Perhaps the most important aspect of affiliate marketing is building relationships. Today I look at why this makes such a huge difference. I will also begin to discuss how you build relationships with people online. That is a big topic though so it will be a major theme of my teaching here.
Affiliate marketing is based on one enduring principle:
How the potential customer views the affiliate.
Specifically the customer needs to have some degree of TRUST in what the affiliate is saying. There are other aspects too, but for now lets just focus in on trust.
The simple rule of thumb is if the potential customer does not trust the affiliate to be honest about a product there will always be doubts in their mind about making a purchase. It creates an additional barrier to making a sale.
This creates a situation where affiliate marketing requires the affiliate to be able to discuss the products they are promoting in detail. In other words, people who do not actually purchase and use a product first are going to find it REALLY difficult to provide that kind of information.
This is the first hurdle that many new affiliates face. Not only do they need to have the funds available to make a purchase of products, they need to know how to provide information about the actual product too. Already you can see no doubt, that affiliate marketing is not quite as simple as it is made out to be.
This providing detailed information requirement alone is a HUGE hurdle for new affiliates. It also does not help that they are often told “just share a link to make sales”. Fact is there are different ways to share links and THAT is what makes the difference. Those who simply try to share a link direct to a product will ultimately fail. Especially if you are trying to share that link with people who do not know you already.
This is the number 1 reason why trying to make affiliate sales by using traffic sites is extremely difficult. Even professional marketers would struggle to make sales this way (which is why you don’t usually see them trying).
This is also the main reason why I have decided to create this blog. It works (or will work) in a few different ways:
It will start to attract people who are genuinely interested in learning about affiliate marketing. That builds an audience of TARGETED readers. It is very specific (not just “work online”).
It allows me to share my knowledge and skills with those who are interested in learning about affiliate marketing. That helps to build that relationship with my readers and it increases trust too.
I will be able to write information about products in the correct format because I learned how to do that already. Again this is about building trust with my readers.
My readers will be able to have THEIR affiliate links included in the posts that I am writing.
In other words I will be using my skills and knowledge to help those without experience to overcome the first hurdle to making affiliate sales.
That is my plan for this blog in nutshell.
I am always looking at how I can make online earning a bit easier for those just starting out. This is my latest idea…..
Do you like it?
Let me know below……
Ellie xx
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