Affiliate Marketing for Beginners: 5 Things To Know Before Choosing An Opportunity
In a previous article. I talked about the 3 profit activators that should be there no matter what business you are looking at. Today I want to discuss the 5 things that you should know before you sign up for an affiliate offer/opportunity. These are especially important for affiliate marketing beginners.
1: Product value:
Whatever you are promoting should have value. Be discriminating and hold your brand to a high level. If you get known in the industry as promoting junk or spamming your links it will really hurt your business and your brand.
If your offer does not have any value then your customers do not have any incentive/motivation to proceed up the value ladder. You only get repeat customers if what you provide is of value. Think…what does your ideal customer really need. What questions do they have? Will this product provide the answer or solve their problem? In affiliate marketing, you are trying to solve a problem. Basically, you are trying to connect the product/service with the person that is a good match for that product/service/software. Solve that person’s problem or provide what they are looking for.
2: Margins:
The offer that you are promoting has to have the potential to make you money, otherwise, why are you promoting it. If it is because you just want to help people then this can only last for so long before you go bankrupt/ out of business. This means that there has to be a high ticket offer on the back end. This is where a lot of new affiliate marketers start because they are uncomfortable with money and charging people for a product.
I know from experience that it is very difficult to make money online with low ticket offers. I started with a couple of low ticket offers because I was uncomfortable with the idea of charging what I thought was a lot of money.
If you don’t make sales on the front and you do not have anything on the back then you are in the hole financially with no way to make a profit. You will not be in business very long. My goal is to replace my current income so I had to change my ways.
3: Tracking:
The affiliate link that you get should be good for an extended period of time. With some offers, the link is only good for 90 days. With others, your customers are linked to you for life. Is the link good for the whole funnel or only for the front-end offer?
It is important to find out how long is your link good for? As you gain experience it is also important to learn about tracking so that you know where your sales are coming from. This is a more advanced topic and I will save it for another post.
4: Marketing material:
What types of promotional material is available for affiliates. Are there funnels, videos, follow-up emails already written (swipe files). What methods are recommended for promotions? How successful have other affiliates been? Is the promotional material high quality and does it have high value?
Usually, the product creator will have excellent sales material that has already been tested and optimized. My recommendation is to use what the vendor provides. If the sales material is not any good or not available, my recommendation is to keep looking for another offer. If you are just starting you want to start with something that has a proven track record and is well established.
5: Integrity:
Does the vendor treat people/affiliates right? Do they pay on time? Do your research! You can research the offers on YouTube, Google, even Facebook. Many of the affiliate market places will rate the vendors. Make your choice wisely.
My goal with my articles is to provide sufficient training so that you can avoid these issues and pitfalls that are often associated with newbie marketers.
Will you make mistakes? Yes! This is life and how we learn. Can you reduce the number of mistakes that are made? Absolutely, with good training and education. If you are interested in a product that meets all five of the above items and you want to learn how to be an effective marketer then Click Here.
Do you need a mentor?
One of the things that has helped me the most with my affiliate marketing business is finding a mentor. I created a YouTube video on my channel about this very topic. If you are interested you can watch that here: https://youtu.be/AunFEHERhrY
It is so helpful to work with someone who has made the journey and is at the level of success that you want to achieve. Contact me if you want to connect with my mentor and speed up your journey to success.