SECRETS OF AFFILIATE MARKETING

SECRET NO. 1

ACTIVATE YOUR MINDSET FOR SUCCESS

I have been a person who is open to online business opportunities, although not opportune to find the right ones.


Those days when see “HOW I MADE 750k IN 30days”. I usually thing it’s just a Headline and a never-achievable thing.

I always think it’s a big LIE.

I used to wonder how a young individual can posses millions. I will just conclude that such a person is engaged in cyber scam.

The shift in my mindset about money started when I received a mail inviting me to attend a digital marketing training class at New Keffi Hotel by one Digital Marketer – Ibrahim Olaniyan.

I accepted the invitation by filling the Google form that contained the invitation.
 
At the training, I was introduced to network marketing where I met young people like me, some of whom were already making millions, some, struggling to find a legitimate means of earning money – like me.

I also read an ebook How to Turn Yourself into a Live Breathing Cash Machine by Toyin Omotoso, the founder of Expertnaire. I bought it 6500 NGN ($15.62)

Another breakthrough was when a top affiliate marketer Jackto Precious sent me a FREE ebook titled Affiliate Marketing Secret. The value this book to me is $100 (41,618 NGN) as at the time of writing this book.

I was motivated and said to myself I too can do it. It is possible to make millions.

I then moved into the next stage of installing a positive mindset. 

That was how I scaled my network marketing business.

I decided to apply this principle into other businesses and trust me, the results have been mind blowing even till date.

This chapter will expose you to how you can install a positive mindset so you can attain success in every area.

So what really is mindset?

Mindset is a set of belief systems that governs the way we think and act sponsored by the realities we have been exposed to.

Simply put, a mindset is a person’s way of thinking and their opinions.

You can correlate this definition with my story about how my mentality shifted from believing it is not possible to make
millions legally to believing it is possible to make millions legally.

Your realities also have a participation in changing your mindset, when I talk about realities I mean:

1. THE ENVIRONMENT YOU FIND YOURSELF IN:

Imagine you sleep where pigs are reared, over time; you’ll begin to smell like a pig and probably act like a pig too just to adapt to their environment.

What if you stay around billionaires, the truth is that over time you’ll grow into being a millionaire then a billionaire,

This is a massive advancement, isn’t that good enough?

It’s time to inspect your physical space because it will directly influence your mentality and your mentality will trigger your actions.

2. THE PEOPLE YOU TALK TO: The people you talk to will influence your thinking pattern.

Imagine you having a course mate who hates a lecturer, and after every class, he would express his irritation to you.

Over time you will grow into the person who started seeing reasons to hate that same lecturer.

Imagine you had friends who love talking about success, do you know what will happen to you?

You will contact that feeling of success too.

Unapologetically vet your association and evict some personalities when necessary.

These two factors will largely affect your mindset.

So if you are that person who wants to make millions from any business, don’t joke with your association and environment.

SECRET NO. 2

21ST CENTURY ONLINE BUSINESS

When we talk about online business, what do we really mean?

In this chapter, I’ll be telling you about some online businesses you can do and make massive income.

Business can simply be defined as the act of buying and selling of goods and services. Without complexity, that’s truly the definition of business.

What is online?

Basically, online is anything that has to do with the involvement of the internet.

Online business has become the order of the day.

A lot of young people across the world are now taking advantage of the internet because it is where most people spend a greater amount of their time.

Online business is the act of doing business online, that is, the selling of goods and services online.

The offline business and online business are almost similar.

When I started craving for success financially, I searched Google and typed just like most people will do “How to make money online”.

I saw many kinds of schemes and businesses, some looking real while some fake, after some research, I found some reliable online businesses anyone can do and start making money almost immediately by just dedicating time and energy to learning it, They include:

1. Content marketing

2. Social media marketing

3. Freelancing

4. E-commerce

5. Online courses instructor

6. Online coach

7. Affiliate marketing

8. Dropshipping




Let me explain this few of the online businesses above.

1. CONTENT MARKETING

This kind of marketing is also called information marketing because it has to do with giving out information through text format articles, ebooks, audio or video.

This book you are reading is an example of content marketing because I’m giving you information in the form of text, so you are reading an ebook.

