Part #2: What Affiliate Marketing Strategies Do Marketers Use to Promote Their Partners?

There are a ton of tactics you can use to promote your affiliate partner’s products online. Here’s a starter list of 10 to get your affiliate marketer brain something to chew on and remix:

1. Create An Epic Post

One thing I like to do when promoting a product is create an Epic Post about it.

What’s an epic post?

Think of it as a potential one-stop-shop resource for this particular product—not just a review of it, but a full-fledged introduction, how-to, FAQ, best practices, and troubleshooting resource for anyone who purchases the product.

If you can show this much information to people before they make a purchase, they’ll be more likely to actually make a purchase.

At the same time, the epic post becomes an extremely shareable article, one with the potential to rank high for the particular product keyword in Google.

In this epic post, I’d go all out and . . .

2. Create Multiple Youtube Videos About The Product

These videos should be embedded in the epic post.

This is an important affiliate marketing strategy because YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world. You can get a lot of traffic coming in through your affiliate link on YouTube, and the videos themselves can rank in Google too.

Plus, by shooting multiple videos about a particular product, you create even more SEO opportunities.

Make sure to include your affiliate link in the video description, ideally in the first part of the description, so people don’t have to click on “show more” or “read more” to see it.

What should you cover in these videos?

I recommend recording yourself from start to finish with it, then break it up into chunks. People like to watch shorter videos, so this works in your favor, and you get multiple opportunities to rank for various keywords related to that product.

If it’s a digital product, start at the moment of purchase and walk people through the entire process. And if you’re doing a physical product, consider an unboxing video.

3. Host A Webinar

One way to take your affiliate product promotion to the next level is to host a webinar for it.

Webinars are an extremely powerful way to share a message with your audience. They’re personable, they’re live, and you can treat them like an actual event. That way, your promotion becomes a much bigger deal than just a regular affiliate link you dropped into a post.

Combine this with tip #15 in my list below, and have the owner of the product share high-value information, and even answer people’s questions directly on the webinar, and you’ve got yourself a winner.

4. Publish A Webinar Replay

Be sure to record your live webinar so that you can embed it on your website as a replay for those who didn’t watch it live, as well as those who did watch it live but want to review the information.

To be honest, more people will probably watch it as a replay than live, and that’s a good thing—you just have to give them the opportunity to do so.

I recommend recording using screen capture software like Camtasia Studio or Screenflow.

Finally, make sure that in the webinar and on the post where you embed the replay, you give people multiple opportunities to click on your affiliate link.

5. Give Away A Bonus

This is probably one of the more underutilized tips I have to share today—but probably one of the most powerful too.

In addition to promoting the affiliate product, give away a bonus to all of those who purchase the product through your link as a thank you.

Chances are, you’re not the only one promoting that product, so to get people to buy from you instead of the other guy, throw in a bonus that can only come with a purchase through your link.

Just have your audience members send you their receipt via email and then you can reply with the bonus, or information about how to access it.

So what could that bonus be?

Maybe it’s a special webinar that shows people how to use the product with a Q&A session at the end of it. Imagine being able to purchase a product, getting familiar with it, and then a couple of days later having access to a webinar that shows you exactly how to use the product, with an opportunity to ask questions about it. How awesome would that be?

Maybe the bonus is another product or piece of software that you have that complements the affiliate product.

Maybe it’s a discount you work out with the owner of the product, one that provides incentive to purchase from you.

Maybe it’s a coupon code or discount to another product you own or have ties to.

Maybe it’s a PDF quick-start guide with instructions and best practices for that product, or access to a website with videos with the same guidance.

You’re adding value to the purchase, making your buyers feel comfortable, and helping get those on the fence from “I’m not sure if this is right for me” to “This is exactly what I need, and more.”

6. Promote Your Products Indirectly On Social Media

Although your website is the centerpiece of your affiliate marketing strategy, social media—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.—can play an important role in your affiliate marketing strategy too.

The thing about social media—at least in my experience and in the experience of many other people I know—is that if you directly promote on your social media platforms, you’re not going to get a good response.

People on social media are typically there to be social, not to be sold to.

