Have you ever been frustrated because you want to start affiliate marketing using smart strategy, but all of the technical hurdles are preventing you from getting anything done?
If you’re an affiliate marketer, or a prospective affiliate marketer, then you’ve probably noticed that it’s not as easy as all of the gurus like to brag about (lol).
Maybe you’re wondering how the heck can you drive traffic, and promote your affiliate offers in the first place.
Maybe you have an awesome offer that you want to promote, but you’re direly bewildered (double lol) when you try to start brainstorming your traffic campaign.
If that’s the case then check this out.
Because in this tutorial I’m going to rant and rave about affiliate marketing. I’ll also reveal what I believe to be some of the best affiliate marketing strategies, and also my honest personal two cents on the Affiliate Bridge Funnel from ClickFunnels and how you can use it to build an email list while promoting your affiliate offers at the same time. (Cool!)
Affiliate Marketing Is The Coolest Side Hustle In The World. But They Never Tell You The Bad News
Affiliate marketing looks awesome on the surface.
Just promote a cool affiliate offer or company that you like, and if you’re successful, they’ll slide you some commission.
The bad news is that affiliate marketing requires a ton of effort, brainstorming power, and luck.
It also requires that you know the landscape of your chosen niche.
In other words, what type of end user do you want to serve?
My advice is always the same, and it’s to know about who you want to serve:
- Who is your target demographic?
- What problems do they have?
- How can you help them?
- How can you promote to that demographic?
- What affiliate products do you want to promote to that demographic?
- How are you going to promote that product? With a sales letter? Blog post? Email newsletter?
Once you can answer those questions, you’ll be in a much better position to brainstorm awesome lead magnet ideas, content ideas, and even promotional ideas.
You’ll also be better able to brainstorm what types of products your end user demographic might be interested in.
Why Email Marketing Is So Powerful For Selling Affiliate Products
If there was one awesome strategy that all affiliate marketers should consider, it’s email marketing.
I’m not the only blogger who has this opinion. A quick Google search will show that a massive chunk of marketers swear by email marketing, and these days there are so many awesome products and services to make email marketing super simple.
The main reason I personally love email marketing, is because you can use your email newsletter to accomplish many goals.
- Use your email newsletter to share awesome content.
- Use your email newsletter to promote your sales letters.
- Use your email newsletter to promote affiliate products.
- Use your email newsletter to promote your webinars.
- Use your email newsletter to survey and poll your audience.
- Use your email newsletter to tell awesome stories, and share updates.
Probably the best thing about email marketing, is that these days it can be so cheap to use.
In fact, there are a few companies that will allow you build an email newsletter for free. (There are tons of them, simply Google for something like “best free email autoresponder” to research what’s cool these days).
Obviously, the free email autoresponder services usually limit how many emails you may send, and how many opt-in subscribers that you can manage.
You’ll probably agree though, that if you want to start building your email list, and if you’re on a budget, that a free autoresponder can definitely come in handy!
A Few Cool Ways You Can Use Email Marketing To Promote Your Affiliate Offers
If you have an awesome email newsletter, and if you’re creating awesome content for your subscribers monthly, or even weekly, then hopefully your audience loves your content, and appreciates the value that you provide!
If that’s the case, then you’ll have the leverage needed to become a trusted expert in your niche! At the very least, hopefully your end users will know that you’re genuine, and are at least creating cool content.
You can then leverage your email newsletter, and strategically promote affiliate offers within the body of your content.
So maybe at the end of your email newsletter, you can add a “PS” at the end of the email, and pitch an affiliate offer.
Or maybe you could even host a webinar, and put together an entire presentation around a topic, and then pitch an affiliate offer at the end of your content.
How To Write Awesome Marketing Emails That Help Sell The Click
Writing helpful email marketing content is something that I’ve spent countless hours doing.
The biggest tip I can give you, is to always remember what frustrations your end users have.
The more you know your subscribers, the easier it’s going to be to write beautiful emails.