I can also convert it to audio or video and you will still get the same information.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

This online business is very similar to the offline marketing only that it is done using social media.

Social media marketing is the online business of the 21st century that is thriving and will continue to thrive as long as people use the internet.

Marketing is the promotion of goods
and services for potential customers to see and take action.

3. ECOMMERCE

This is a goldmine in the 21 century because you don’t need a physical outlet to make sales. Closing is done online, probably through a funnel or a website.

One can sell either physical product or digital products on an e-commerce store.

4. ONLINE COURSE INSTRUCTOR

In this age, information is heavily craved for and anyone that can package information and make it accessible will make massive impact, build influence and also make so much money too depending on the offering.

Online course is the packaging of information in audio, video or text format for people who need that information.

5. ONLINE COACHING
In this age, technology has made it possible for people to do many things online, and one of them is person-to-person or people interaction virtually.

The online coaching is really thriving and people on this path are really making so much for themselves.

6. AFFILIATE MARKETING
In affiliate marketing, you don’t necessarily need to have the product; you just sell someone’s product by driving traffics to their stores using your affiliate link.

You get a commission after every sale.

This and many more are the online businesses of the 21st century.

Our focus is on affiliate marketing and in the next chapter we shall explain all you need to know about affiliate marketing. 

SECRET NO. 3

21ST CENTURY AFFILIATE MARKETING

Let’s take look at this scenario :

I went to the market to get a particular white Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt and I was just going from one shop to another aimlessly.

People stopped calling me to buy from them because I was considered a wanderer in the market.

A young man finally approached me and spoke my language, he asked “what kind of Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt are you looking for”. Wow this guy has been watching me walk around and he was just studying my behaviour.

He knew I was looking for a Tommy Hilfiger, I felt helpless, so I told him my problem which was difficulty in getting that particular Colour of Tommy Hilfiger I was looking for.

I was so scared of relating to anyone because they will always hike their prices but I had to give in.

Under a minute, he took me to a shop where I found exactly what I was looking for.

I bought it immediately, even though I spent above my budget, exactly what I was avoiding but shit happens sometime.

As I left the shop, the guy who brought me followed me and asked for a tip, I gave him something and he said thank you, I don’t think he would spend time bringing me to that shop and the owner would not give him his commission.

Even in my own shop, I give commissions for referring.

Are you still looking for the definition of affiliate marketing ?

Okay, Affiliate marketing is simply connecting a buyer to the seller or vice versa.

So when the buyer buys, the connector gets a commission for so doing.

In the 21st century affiliate marketing, your concern is to help other people sell their products using the internet as a vehicle to drive traffic to the offer.

A lot of people around the world are using this business model to build their brands while making money. Personally, I’ve tasted affiliate marketing and the commissions have made me some good figures.

If you are that person who is interested in making money online, and you don’t have enough capital, then you should
quickly consider affiliate marketing.

Find someone who has a product that is needed and useful to a particular audience, negotiate with the owners or system, find out what being an affiliate for that company entails, fulfill the criteria and go all in.

Why I like this business model is because of the following.

● You don’t have to worry about the stress of creating the product, whether physical or digital.

● You don’t need to create the marketing system from scratch, to an extent that a lot would have been done for you. Your only job is to drive traffic using your affiliate link.

● You don’t need to worry about customer support, the company will worry about that.

● You don’t need to worry about inventory and stocking of products.

● You don’t have to buy the product before you can market.

Affiliate marketing is capital friendly and highly fruitful unlike other business models.

In the next chapter, I’ll be telling you how you can make money from affiliate marketing.

SECRET NO. 4

MAKING MONEY WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING

To make money from the 21st century affiliate marketing online is almost similar to making money with affiliate
marketing offline.

It is still the same case of having a product you sell and looking for the customers who need them and after sale, you get your commission as simple and direct as that but it will require strategy to approach the 21st century
affiliate marketing.

These are the things you should to take into consideration before starting
out your affiliate marketing business which are:

1. Choosing a niche:
A niche is a specialized or focused area of a broader market that businesses can serve to differentiate themselves from the competition.

