If you’re looking to enter the online affiliate marketing world, then this course is for you. In this comprehensive guide, we will help you understand the importance of having a good foundation in affiliate marketing, as well as provide you with an in-depth guide on how to start an online affiliate marketing course. With over 20 hours of content including videos, quizzes, and more, you’ll be able to establish yourself as an expert in no time.
Why an Online Affiliate Marketing Course?
With the rise of clickbait and content creators moving away from traditional advertising, the landscape of affiliate marketing has changed. Gone are the days when you could simply throw together a few affiliate products and earn passive income – thanks in part to the growth of click fraud which spiked by 66% in 2018.
However, if you want to stay afloat in this ever-changing world, you need to continue developing your skills. Luckily for you, we’ve got an amazing course that will help you achieve that.
The Complete Online Affiliate Marketing Course
Launching a successful affiliate marketing course doesn’t have to be difficult – thanks to companies like Udemy who understand how important training and education are in this space. For under $10 a month, you can have access to this entire course series which includes 20+ hours of content and over 70 tasks that you need to complete to become a successful affiliate marketer.
This course is made up of five simple steps which will guide you through the creation of a profitable affiliate marketing blog. You’ll begin by examining the importance of having a clear vision for your blog. Next, you’ll learn how to choose affiliate products that you know will generate sales. Then, you’ll move on to the important step of building a community around your blog. Once you’ve got a decent amount of traffic, you can begin expanding your website by either creating additional blog pages or buying more affiliate products to expand your product offerings.
Last but not least, you’ll learn how to track, monitor, and optimize your affiliate sales. Not sure where to start? Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered on this front too. You’ll learn how to set up automated sales functions via email campaign templates so you can focus on growing your business rather than wasting time with administrative tasks. With this course, you’ll be able to enjoy the journey to the fullest and make the most out of your new found ability to generate revenue from an online source.
Step One: Create a Marketing Plan
As we mentioned, the growth of click fraud has made it imperative for content creators to adopt alternative methods of generating revenue. While some may choose to become a freelance writer, eventually you’ll want to turn your attention to product creation and marketing. When doing so, it’s imperative to have a solid marketing plan in place which will help you identify key performance indicators (KPIs) so you can track your progress throughout the process.
To start, it’s important to ask yourself some fundamental questions about why you’re focusing on product creation in the first place. For some, the desire to be their own boss and work remotely may be a major factor. For others, the opportunity to create something new from the ground up may be the driving force behind their decision to get into affiliate marketing.
Whatever the case may be, you need to find the root cause of this motivation before you can formulate a solid marketing plan. After you have, you can move on to the next step.
Step Two: Choose A Niche
Once you’ve arrived at this point, you’ll want to shift your attention to choosing a niche. Before doing so, it’s important to define what a niche is and why you should care. Simply put, a niche is a ‘small market or segment’ within the large market for a product or service.
With that in mind, it’s important to define the difference between a niche and a segment. A segment is simply a ‘group of people sharing similar interests, habits, or activities’ while a niche refers to a ‘small market or segment’ within a larger market. For example, in the car niche, you have hybrid cars which are a combination of petrol and electric motors, and electric cars which run on solely electric power. As a niche marketer, you may decide to promote a hybrid car because there are fewer people interested in that type of vehicle within the larger market of cars. In this scenario, you could segment the market into ‘hybrids’ and ‘electric cars’ to identify potential customers.
To choose a niche, you first need to examine the appeal of your chosen subject matter. In the example above, you’ll notice that millennials are a major target audience for electric cars as there aren’t many purchases outside of the platform if these cars. On the flip side, hybrids are a viable choice for older generations who are more likely to purchase a petro-powered vehicle. In this case, you could target retirees or ‘Baby Boomers’ as they are often called because of their large age range.
Once you’ve established that there’s an interest in your chosen niche, you can move on to the next step.
Step Three: Find Your Target Audience
In the previous step, you chose a niche and now you need to find your target audience. In order to do so, you need to look at the demographics which will be most interested in your product or service. In our example, we are targeting millennials who buy electric cars – meaning we will need to find potential customers within this audience as well as other audiences interested in hybrids or traditional cars which we will target separately as well. To find your target audience, you can use free tools like Google Trends or Google Analytics which can help you identify the demographics most interested in your product or service.
In addition to this, you can use online forums like Quora or Reddit to discover questions and topics which are of interest to your target audience. Using these platforms, alongside demographic analysis tools, allows you to build a picture of your ideal customer so you can create products and marketing materials which appeal to that group.
Step Four: Create A Product
After you’ve found a niche, you need to create a product which is tailored to that audience. Once you have, you can put it out into the wild and see how consumers respond. In our example, we are creating a product which will appeal to millennials who drive electric cars – so we will need to create a digital or physical product which can be used to store, generate, and/or spend money on electric cars. This could include a mobile app, a desktop computer program, or a combination of both.
To create a product, you need to plan out the following:
- Features
- Design
- Content
- Promotions
- Shipping
- Additional info
Once you’ve got this part planned out, you can move on to the next step.
Step Five: Promote The Product
This is the fun part – once you’ve created your product, it’s time to promote it. Now, you must determine the best way to go about doing so. In our example, we are choosing to create a blog for our product. This allows us to write articles relating to our chosen subject matter which will be useful to people seeking information on the topic. In addition to this, we will use social media to gain exposure and drive traffic to our blog.
To promote a product, you need to establish a budget which will dictate how much you spend on digital marketing and how much you spend on traditional marketing. Once this is set, you can begin to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to track your progress. In our example, we will track the number of blog articles published, the number of visitors to the website, and the amount of money spent on marketing.
This is also the part where you can begin using free resources like Google Trends or Google Analytics to find the keywords and phrases which are most useful for your target audience. By understanding how people are searching for information online relating to your product or service area of expertise, you can develop content which will be useful to those seeking answers within your niche. Finally, don’t forget to look at the competition in your chosen niche – examine what they’re doing, what works for them, and what doesn’t – this will help you formulate a winning strategy which will enhance your appeal to prospective customers.