In my previous post on Affiliate Marketing, I talk about the basics of getting started. Here I’d like to touch on the ethics of Affiliate Marketing and how to choose the offers you’ll promote.
Don’t Go For The Money When You Promote…
It can be tempting to promote products that offer the biggest commissions. You might already be counting all the cash you’ll bank while you’re signing up for the program.
But if those products are mediocre and/or of minimal interest to you and your audience, you won’t make much.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t offer high-ticket products that pay big bucks. What I am saying is that if you do, those products need to provide much more value to the user than their cost.
Therefore, the question to ask when choosing a product that you’re going to stake your reputation on isn’t about how much you’ll make with it, but how well will it serve your audience.
To determine how you’ll choose products to promote, just imagine that you’re the customer! Would you buy it and use it?
So, things to consider before promoting affiliate products should include:
- Is it legal?
- Is it harmful to health or property?
- Does it solve a pressing problem?
- Have you used it? If so, do you still use it? Best to promote products you have experience with. That way you can give a more detailed recommendation to prospective buyers.
- Do you know the brand and their products well? You don’t absolutely have to use a product to promote it, but you should promote products that are well known to you and have a good reputation in the market.
- Does it work? Does the thing really do what it’s supposed to? Does it do it well or just so-so?
- Is the marketing hypey, does it over-promise? Is it too good to be true!
- What’s the vendor’s reputation like?
- Does the vendor provide good customer support?
- Is the product (physical or digital) guaranteed?
Sell Without Selling
The products you promote should be secondary and complementary to what you offer your audience. Your main objective is to provide visitors with good usable content and build a strong relationship with them by being a trustworthy advisor.
Let’s say that your site is all about DIY home projects and you want to promote really great shed plans, the primary content should come from you.
For example you write a post on site preparation for installing a shed and you include a list of resources that will help readers do a good job, as well as details about those resources and how to use them. This is where you’d include your affiliate link for the shed plans.
The Money Will Come!
As long as you keep your readers and what they want to achieve in mind when choosing your offers you’ll be OK.
Position yourself as a knowledgeable and reliable source, and give them a compelling reason to buy from you based on your recommendation and you will make sales!
Marie Watkins is the creator & author of FreedomLab, a resource site where we do the research for you and find the best tools and methods for you to grow your online business.
This is where you’ll find advice on the following:
- Solopreneur Home Business
- Online Marketing tools & strategies
- Software to automate processes & streamline your work to free up your time
- Courses to guide you in applying the above so you can increase your customer base.