Another powerful tool in affiliate marketing is content marketing. Content marketing essentially means creating a website or blog, rising in prominence, and then using that in order to sell your product.
The
great thing about content marketing is that it works so well in tandem with
numerous other sales techniques. In particular, content marketing is highly
compatible with having a landing page, and in fact, often the objective of content
marketing will be to send people to your landing page.
Content
marketing's broader objective though is to make you into a trusted expert in
your niche. In the business, this is referred to as being a 'thought leader' or
an 'authority'.
This
way, when you then recommend a product, people will be more likely to listen to
you and to buy the product you suggest. So how do you go about using content
marketing?
How
To Get Started With Content Marketing
To
start with, you will need a blog and that will be where you will publishyour
posts and let people know about your business. At the same time, you can then
combine this with a strong social media presence, heavy branding, and maybe
even a YouTube channel, such that your audience can get to know you.
Be
successful at this is largely about posting regularly and offering real value
to your readers. Don't try and sell right away but instead spend your time
building up trust and respect in your niche. Every time you publish a blog
post, you should ask yourself: Is this something you would read? Is it
comprehensive, engaging, and unique enough to stand out from all the other
posts in this niche? Does it make you look like you really know your stuff?
Spend
time designing your logo and website and then work to ensure you are creating a
consistent vision that will help you to establish yourself on the net. This
might all sound like a lot of work and you might find the idea of becoming a
thought leader to be nerve-wracking.
However,
it is very much worth it. The main reason for this is that when you are an
authority in your niche, you will not only be able to sell the one product –
but really any product
that
you subsequently want to. You'll have a direct route to market' letting you
directly reach thousands of buyers and they will always be happy and willing to
take your advice. This is the strategy that most affiliate marketers will use
to become truly wealthy but it does take a little longer.
Note
as well that if you're going to use this strategy, you do need to think carefully
about the quality of the products you recommend. If you promote a very
substandard product too forcefully you will lose the respect of your buyers and
ultimately they'll; be less likely to consider your future recommendations.
Promoting
Your Blog
Running
a highly successful blog is essentially a license to print money but getting
there is a long road. This is not a case of 'build it and they will come' – but
rather something you need to work hard at if you're going to be successful. Even
if you post the best quality content to your blog in the world on a regular
basis, if no one knows it's there, then it's not going to provide you with many
benefits.
So
how do you get the word out?
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Social Media
One
option is to use social media and social bookmarking sites. Over time, you can
use social media synergy in order to build up a large following, and in the
future, you'll be able to use that to instantly reach a huge selection of
people.
In
the short term though, to get those initial viewers it makes a lot of sense to
use social bookmarking sites. These are sites like Reddit and like Digg where
people share their favourite sites. The reason this is so effective is that it
allows you to communicate to a captive audience, all of whom have a shared
interest in your specific subject.
Thus,
you can gain a massive amount of shares and reads almost immediately as long as
the title of your blog post is enticing enough. Head to the Reddit fitness page
(reddit.com/r/fitness) and post an article on 'How to Get Great Abs' and you'll
get 'downvoted' to a bad extent. On the other hand though, if you post
something that sounds more unique
and
more interested 'New Study on the Best Training for Superhuman Strength' and
you can potentially get thousands of views overnight.
If
you've then incorporated your social media into your page, this can, in turn,
help you to build a large amount of Twitter followers, Facebook 'likes',
YouTube subscribers, etc.
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Influencer Marketing
Influencer
marketing is another form of the social media marketing that is incredibly
effective when used correctly. Essentially, this type of marketing allows you
to leapfrog the competition and get much more quickly to a point where you're
reaching a much larger audience and influencing them all the more.
How
does this work?
Simple:
by taking advantage of the groundwork that other marketers have already done. Influencer
marketing means finding someone in your niche who already has a lot of
influence (an influencer) and then contacting them and requesting that they
broadcast a message on your behalf.
You
might pay them to do this, you might create content specifically designed for
them to share, or you might agree to do each other the same favor and thereby
share your existing audiences. This technique can be immensely powerful when
used correctly.
