is to generate traffic which in turn generates higher sales. You can promote your blog by guest posting, paid advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, search engine traffic, etc. In promoting your web content, you don’t need to pester or spam people’s emails with your messages as this would breed suspicion from your target audience.
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