Oh man, a guest post about increasing affiliate sales on my favorite affiliate marketing blog run by Zac Johnson? This is so crazy.
Let me tell you one thing really quickly. Making money from affiliate marketing is NOT a rocket science.
Look at people like Pat Flynn, Darren Rowse, Matthew Woodward and Zac Johnson – they are all making insane amounts of money from affiliate marketing. But they NEVER pitch their products aggressively. This is where most people get stuck.
Most beginners promote their affiliate products like crazy to boost their sales and they end up getting zero to few sales. That’s not how affiliate marketing works.
If you are struggling to boost your affiliate sales as a blogger or marketer, this detailed post is a treat for you where I’m going to reveal few of the best secrets to grow your affiliate income.
Are you curious? Let’s get into the details.
How I made $2500 in affiliate commission within a week?
Let’s first talk about one of my recent successful affiliate stories.
In November 2016, during black Friday week, I made $2597 through affiliate marketing. $2500 in affiliate commission within a week might not sound like a big deal for few people but it definitely inspires a lot of beginners to know more about it.
Quick note: For those who are curious, I wrote a detailed case study on how I made over $2500 commission within a week (and without spending a dime on ads).
In a nutshell, here are the 3 things I did to make that money through affiliate marketing.
- Strategy: I was prepared for the black Friday week for months. Prior to the sale, I already wrote a couple of deal posts around the products I promote to get better search rankings. I also worked hard to build links to those pages and when the deal was finally on, my pages had started ranking well (mostly in the top 5 results for various keywords).
- Email marketing: I knew the importance of having an email list for my product promotion. So I took care of building an email list who are interested in buying my affiliate products. Finally when the sale was on, I sent an email every single day through the black Friday week. Due to massive discounts, people were really interested in grabbing them. So it worked like a charm. Having a qualified email list plays a BIG role in boosting affiliate sales.
- Networking: You need to understand the importance of networking with other affiliate marketers. Help them. Reach out to them. Find out how you can cross promote with others so you can make more sales.
Now, let’s get back to the topic of the article. How do you boost affiliate sales without sounding like a sales guy?
7 Proven Methods to Boost Affiliate Sales as a Blogger
#1. Don’t just write product reviews, write case studies
If you are into affiliate marketing for a while, you might already know the importance of writing product reviews on your site. Most people think, writing reviews about the products they promote can boost their affiliate sales. That’s a wrong approach.
Here’s what you should do instead.
Write in-depth, engaging and informative case studies around the products that you promote.
Here’s what I mean.
When you write just product reviews, you write for search engines. You stuff your review posts with keywords. You won’t focus on helping your audience. That’s why writing mediocre product reviews won’t help you increase your affiliate sales.
Instead of writing keyword rich reviews, if you focus on telling the benefits that you get from the products you promote, people will listen to you.
That’s what I exactly did with one of my review posts about SEMrush. I just didn’t write a product review, instead I wrote a case study about how it helped me boost my search engine traffic. And the post converted like crazy.
Not only it gets a ton of traffic from Google but more importantly that case study generates me a lot of sales. That’s when I realized the importance of writing case studies instead of just pitching product reviews by stuffing keywords.
So if you want more sales, write case studies about your products. Tell your audience how much you’ve benefitted by using the products. Talk about the benefits and then recommend them to use those products.
#2. Promote LESS with MORE focus
One of the biggest mistake most people make while doing affiliate marketing is they promote too many products.
What happens when you promote more products?
You don’t focus much on any one of them. Your sales stall. Simple as that.
So promote less products with MORE focus. If you are just starting out, I highly recommend you to pick just ONE product that you are already using and/or satisfied with.
You should know each and every benefit of using that product. Only then you can promote it strategically to boost sales.
That being said, even if you have a blog with decent search traffic, don’t promote more than 3 products. It doesn’t mean you should just promote 3 or less products but your focus should be more on 3 products or less. That’s how you generate more sales by following 80/20 rule.
#3. People buy the results, not products
Focus on featuring the benefits of using the products that you promote.
People don’t buy every affiliate product that you promote. They buy the results. They buy benefits.
Most people focus on aggressively promoting their affiliate products. They talk more about why they should buy those products. They don’t talk much about the REAL value that their audience get by using those products.
