The ABCs of Affiliate Marketing

Good morning!

I hope you’re having a great weekend!

This Saturday, I’m trying out a new chicken and dumplings recipe for my husband’s family. I am so excited to try it!

This weekend’s post discusses common terminology used in affiliate marketing circles. The defined words are in bold.

 

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

An affiliate marketer is a middleman between a product creator and his customers. We do free marketing for a product and, in return, earn a commission when a customer makes a purchase.

The merchant knows to pay the affiliate marketer because the marketer uses an affiliate link. The link to the product has a unique code attached to that marketer. The customer doesn’t usually see the code, but it is in the link to the product.

 

A Four-Step System

Four essential actions in affiliate marketing work together to build your business system: attracting traffic, capturing emails, following up, and making offers.

1. Traffic: Traffic refers to the customers the affiliate attracts to their products. The marketer’s job is to get in front of the traffic and direct them to her site. People are already interested in the marketer’s affiliate products or niche, so the marketer attracts people interested in that niche to their site.
2. Capturing emails: Once there, the goal is to get potential customers’ emails. You do this by giving the traffic something of value, a lead magnet, in exchange for their email. When they opt in, they get a lead magnet, the free product you offer.

Your content will be however you decide to speak with your audience. It could be through a blog, social media, forums, podcasts, your lead magnet, etc.

The term value in affiliate marketing refers not to what makes you money but to what you give your audience that helps them.

The values of the marketer will shine through to their audience via the value in the content they create.

This unique connection between the marketer and their audience will determine the marketer’s success.

It is essential to be genuine with your audience. This is your superpower. It makes you unique in the crowd and gives you a special connection to your audience.

When your audience trusts and likes you, they will be willing to purchase based on your recommendations.

 

 

3. Follow-up is the term for writing emails to your subscribers. Your subscribers are the people who have signed up for your emails.

Emails can be written spontaneously as often as each day. These are called broadcast emails.

You can also write an email campaign using your autoresponder. An email campaign is a pre-written set of emails automated to go out at specific times. Examples are welcome messages, confirmations, and follow-up emails. These can previously be set up so they don’t require manual writing from the sender each time they are needed.

 

4. Making offers is the phrase for your sales pitch. It needs to be almost an afterthought. It comes after you’ve given value to the audience you’ve found.

Your priority must be to give, give, and give to your audience. Each day, your goal is to wonder what you can tell your audience that will help them today. Then deliver.

Remember, these people are just like you. So, when you offer something they can buy, be sure you do so in a way that you would respond to positively.

Never push, push, push an offer in a spammy way. Only offer after giving value and explaining why that offer can benefit your audience.

Offers can be sent via email, banners, and links on social media platforms.

 

Mindset

Many people wonder if affiliate marketing will work for them. This mindset needs to be corrected. Mindset is a word that gets bandied about quite a bit in our world. It’s the impetus behind any entrepreneur’s success.

Affiliate marketing is a proven business model. It’s a given that you will succeed if you focus on the right tasks and get good at them. Other people do it, and so can you.

It’s important to have a growth mindset, which is a perspective on learning and perfecting.

A growth mindset is a belief that one’s abilities and intelligence can be developed and improved over time through hard work, perseverance, and learning from failures. People with a growth mindset see challenges as opportunities for growth and are fearless in taking on new tasks or pushing themselves outside their comfort zones.

A growth mindset can lead to greater resilience, motivation, and success. It allows individuals to approach obstacles positively and be willing to learn from their mistakes rather than seeing them as insurmountable barriers.

You will also need a mentor. You may learn what to do, but perfecting that is key. A mentor can help you do that and quicken your progress.

Direct from Dean

So, last week, I asked my mentor, Dean Holland, to review a few of my blog posts and let me know how he thought I was doing. The goal is to share everything I’m learning and improving, and I wanted his perspective on how well I was doing that. He sent me an email:

My feedback is simple – You’re doing GREAT!!

I love all that you’re doing and focusing on as per your message here… And your blog is packed with such value.

As I always say, your blog is your place to share, to document…. All that you’re learning, doing, experiencing, feeling etc… anything you want!

And you’re really doing that so it’s fantastic
Keep up the great work!

This week, I’ll let him know I’ve caught up through week 7 in our Affiliate System training. There have been thirteen weeks so far, so I have a way to go. I haven’t thought of any questions for him yet, but I’m considering them. As he urged us, I will give him an update each week.

Also, I learned how vital Thursday is in my blogging routine. I’ve set Thursday and Friday aside to write my blog.

This Thursday, I didn’t want to get started. I wrote a rough sketch and an outline. I flushed it out a bit, but it was very rough. It felt like an extra day, so I took it easy.

Well, on Friday, I felt the pressure. I worked and didn’t finish. Friday night came along, and I continued but didn’t finish.

Along comes 1:45 AM Saturday and I was awake and unable to go back to sleep. I felt the pressure to finish but couldn’t think clearly enough to feel like I’d done my best.

Lesson learned: Thursday will set the tone for my blogging that week. I will take it seriously.

I’ve done my best this week, but it’s not what I’m happy with. But, as Dean advised last week, I will keep going. I need to take fast, imperfect action. Aiming for perfection will keep me from moving forward.

Conclusion

What lessons did you learn in your business this week?

However imperfect, I hope you found value in having these standard terms defined. Did I miss any common affiliate marketing terminology?

Are you surprised that a successful affiliate marketer’s purpose can’t be based on making money but on giving value?

Please leave a comment and share my post on social media.

And most importantly, please sign up to be one of my accountability partners. I’d love to touch base with you during the week!

If you’d like to know more about the affiliate marketing business model, check out this book, which I highly recommend.

Ciao for now,

Nakina