Because my honest two cents, and my entire email marketing philosophy, is that our job, as newsletter writers, is to help people, and hopefully, provide massive value.
So if you know what the top 10 most frustrating problems that your audience has is, then you’ll have a much better chance to not only create awesome content, but you can also find out exactly what types of affiliate products that will benefit your end user.
And when you know how you can help your audience, then you’ll probably have a ton of powerful content ideas.
The more you study the most frequently asked questions in your niche, and the more you know your audience, the more you’ll have super powerful brainstorm sessions.
When it comes time to pitch a product, I almost always do so after I’ve taught my audience something cool.
So, personally, I love to create tutorials, or teach a valuable lesson, and then after I do that, I simply insert a call to action.
Hopefully, if my end user thinks the content is cool, and helpful, they will at least click on one of my affiliate links to support the cause.
Yes, I take the stance that good karma through awesome content creation is a great method to generate clicks.
Try your best to provide awesome content, so that your audience appreciates you! This will make it, in my opinion, much easier for your end user to click on your recommendations, because hopefully they honestly enjoy your newsletter.
How To Build An Affiliate Bridge Funnel That Promotes Your Affiliate Offers
One of my favorite marketing funnels is the Affiliate Bridge Funnel that can be easily deployed within ClickFunnels.
The reason why the Affiliate Bridge Funnel rocks, is because you can use it to build your email list, and also to promote one of your favorite products immediately after your end user subscribes.
You can also brand yourself, teach something cool, introduce yourself, and then promote a call to action.
So, you might be wondering, how does an Affiliate Bridge Funnel work? It’s actually quite simple.
It all starts with a really beautiful looking lead capture page. (Super easy to create and edit within ClickFunnels).
After your end user subscribes, they are then taken to a “thank you page”, where you can show a video thanking your end user. On this thank you page, there is also a huge button that is promoting one of your affiliate products.
In my opinion, the welcome video is essential, and there are so many powerful things you might say in your video.
Here are some goals you might want to meet with your thank you video:
- Congratulate your audience for subscribing.
- Remind them to check their email so that they can download their lead magnet.
- Teach them something cool.
- Talk about the affiliate product you’re promoting, and talk about all of the benefits that your end users might experience if they try it!
- Remind them to CLICK the button below.
The Perfect Lead Magnet For Affiliate Bridge Funnel? Here Are A Few Powerful Ideas…
There are so many different lead magnet ideas, and honestly you’re only limited by your imagination, and of course, your knowledge of your perfect ideal prospect.
So once again, ask yourself, what is the main frustration that your end user has?
Try to make a cool video, ebook, blog post, recording or any presentation that helps your prospect.
At this point in the game, I promote 17 different lead magnets. They’re all in the “marketing” niche, because this is a topic that I personally love.
In any event, I have 17 different lead magnets, but you don’t have to start with 17.
Just create one, and then try your best to make it awesome.
Because when your end user gets their hands on your awesome lead magnet, hopefully the content is great enough to which they actually read it. Make your content valuable, so you create an awesome experience!
Because if that happens, then I honestly believe, that your end user will be statistically more likely to enjoy your content, and thereby open your email newsletter more often whenever you send it!
So to summarize my theory on lead magnets, the format doesn’t matter. What matters most, is that you create awesome content that’s designed to genuinely help your end user.
This way, there’s a good chance that the demand will be there, and there’s also a chance that your end user will appreciate your efforts.
A Few Unique Methods So Affiliate Marketers Can Promote Their Affiliate Bridge Funnel
The good news about content marketing these days is that there are so many options.
There are tons of free blogging platforms, Podcast outlets, video hosts, and social media channels these days, that it can actually seem to be a little overwhelming.
One thing’s for sure, there’s never been a better time to be a writer.
So ask yourself, do you think blogging might be a cool activity for you?
Personally, I try to create tons of awesome tutorial, reviews, and blog posts on my main blog, that you’re reading now.