But all is not lost in the affiliate marketing world, because you can do an indirect social media push, which means instead of directly linking to your affiliate links on Facebook or Twitter or any other platform, you’re instead linking to something of value that includes the affiliate link, such as a video, an epic post on your blog, or a link to sign up for a webinar.

You’re not linking directly through your affiliate link, but a resource that will engage people beforehand, earn their trust, and show them what the product is about before clicking on your affiliate link.

Yes, one of the cardinal rules of online marketing has long been that the fewer gateways or clicks people have to go through before they get to the “buy” button, the better.

But I think that’s been changing, and now it’s closer to the less information you give away, the less you’re likely to make a sale.

The more trust you can earn beforehand, the greater the likelihood people will buy from you.

You don’t want someone to have to click 100 times before they get to where you want them to go, but a few clicks is okay, as long as you give them enough information beforehand to help them make their decision.

7. Run A Giveaway To Take Advantage Of “Social Proof”

Social proof is the idea that people will naturally gravitate toward what the masses are doing. As an example, say you’re at the mall, and you see a huge crowd gathering around one store.

You can’t help but want to know what’s going on—everyone else is there for some reason, and you want to know what that reason is.

Online, this translates to having other people do the marketing for you, except in this case it’s through metrics like numbers of subscribers, likes, comments, and things like that.

Here’s how this strategy can play out in the real world.

When you plan to promote a product as an affiliate, try to work with the owner to get a few copies to give away to your audience for free.

Maybe you can get a discounted price for a limited time only for your audience as well. This may not always be possible, but it never hurts to ask.

In a blog post, review this product—maybe it’s your epic post, or maybe you just mention it at the end of one of your regular posts.

Share that you have two or three copies of the product to give away for free, and that in order to be entered to win one of the copies, your audience members have to leave one comment about how they would use the product and why it would help them.

Have them go through an affiliate link of yours to see what the product is all about first, and then come back to your blog to leave their entry as a comment.

What happens here is that you get tons of people leaving comments that become social proof for the greatness of the product.

There’s nothing more powerful than someone else’s recommendation, and in this case, it’s other people’s recommendation for a product you’re promoting as an affiliate.

Plus, you can follow up with the people who leave a comment on the post but don’t win, to share a limited-time deal or an email saying thanks for the entry and giving them your affiliate link one more time.

I’ve used this strategy to great success promoting several products in the past, so I suggest you give it a shot.

8. Promote Products Indirectly Via Your Email List

Your email list is an integral part of any affiliate marketing campaign—and if you don’t have one, you need to get started building one yesterday! Email is extremely powerful for marketing, which is why so many people say, “The money’s in the list.”

As with social media, I recommend indirectly promoting to your email list. I don’t directly promote anything on my email list. If there are any links in my emails they point back to other content, usually on my blog, such as epic posts, videos, webinars, and the like.

Email should be all about giving people as much high-value content as possible, not direct selling. In fact, certain affiliate programs such as Amazon’s don’t even allow you to include affiliate links in emails.

You need to take great care of your email list and not be too aggressive with it. Indirect promotion is a much better way to go about things, especially if you’re focused on building trust with your audience (and you should be!).

9. Promote Products Indirectly On Other People’s Sites

This is another instance in which indirect linking is your friend.

If you’re interviewed for another person’s blog, or asked to write a guest post, you can link back to a piece of content on your site that contains your affiliate link.

As with social media and email, you don’t want to hit people over the head with your links—and most of the time, if you try to link directly to an affiliate product through someone else’s site, they won’t allow it anyway.

10. Review And Compare Different Products Of The Same Type

Another strategy is to compare different products of the same type. Compare and contrast, and if you give them your recommendation, make sure that link is an affiliate link.

The reason this works is because people like to shop around, but they also like convenience. So instead of making them carry out their search all over the web, keep them on your site by reviewing each of the different products in one spot.

If you’ve done a good job building up audience trust, then a well-written comparison review of different products of the same type can be a great way to drive affiliate purchases.

This could potentially become an epic post as well, complete with videos and special deals just for your audience.

That's it for today, please read the next part!