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SEO
At
the same time, you should also be using SEO to try and further your efforts in
promoting yourself online. SEO stands for 'Search Engine Optimization' and it
essentially means managing your content, your website, and your marketing in
such a way that it will enhance your site's visibility on Google.
In
the past, SEO was very simple and all it really entailed was creating lots of
content with your 'keywords ' (the search terms) in it and generating as many links
to your website as possible (with the keywords as your anchor text). Over time
though, Google has evolved and has become much smarter.
A
lot of internet marketers were using SEO to manipulate their position on Google
and this resulted in Google having to update its algorithms. Now Google is
sensitive to anything that looks like obvious SEO and instead the only way to
climb the ranks of the search engine reliably is to update your site regularly
with high-quality content and to use natural language.
At
the same time, you still want to gather inbound links, but they should be a
wide range of varied different links from different sources and that are written
differently.
As
such, content marketing and SEO are largely inseparable these days. Good
content marketing and good SEO involve populating your site with lots of very
high-quality posts. At the same time, if you do this well, it will encourage
people to share your content and link to it of their own free will.
-
Guest Posting
One
more strategy that still works well for SEO – as long as you don't overdo it –
is guest posting. Guest posting essentially means that you are writing a post
for a blog other than your own and offering them to publish it free of charge. As
a result, they get more content for their site and this helps them to provide
their visitors with more value.
But
of course you aren't just doing this out of the good of your heart, as in exchange
you ask them to include a link back to your website along with some description
about who you are (called an author box). This way, they get free content and
you get a link from a well-known blog and an authority.
-
E-Mail Marketing
E-Mail
marketing can be used as a supplement to content marketing, as a separate
endeavour or as a bit of both. Of course the whole idea behind e-mail marketing
is to create a mailing list of people who have shared their email with you
because they want to hear about your products, services and deals.
From
there, you can then provide them with newsletters and value directly in their
inboxes, or you can sell to them by promoting your best products and services
as an affiliate. The links will work the exact same way directly through
e-mails (and JVZoo is even optimized for this) and the process either way is a
very personal and direct way to influence your audience.
The
first step in e-mail marketing then is to build that audience. Interestingly,
you can do this in the very same ways you might get sales for an affiliate
product (and in that way it might appear to be somewhat a step removed from
this more direct form of marketing).
For
instance, a landing page can be geared up to generate e-mails and leads and
this is when it's normally called a 'squeeze page'. Likewise, you can add
sign-up forms, also called 'opt-in forms' right into your blog posts, on your
home page or in your right hand column as a widget.
However
you go about this, just make sure that your mailing list is prominent and that
you're effectively communicating why it is that your audience should listen to
you and enter their e-mail address. In other words: how are you offering value.
You can also aid this process by incentivizing your audience to sign up. You
can do this for instance by giving away a free e-book, or a free discount for
your product.
Either
way, this means that they get more value simply by providing their e-mail
address which many people will view as a good deal!
-
Setting Up An Autoresponder
In
order to make your mailing list work, you need to be able to manage people
subscribing and unsubscribing and you need to be able to verify emails, store
them all, back them up and generally do a lot of management. This is where an
'autoresponder' comes in, which is essentially a tool designed specifically for
this purpose.
Autoresonders
are unfortunately not free and that means you need to pick which one you're
going to use carefully. As with affiliate networks, there are three big choices
that people tend to pick from when they select autoresponders and these are:
-
MailChimp
-
AWeber
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GetResponse
There
are others but these three are the ones you will hear about most often and that
generally have the most support in terms of WordPress plugins etc. Working out
which of these options is the most cost effective isn't as simple as comparing
a flat rate as the amount you pay will depend on how many subscribers you have.
-
E-Mailing
Again,
we're going to get into persuasive writing in a bit but just note that when
using e-mail marketing to sell an affiliate product it pays to take a more
gradual approach. In other words, don't make your first message something
that's trying to sell a product. Instead, use a 'sequence' where you start by
providing value and generating trust (to get them to open future e-mails), then
move on to talking about your 'upcoming amazing deal' and then eventually
provide the link.
The
more you generate buzz and excitement around your product, the more likely
you'll be to get sales.
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