So, you’re thinking of being an affiliate? There’s room for everyone in this realm. Although it seems like a tough wall to crack, the Age of Internet has changed the way we work for good, making it significantly easier for niches such as Real Estate to enter the fantastic world of Affiliate Marketing.
You’ve all seen stories online about the luxurious lives of these people who seem to make money out of thin air. You may wonder to yourself, ‘What if I could work from home’ ‘What if I could have the free time I crave.’
Let’s break down just how you can do that by revealing the most popular best practices among affiliates. It’s a generous industry, and you know what they say, sharing is caring.
Starting your day as an Affiliate you can expect to have quite a stress-free morning. Picture yourself pouring a cup of morning energy, finding a comfortable spot, and getting online. You are most likely, to begin with checking your statistics. As I have stressed in one of my previous articles IF YOU’RE NOT TRACKING YOU’RE NOT MAKING MONEY. How have your campaigns been doing so far? The most common and popular tools used are Google Analytics and Adwords. If you’ve never heard of these heaven-sent online tools read my SEO article, which will give you a basic overview of what tools you have at your disposal. Your most important task is to track and optimize your campaign. Get rid of what’s not working and optimize the things that are.
Aside from tracking your own performance you also need to track the performance of your competition, right? Whether you’re an e-mail, social media, blog, or any other type of online marketer, it’s important that you keep up to date with the latest news and updates in your niche. A successful affiliate always has one thing in mind; its target audience.
So how do you tie in your research with your audience profile?
Well it’s a simple matter of asking yourself the right questions. If your niche is Real Estate for example you would want to ask yourself “what kind of person would want to invest in real estate?” What are the incentives of such a person and how can I cater to their needs? What age group do they most likely fall in? What tone of language is best for attracting such a customer? Basically, this is your demographic – the people that are most likely to want what you’re advertising.
Then you pop over back to your tools and you set your targeting according to your parameters. This is something you can optimize every day, until you’ve narrowed down your target audience to the perfect attributes, the perfect target that is 100% interested in your content and of course, your product. You may have a smaller list (if you’re campaigning via email for example) but your conversion rate will most definitely increase. Less is more in this case.
Now there are many new, cutting edge ways to go about Affiliate Marketing, but for those of you who choose the old school method, a crucial step to your work day is maintaining your website.
Keep your eyes peeled for any little mistakes that may put off a potential customer. Aside from that, what could you add to your website to improve a user experience? Well, ask yourself these questions. Is the interface easy to use? Do I have enough information on there? Is my loading time reasonable? These are just some examples of how to maintain a user experience.
However, don’t obsess, most of the time having the perfect site, or even the perfect Affiliate Marketing brand is a gradual process which takes time since it’s a necessity to use results for optimization, your own personalized results. So, I’m afraid you’ll have to pay in hours for this one.
The general goal is to expand and reach as many prospects as possible. So, don’t stop at perfecting your website, also focus on perfecting your online presence. Earning a legitimate reputation online consists of making yourself known in directories, websites, social media. Just look at this way, the more popular you get, the more trustworthy you are as a source and trust takes you a long way! If you manage this well enough, who knows, you might even become the next authoritative entity online.
By now you have some time to make sure you are keeping good communication with the companies you are a Partner to. This is a great way to gain additional insight for your campaigns and get any constructive feedback from people you essentially have common goals with. It’s no secret that keeping up with relationships in business can significantly propel your career for the better. It’s called networking and it works.
Ok, but what about communicating with your followers/subscribers? This may not be a must for all niches but adding a personalized user experience has proven to increase sales and it is a great way to retain existing clients. This means giving feedback where requested, checking your work e-mail and just generally meeting your deadlines.
And that’s it! These are the main tasks that need to be on every Affiliate Marketers schedule! As you may have noticed being a successful affiliate requires a hands-on attitude with the independence to take on some responsibility alone. So, the only question that remains do you have what it takes to be your own boss? These are the ground rules, the rest is up to you! Check out our Affiliate Program to get in on the ground floor. Success awaits.