It’s important to choose a category you like or are enthusiastic about. When you like something you’ll be flexible in it.

To choose a suitable niche, answer these questions honestly.

-What topics excite you the most ( That are not related to making money)?

-What topics excite you the most ( That are related to making money)?

-What knowledge or skills do you have?

-What are you good at?

List everything you can list in these 4 spaces.

Now, list out 3 of them in the order of importance.

You will find what niche you can target.

2. Understand the affiliate program so well:
Before you sign up for any affiliate program, do your due diligence to find
out about the method of payment, currencies, days of payment and so on.

3. Always know your affiliate commission before promoting a product:
Different products offer different commissions, be careful to always find out how much is attached to a particular product before promoting.

4. Your Affiliate link:
When you sign up to an affiliate program, there is a unique link for any product you wish to promote.

Be careful to copy your affiliate link correctly so that you wouldn’t end up promoting with someone’s link or a wrong one.

If you do that, you’ll get no commission.

5. Create your marketing strategy: Traffic is almost everything you need to make a sale. Identify where your potential customers are and run traffic that can enable you make sales or collect great leads.

6. Follow up:
It takes an average person to see something more than once to make a purchase, so keep following up with email messaging or direct messaging.

Now that you are here, you know that for you to make money in affiliate marketing, you need to consider the above stated.

SECRET NO. 5

SKILLS REQUIRED FOR AFFILIATE MARKETING

Before you can make so much money on affiliate marketing, you need to acquire some basic skills that will help you in the course of your journey as an Affiliate Marketer.

When I was starting out as an affiliate marketer, I knew for me to be successful, I needed to learn some basic skill if not I would not experience massive success.

Some of the skills include:

1. Social media marketing:
Probably you came across this book from Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp or YouTube.

It wouldn’t have been possible for this book to get to you if I did not know how to drive traffic to this book.

2. Copywriting:
Copywriting is sales in print; you cannot
effectively sell online without knowledge of copywriting. When you learn this skill and use it well, you’ll persuade people to buy the product you are promoting.

3. Email marketing: You probably got this book in your email and you’ll be receiving more emails from me informing you about new trends in the industry. If I don’t know how to
market through email then it’s a limitation because you probably may not be reading this book now.

4. Leadership skills
The 21st century affiliate marketing will require your leadership for you to scale. You should be ready to educate your audience about what your company is offering through strategic means like blog posts, uploaded YouTube videos, social media posts and organized online seminars. People that do this make more sales in affiliate marketing because as they educate more people, they build their brand for people to know, like and trust them.

5. Web Tech savvy: Another skill that gives you an edge in the 21st century affiliate marketing is your knowledge on web especially funnel building.

Sometimes you may be required to build optin pages to collect leads, instead of always paying a developer, it’s wiser to learn it if you are really serious about the long term success of affiliate marketing.

Those are the basic skills you need to learn to effectively become a pro in affiliate marketing.

SECRET NO. 6

STRATEGIES TO SELL WITH AFFILIATE
MARKETING

Selling the products you promote on affiliate marketing can be challenging especially when you are a newbie in the
industry, but I’m sure this chapter will help you solve that problem.

Waking up one morning and posting your affiliate link for people to buy what you are promoting is not really a wise way of selling in the affiliate marketing business.

In this chapter, I’m going to be showing you wise ways of driving traffics to your offer and possibly selling.

NB:
Traffic in online marketing refers to the visits that your website receives.

Traffic is measured in visits, sometimes called “sessions,” and is a common way to measure an online business effectiveness at attracting an audience.

I will start with the WhatsApp selling strategy

1. WhatsApp selling strategy:
WhatsApp is a widely used instant messaging app that a lot of people are using to sell now.

Once you master the art of selling on whatsapp, you will experience massive sales provided you have the right audience.

Four basic ways you can get traffics sell through whatsapp are:

1. WhatsApp status

2. Direct messaging

3. Group meetings

4. Broadcast message

1. Whatsapp status:
A lot of people will be able to see your status as long as you have their numbers saved in your phone and yours saved in their phones.

So imagine you have 3000 people’s numbers saved on your phone, that means over 1000 will definitely see your status if not more, and for you to make sales it’s all about driving traffics.

