3 important things to consider before starting affiliate marketing

If you’re thinking of entering the awesome world of affiliate marketing (I’m biased!), then I would highly recommend you to prepare for it by checking out these simple tips so you know what to expect, and have the best chance of success!

You know what they say; managing your expectations and you’ll manage your disappointments.

So, let’s get on with the tips!

The first one is to first of all expect that things will take longer than you think. You are still learning, and setting things up; therefore you will have to overcome hurdles (not necessarily a bad thing) and there will be a delay before you see any results.

When I say results, results as in page/video views, followers, clicks on your affiliate links - not just the monetary results (which is obviously important too!).

Patience, learning from people who have achieved what you want to achieve, and consistency doing the right things will get you there; stay the distance.

It’s a great feeling when you start seeing traction!

Also, find out the 13 most common affiliate marketing mistakes from this article I wrote to help others starting their affiliate marketing journey so that you can be ahead of the competition!

Secondly, before you start anything, think about who your audience is. Affiliate marketing is literally just selling to an audience. Therefore it is a core part of this business model, and needs consideration.

The audience can be on different platforms - social media, a website, YouTube, by email and so on.

You are going to be producing content that interests an audience, and it should interest you, since you will be talking/writing about it a lot in order to build your audience/followers.

This is called choosing a "niche". This is just a fraction of the people in the world who use the internet, and could be females in South Africa aged between 50-60 who are interested in yoga for example.

These people will be interested and resonate with a certain type of content which will not be the same content as men aged 20-30 interested in body-building in Kentucky!

You must choose who you identify with and want to serve, and create an avatar based on that type of person, so that when you are producing content, you can see this type of person reading/listening to it and being interested.

There are other things I wish I’d known before I started, which is why I wrote this article on 9 things I wish I’d known before starting affiliate marketing. Make sure to check it out!

Lastly, one big consideration to think about is to collect email subscribers from the start.

Email marketing is where the money is in affiliate marketing. This is because it’s based on the number of touchpoints it takes for somebody who hasn’t seen or heard of you before to know, like and trust (KLT) you enough to make a purchase from you.

If they’ve only just become aware of you, it’s very unlikely that you will sell something to them straight away on the first touchpoint.

You need to have a system where you will provide them content over a period of time so that the KLT increases to a point where they feel comfortable purchasing your recommended products.

Email is ideal for this as it allows you to send any type of content to them that builds that KLT. An email autoresponder is necessary for this to happen.

You can set up the autoresponder to do as its name suggests - auto-respond with pre-written emails that get sent by the software whenever a subscriber signs up to your email list, and then triggers a sequence of emails to be sent at times that you can set to your preferences.

For example, you could send a 10 email sequence which sends out an email once every couple of days, which contains introductory info about you, plus educational valuable information, which allows the subscriber to get to know you, and get value from you before you send them an offer at the end of the sequence. All automated!

To sum up, before you start your affiliate marketing journey, you should set your expectations to know that you will be learning, and putting in consistent work for a while before you see any results.

Also, choose your niche well, otherwise you will produce general content which appeals to nobody, and thirdly, make sure that you collect email subscribers.

They will become your followers, and once you have them as a subscriber, you can email them many different offers that they would likely be interested in, for free!

Michelle Phillips is an affiliate marketer and science buff (she has lots of interests!). She built sidebizmums.com to help others achieve financial, time and creative freedom.