The reason why content marketing rocks, is because if your readers actually appreciate the content, then they are, I believe, more likely to think that you rock! And if they think that you rock, hopefully they might at least consider joining your email newsletter.
By the way, if you decide to go the content marketing route, also remember that you can repurpose your blog content a ton of different ways these days.
What I try to do personally, is turn my blog posts into Podcast or video content too.
That way, I can get more content out there in the world, without having to double the amount of content that I have to write.
Sure, this requires more work, however, it might be worth experimenting with, especially if you love to write content in the first place.
Because that’s one final tip I would like to give about content marketing.
If you love your niche, marketplace, and if you love to write, then I think you’ll have a much higher chance of blogging and creating content over the long-term.
A Sad Blogging Observation That I Hate To Tell…
If you visit any marketing forums, you’ll notice that a ton of entrepreneurs fail.
It’s a sad thing really. I’ve heard a lot of experts say that around 90% of startups fail.
I’ve known so many entrepreneurs, bloggers, and writers, who ultimately stopped writing.
So, one tip I always try to share with anyone who will listen, is to choose topics, niches, and markets that you absolutely love.
That way, when you’re creating content, writing articles, and writing email newsletters, it won’t seem like a chore.
Because when you create lots of content, lots of email newsletter, and if you ever start online teaching, all of this requires significant quantities of time, right?
In other words, content marketing is a ton of work!
The only point I’m trying to make, is that if you love your niche, and are passionate about the topics you’re writing about, then I think you’ll have much more fun, and your passion can help provide the motivation required to start writing in the first place.
Another Genius Strategy Affiliate Marketers Can Use To Promote Products
One of the coolest ways to promote an affiliate product, is by reviewing products in your niche.
There are a few reasons why this is super powerful.
First of all, written reviews are something that people genuinely search for all the time.
I know that personally, before I buy just about anything, I spend at least a few minutes reading reviews.
And then other times, (lol), I’ll obsess for days and read every single review that I can.
Personally, I think that reviews are super valuable, and if you love your niche, then you might have a ton of fun actually writing reviews.
Another powerful thing is that you can write reviews for just about any type of product, right?
Maybe you’re promoting physical products, digital products, books, or courses.
Another tip when writing your review, is to be totally honest and upfront!
Don’t be scared to let your end user know who the product would benefit, and who should NOT get the product.
Your honesty and integrity can go a far way, and can help differentiate you from other product reviewers who don’t always tell the whole truth!
Here Are A Few Smart Email Followup Ideas For Affiliate Marketers
One of my favorite things to do is write newsletters that teach a topic.
I work really hard on these newsletters, and try to make the content super helpful, beautifully designed, and awesome.
So, I usually only send these newsletters once every week.
Because, I put forth a ton of effort to make sure that they rock.
Then at the end of the newsletter I’ll promote one of my recommended products.
Also, more and more, I think that webinars are awesome, especially automated webinars.
More and more, I’m starting to see companies host WEEKLY webinars.
They use their webinars to answer questions, to share awesome content, to build their brand, and to of course, sell.
Webinars are something that you should definitely consider, because there are so many awesome benefits to hosting them.
Webinars can also be used to generate leads, and hosting webinars with ClickFunnels is super easy by the way.
If you’re wondering about what type of content you could use to host a webinar, just remember to always think of your end users.
Think about the frustrations that they have, and then, choosing a webinar topic will be much easier. 😉
Thanks So Much For Checking This Out!
I had a ton of fun writing this tutorial, because I honestly love affiliate marketing.
That’s why I think affiliate marketing is awesome.
I also think that email marketing rocks. Managing an email newsletter is the coolest feeling, and interacting with your subscribers can provide a ton of inspiration to continually create awesome content.
In any event, I apologize for this super long tutorial, I went a little longer than I had intended, lol.
See you next time, and please have a beautiful day.
Mike DeVincent
MrComputerScience.com