They don’t even talk about pros and cons of the products. That’s why most people fail to build trust and grow their sales.
If you want to boost affiliate sales, focus more gaining trust, make sure to give value by showing the results that they can get by using the products that you recommend.
#4. Use email to your advantage
The money is in the list. I’m tired of hearing the phrase.
Let me put the phrase in another way. Your email list is your ATM. The more qualified subscribers you have the more sales you can make.
Majority of the affiliate marketers make 80% of their income through their email lists.
Almost everyone focuses on increasing their email list. No one actually cares about improving their sales funnel (which itself is the #1 way to boost sales).
Here are few tips to use email list to grow your affiliate sales.
- Create an email sequence that blows your audience minds. Use some really good emails by providing a TON of value for free instead of sending promotional emails right off the bat.
- Make sure to focus on improving your email subject lines so you get better open rates along with the click through rates for your emails. You can subscribe to newsletters from Copyblogger to Jon Morrow to Pat Flynn and you get ton of ideas about how to write powerful email subject lines.
- While creating an email sequence, don’t forget to recommend products you promote. But don’t push them hard. Do soft selling.
#5. Provide extra value
When you go to my blog Bloggers Passion, I mainly focus on promoting one of my favorite SEO tools called SEMrush. Usually, SEMrush gives you a 14-day free trial but only through my blog, you get access to 30 day free trial. See, clearly that’s an advantage for me over my competition.
When you give rewards or special stuff to your audience, they are more likely to convert into buyers by using your affiliate links to purchase. Also make sure to mention your affiliate disclosure when you are promoting affiliate products.
Earn people’s trust and be extra cautious about your usage of links. Don’t add too many within a page or people might think you are just spamming them with your affiliate links.
Provide access to your email while writing affiliate product related pages. Tell your audience to send you an email if they got any questions before making a purchase. That way, genuine buyers will contact you if they are still hesitating to buy from you or your affiliate products. It’s a nice way to grow your affiliate sales by giving access to your email.
#6. Get banner ads designed
Don’t ignore your blog’s design. If you want to make more sales from affiliate marketing, make sure to get an appealing design with a better navigation to use. Also focus on using unique and compelling banner ads for the products you promote.
The banner ads that you use on your blog’s sidebar, content and footer play a big role.
Instead of displaying the same banner ads that everyone else in your industry is using, get your banner ads designed. Make them look compelling and unique. That way you can grab people’s attention really quickly.
Here are few tips to make your banner ads convert.
- Find someone on Fiverr and get your banner ads designed uniquely. Tell them your priorities and put your gig. Or you can do it by yourself by using free tools such as Pablo (Buffer), Canva etc.
- Don’t place too many banner ads on your sidebar. Showing too many ads can only reduce your sales and website speed.
- When you write a product review, make sure to display banner ads in various size by including your affiliate links.
- Try to include your blog’s name or URL in your banner ads. It will be helpful if you are using unique banner ads for the products you promote (no one else can use them if you include your blog’s URL).
- Find out how other people in your industry are using banner ads. Find out where they are using to grow their sales. That way you will get ideas on where to place your banner ads for more visibility.
#7. Be fair and don’t make false promises
One thing I really like about people like Zac Johnson, Ramit Sethi, Pat Flynn is that they are extremely honest and fair. They NEVER make false promises to boost their affiliate product sales.
They know affiliate marketing is a marathon, not sprint. They focus on building a strong rapport with their audience by promoting the right products.
They never promote crappy products just for commission. They always care about their audience wants and needs and that’s why they are extremely successful at affiliate marketing.
So if you want to become a successful affiliate marketer, be genuine and honest.
Conclusion about boosting affiliate sales quickly
Affiliate marketing is growing rapidly. More and more people are diving into affiliate marketing to make money but the majority of them are failing because of one reason: they focus on shortcuts.
Listen, it takes time to master the art of selling. You should know how to persuade your audience without sounding like a salesman. That’s how successful marketers like Zac Johnson and Pat Flynn are making more sales through affiliate marketing.
So what are your thoughts about the post? Do you have any more tips to boost affiliate sales quickly? Share your views in the comments below.