Do you find yourself recommending the same products over and over again?
It’s time to turn those recommendations into revenue opportunities. This is primarily done through a passive income stream called affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is the practice of promoting someone else’s products and getting a commission for every purchase. This is usually tracked through a unique affiliate link that you can use virtually anywhere.
Unlike services, your affiliate earning potential isn’t tied to how much time you spend on promoting products. It’s also more passive to promote another brand’s product than to spend time creating courses, ebooks, or other products of your own.
This isn’t to say that affiliate marketing should be the only income stream you pursue, but it might be a great addition to your current business model.
If you still aren’t sure if affiliate marketing is worth the effort, remember there are online entrepreneurs, like Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield, who make six- or seven-figure commissions each year through affiliate marketing.
Sounds dreamy, right? Well, let’s get started then!
8 ways to add affiliate marketing into your sales strategy
As you start the process of becoming an affiliate, it’s important to sign up for the right affiliate programs. I recommend starting with five to 10 products so you aren’t trying to promote too many things at once.
You’ll also want to choose affiliate products you love or have experience with. Otherwise, you won’t be able to share your genuine thoughts about the product. The more you know about the product, the better!
In preparing to promote affiliate products, I’m sharing a tried-and-true list of affiliate marketing strategies you can implement as soon as today.
Send an affiliate email
One of the simplest ways to get started with affiliate marketing is to send an affiliate email. Since email subscribers are typically your most loyal audience members, it makes sense to start here.
Emails don’t require you to write a lot of content so you can make your pitch short and sweet. Feel free to add photos of the affiliate product, whether you grab them from an affiliate swipe file the company provided or add your own brand photos.
When creating your content, you can create a roundup of affiliate products you love or dedicate the email to one affiliate product. I recommend beginning with the roundup idea, especially if you use Flodesk which provides easy layouts you can customize.
If you’re an affiliate for a specific course or program, you may want to send a dedicated email that pitches the product during a special launch. This will increase urgency, giving you a better chance of converting subscribers who may be on the fence about making a purchase.
Record a video tutorial
If there’s a software or product that’s easier to promote when you show how to use it, think about creating affiliate video tutorials. Sometimes it’s easier to envision what your personal or work life could look like when you have a tutorial to refer to.
Charli of CharliMarieTV created an in-depth Figma video tutorial, helping her introduce this powerful design tool to her engaged YouTube audience. Through the tutorial, she describes how she personally uses Figma in her career and gives a behind-the-scenes look into her Figma projects.
Since the video already has over 166,000 views since it was first uploaded in 2020, it’s the perfect example of how to create irresistible affiliate marketing videos.
She has many other affiliate-based tutorials on her channel and frequently adds her Figma affiliate link to her video description. You can do the same when promoting affiliate products and services.
YouTubers like Charli have a fantastic opportunity to generate more affiliate income since they’re already creating highly valuable videos. By showcasing their favorite products, their viewers are more likely to trust their recommendations and purchase through their affiliate links. Test out this strategy for yourself!
Write a blog post
If you aren’t quite ready to produce a video yet, you can start simpler with an affiliate blog post.
You have a few options when it comes to writing affiliate-related blog content. One is to write an entire blog post focused on the affiliate product. The other is to recommend multiple affiliate products in one blog post, which I did in my 11 Essential Tools article.
It’s a long-form piece that showcases the main tools I use to run my business and the features I love most. Not all of the links inside this blog post are affiliate links but most of them are. This is a great way to share recommendations with your audience while still providing value.
Share a product review
If you want to test a new product and document your thoughts, a product review might be the perfect strategy. You don’t have to be an affiliate partner in order to create a product review, but it definitely helps to make more commissions from your hard work.
You can share a product review on your blog or podcast, but most content creators like to share reviews through video. This allows them to show a recorded demo of them using the product and talking about their experience.
No matter your niche, you can create product review videos that may be a deal-breaker or maker for someone in their purchasing journey. Beauty influencers like Britagne from The Glam Skin do a great job of reviewing the latest skincare products.
In this Fenty product review video, Britagne states her expertise as a licensed esthetician, which makes some viewers trust her recommendations more than other YouTubers. She also shows multiple frames of her using and reviewing the products.
With multiple affiliate links in her video description, Britagne was able to take advantage of the high search traffic regarding Fenty products while making commissions on her videos. As you create product reviews, be sure to include SEO best practices into your videos so you have a better chance of directing traffic to your content.