The more people that see your offer, the more likelihood of a conversion to happen.

2. Direct messaging:
This is an effective way to also close a sale or promote your product. All you need to do is to send a detailed text of what you are offering. Don’t make
it voluminous, you can add emojis and also give spaces to make it easy for people to read your offer to the end and possibly take action

3. Group meetings:
This is the housing of interested audience in a whatsapp group that has the ability to accommodate a maximum amount of 256 people.

When you send a message more than one people see it, everyone in the group sees it and this can save you time rather than chatting each person one by one.

4. Broadcast message:
This is the creation of list of a certain type of audience on WhatsApp.

For example, you can create a list for everyone you just added to your contact list and send them a personalized message to a maximum of 256 people with just one click.

All this whatsapp strategies are effective depending on how you use them.

2. Instagram sales strategy:
There are two effective ways to sell on Instagram:

1. Using Insta stories

2. Using Insta Bio

1. Using Insta Stories:
This feature is restricted to people with upto 10k followers, they have the ability to share links on their stories. It’s a great way to drive traffic to offers.

2. Insta Bio:
Anyone can use this feature just by placing a link on their bio to drive traffic to their offers.

3. Insta Direct Messaging:
Another way to sell your affiliate product on Instagram is to promote the affiliate link via people’s DM. By your discretion you should know who finds your offer appealing, don’t just send your link to anyone.

3. YouTube selling strategy:
This strategy involves giving value through video content on YouTube.

You can use your video to explain your offer then place the links on the description and inform viewers to take advantage of your offer.

4. Sales Funnel:
This method of selling has made so many people a lot of money and it has proven to be trusted provided you know your onions well.

This is the act of taking potential customers on a journey to explain what you are offering. It could be in a form of sales page (video, pictures or text).

6. Facebook ads:
Over 1 billion people use Facebook and it’s a great tool to drive traffics to your offer directly or to your sales page just by running a paid advertisement with Facebook.

7. Email Building Strategy:
With this strategy, you can send personalized emails to people but you must first persuade people to be willing give you their emails.

One of the ways to get peoples email is to give them a gift that they can only access through their email. After which, you can send them personalized messages about your offer.

Let your lead magnet correlate with your offer so you can get the best set of people to talk to about your products.

These are sales strategies that have been tested and trusted, you can use them to generate massive income with Affiliate marketing.

SECRET NO. 7

COPYWRITING FOR AFFILIATE MARKETING

Marketing is the heart of affiliate marketing and that is why one who desire success in one’s affiliate business should learn copywriting.

Copywriting is written content that convince the audience to take action.

Almost everything you write within a business context could be considered a copy.

Words used on webpages ads add email newsletter promotional materials business cards, video scripts, Instagram posts, LinkedIn profiles, YouTube descriptions, flyers passed out at events houses/office and the list goes on.

Almost everywhere you come into contact with a business, copy shows up in one form or another.

Without copy, businesses can hardly communicate anything to customers at all.

Copywriting is a combination of creativity and science.


COPYWRITING BASICS

In this section, we will cover the basics of Copywriting, particularly for online content such as webpage ads. It is as easy as how most people are on their smart phones with technology advancements.

It is important to remember that web users are active, not passive. So if they cannot find a reason for staying on the
sites, then they will leave it. The attention span of an average adult is 7 to 8 seconds.

They will be focused on finding a particular product, service or piece of information. They may have questions like what’s in this for me? Will I find what I’m looking for on this page or site?

Remember, you will not be able to reach out to everyone, so a show that you copy addresses to your particular niche market.

Support your copy with facts.

It is important that you make your descriptions compelling, although not excessive.

Keep your copy simple. You should be able to convey one key idea effectively in one or two lines of writing.

Is it better to have a short or long copy? There’s no right or wrong on the length of a copy as long as it is captivating, audience may read to the end of a long copy.

Your Audience are made up of individuals who have different preferences.

Some may like to read and analyze before they make a purchase decision. Some like to read the essentials to make a fast decision whether to buy or not.

COPYWRITING TIPS

To become a good copywriter, you must do the following;

1.Start with research

Research is the key for coming up with profitable ideas and the right angle for your copy.