Create a product comparison
With the rise in eCommerce businesses, it’s easier than ever to start selling products and services online. As competition rises, you have an opportunity to create product comparison content. That way, you can highlight the reasons why you love the specific affiliate product while comparing it to other products.
LaShonda Brown of Bootstrap Biz Advice decided to market her Flodesk affiliate link by creating a product comparison video that reviews three email service providers. By comparing Flodesk with MailChimp and ConvertKit, she’s able to position Flodesk as the clear winner.
Once she does this, LaShonda can direct viewers toward her affiliate link in this YouTube video description. That way, her audience can take advantage of the beta rate while she receives a commission for recommending them.
This strategy can be implemented into your blog, podcast, or social media strategy. No matter where you decide to compare similar products, be sure to include your affiliate link in a place that’s easy to find so you can generate more affiliate income.
Highlight the product in a podcast
Speaking of podcasts, let’s talk about this next affiliate marketing strategy. If you host your own podcast, you may want to find ways to highlight affiliate products you love. One primary way to do this is to include affiliate links in your show notes.
Show notes are typically hosted on your own website and include a podcast episode summary along with a list of resources mentioned in the episode. If you talk about an affiliate product, it’s only natural to include it in your podcast show notes.
Anne of What Should I Read Next? podcast does this with her podcast. Since Anne loves to recommend specific books to each interviewee, it makes sense for her to include a list of book-related affiliate links.
That way, her audience has an easier time remembering which books she recommended in the episode while generating more affiliate revenue for her growing team.
Create a Resources page
What about putting all of your affiliate links in one convenient place? This is what we call a Resources page. By curating resources and including affiliate links on your Resources page, you’ll be able to passively make income from this page for the long term.
If you frequently get emails from people who are asking you for recommendations, a Resources page can make this much simpler. All you need to do is design the page, publish it on your website, and link to it in your email replies and DMs.
I created my own Resources page as an easy way to showcase all of my favorite products. Inside my page, I link to free resources as well as affiliate products and software so my audience is able to take advantage of my favorite tools.
I also have a really fun section of some of my favorite books that I always seem to be recommending. It’s simple for me to update this Resources page when I want to add a new product or replace one with an alternative I’m really loving.
You can do the same with your own Resources page. If you don’t have the time or current capability to design your page, simply include a list of your affiliate links on a separate page. Then, put it in your website footer and think of other places where it may be useful.
Host an affiliate webinar
If you can teach on a topic your audience wants to learn more about while highlighting an affiliate product you love, let’s call this your webinar “sweet spot.” Hosting an affiliate webinar will introduce you to new audiences while giving you a platform to share what you know.
Not only will you be able to position yourself as a thought leader, but you’ll also have an opportunity to generate more affiliate income at the end. Most webinars end in a sales pitch, but instead of promoting your own products, you can promote another brand through your affiliate link.
Some business owners are even paid to host these educational webinars through a brand sponsorship. However, you don’t need to be sponsored in order to create this kind of valuable video training.
Interact, a quiz builder I use and am an affiliate for decided to partner with Linda and Wendy from The Email Collection to create a training on quiz quadrants.
Later in the webinar, Linda and Wendy shared a curated list of resources that were available to viewers after they finished watching the training. Of course, this also included an Interact affiliate link. This is a great way to turn interested attendees into loyal buyers.
To go one step further, you could even pitch the company you’re an affiliate for with an idea to increase sign-ups. They may extend a special offer or bonus for those who are attending, or you can create a bonus resource of your own to sweeten the deal.
Curate a gift guide
Who can resist a good gift guide? I’m writing this article as we enter the holiday season, so it feels very fitting to talk about this last affiliate marketing idea.
If you love curating content from multiple sources or your followers are frequently asking you for recommendations, a gift guide may be the perfect strategy for you. Through a gift guide, you can highlight several affiliate products all at once.
While gift guides have traditionally been created by lifestyle and fashion influencers, you can create a niche-specific guide no matter which industry you’re in. For example, Jason and Caroline of Wandering Aimfully created a massive gift guide for entrepreneurs with several categories to organize their favorite products.
Not all of the products you see in this gift guide include affiliate links but some of them do, like this electronics organizer that can be purchased through Amazon.
There’s a lot to love about this gift guide example, but you can create your own through a blog post, podcast episode, video, or even a downloadable PDF.
Affiliate marketing may feel daunting at first, but try these tricks to start earning today!