All the copywriters in an advertising expert know the value of research (David Ogilvy) ,

The father of advertising, used to always preach the importance of conducting thorough research before writing a single word of copy.

What do you research on?

Your target audience include the following:

✔Your products

✔Your competition

✔Keyword research

✔Current trends

2. Research:
The primary focus of your research should be your customers.

The point of customer research is to understand the underlining feeling, behavior, pain points and desire.

Customer research helps you identify the elements of your products that matter most to your best customers.

3. Address your audience personally:

Customers don’t care about your company. At least, they don’t
care about your company until you show that you care about them first.

4. Make your copy memorable:

Do you have to call a new reader’s attention? How do you make something stick in the mind of your reader? Do use words that connect – tell stories, use analogies, paint a picture, replace jargons with simple language.

5. Write simply:

Make your message clear and concise so your audience understands your offer of benefits as quickly as possible.

6. Write your customer stage of awareness:

The more you know your customer and your stage of awareness. Do they Know you, The market?

7. Organize your writing with a formula

Using a copy writing formula will allow you write effectively.

In the next chapter I’ll be talking about copywriting formulas.

8. What your readers will miss out if they don’t choose you:

People don’t like the feeling of missing out. Structure your message in a way that they will see the consequence if they don’t get your product or service.

9. Credibility:

Credibility is the trust of your audience on your products or services. Credibility can include guarantees, testimonies,
years of experience, awards, media rating, media coverage, etc.

10. Trigger emotions:

Your audience are human beings with emotions. Have you heard people buy with emotions? I’m sure you incorporate
strong emotions like fear, greed, anger, excitement in your copy.

SECRET NO. 8

COPYWRITING FORMULA

With copywriting formula, you can write your copy faster and with greater likelihood of success.

Be aware that different formulas work for different groups, content types, and writing styles.

Criteria for copywriting formula:

1. Easy for you to remember and master.

2. Ability to help new and experienced copywriters to quickly produce effective copy.

3. Have successful track record in some cases, decades-long successful track records.

Below are the most common copywriting formulas used:

Copywriting formula 1: AIDA

This is one of the oldest formulas and it is still effective. It has been used in direct mails, televisions and radio, sales pages, landing pages, blogspost, social media ads, etc.

Attention:
Shake the reader out of their ordinary lives. Create a stand-out attention grabbers in the middle of other competitors’ messages.

Interest:
Interesting and fresh information that appeals to the reader.

Desire:
Engage their heart so they want what you are offering.


Action:
Call on them to take the next step.



Copywriting formula 2: AIDCA

Very similar to the first formula but here there’s an introduction of a C and it stands for;

Conviction:
Create a desire and conviction in your reader to use your solution.



Copywriting formula 3: The 4Cs

Clear:
Understand your audience and goals; make your writing clearer by using small words, short sentences, headers and bullet points.

Concise:
Have information conveyed in the fewest possible words.

Compelling:
Copy must also be interesting enough for your audience to actually read it. The key is focus on the readers’ needs, problems and desires.

Credible:
Write with credibility that what you are promising can be trusted to happen. Provide customer testimonials to address your audience’s skepticism.



Copywriting formula 4: PAS

Dan Kennedy called PAS the most reliable sales formula ever invented.

Problem:
Present the problem your prospect feels.

Agitation:
Poke at that problem until it springs up a desire for a solution.

Solution:
Present your solution to the agitated problem.



Copywriting formula 5: Storytelling

These storytelling formulas will be a twist, attention grabbing and engaging audience formula. It can be written using these three elements;

Star: The main character of your story

Story: The story itself

Solution: How the star wins in the end



Copywriting formula 6: The objection handling

Your audience may be skeptical. Selling is about handling objections. If your copy can solve these basic objections, you have a high chance of getting your audience to take action at the end.

1. I don’t have enough money.

2. I don’t have enough time.

3. It won’t work for me

4. I don’t believe you

5. I don’t need it

These copywriting formulas provide a good guide especially to get started with copywriting quickly. Once you write regularly, you may not need to refer to these formulas.

Don’t just read this. Take out your notebook and start practicing on using the formulas.


THE END