In this blog post, we will be talking about how to start affiliate marketing with no following and get answers to the most common questions about this topic.
So you want to try affiliate marketing but you don’t have a good amount of following, can you still earn commissions?
The best thing about affiliate marketing is that everyone can start earning money even if they don’t have an audience yet.
Being an affiliate marketer is like being an influencer except that you don’t need to have followers to start promoting products.
Oh and I forgot to mention, you don’t need money, experience, or even a website to start earning commissions.
As a matter of fact, you don’t even need to show your face on the internet.
Most affiliate marketers start by putting themselves as a brand or a persona and gradually make their way out there.
There are tons of ways to generate traffic, leads, and sales, and it doesn’t always include social media.
When you talk about having followers, that’s mostly on the influencer marketing side.
However, this doesn’t mean that an influencer can’t be an affiliate marketer.
What’s the difference between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing?
Influencer and affiliate marketing are two powerful strategies that advertisers use to drive more people to their website.
What makes them interesting is that they both receive commissions from doing promotions, except that influencers are usually on a contractual basis.
Influencers are carefully hand-picked by advertisers to expose their brand to their followers on social media.
On the other hand, affiliate marketers are the ones building partnerships with different brands that are in the same niche as theirs.
They receive a percentage of sales when leads purchase using their referral link, which is commonly known as the affiliate link.
To put it simply, influencer marketing is for brand awareness while affiliate marketing is for lead generation and revenue growth.
How to start affiliate marketing with no followers
Affiliate marketing with no followers doesn’t have to be that hard. It only takes consistency and the right strategies to start as a nobody until you’re someone who has over a thousand followers.
Here are a few things to help you get started as an affiliate marketer with no followers:
Create a blog
Creating a blog is what most affiliate marketers do since it’s easy to maintain and it can get to your target audience without you approaching them directly.
Most affiliate blogs talk about reviews of a particular product or service that they are partners with
The best part is that you don’t always need to produce fresh content all the time as long as you built a system that makes everything work for you.
Join online communities
Joining online forums or communities are two methods that are popularly used by beginner affiliate marketers since these places are full of people with the same interests as you.
There are forums that allow you to post links to your website or blog, but it has to be in a way that you’re spamming other people.
Some forums allow affiliate links but they can be rare and when you do find one in your niche, there’s a chance that it’s also full of affiliates doing the same thing.
Alternatively, you can also create your own community and start from there.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is another technique that makes use of other people’s traffic by putting your written content out there with either your affiliate link or a link to your landing page.
You can write a product review and post it on a content publishing platform or in someone else’s blog,
When guest posting in a blog, there has to be an agreement between the website owner and the guest writer before the content is published.
Also, be transparent if it contains affiliate links so they know that you will earn commissions when a visitor clicks on them.
Video content
Putting video content on the internet is popular in both content marketing and affiliate marketing.
YouTube and TikTok are two platforms where you can post video content to promote affiliate links.
If you’re planning to use YouTube, posting your links in the description will make it accessible to people who will watch your video.
TikTok, on the other hand, doesn’t allow links in the description.
Instead, you can create a landing page and post the link in your profile.
Even though it might seem like a hassle to do it that way, TikTok is actually a good platform for affiliates with no followers since you can just use hashtags to reach an audience.
Start a podcast
Starting a podcast will help you gain an audience especially when you upload them to places where there are lots of people listening.
For example, Spotify has lots of listeners on its platform that you can take advantage of.
There, you can build an audience and start promoting affiliate products.
You can earn commissions by telling them about a referral code or encouraging them to visit your blog or website.
Since you already have an idea of how you can start affiliate marketing with no followers, let’s answer the most common questions about his topic.
Can you do affiliate marketing anonymously?
YES, it is possible to become an affiliate marketer without showing your face.
Affiliate marketing is for anyone who wants to earn money online but is too shy to show their face.
Since it doesn’t necessarily require you to have followers, you can start by building a niche platform to promote affiliate products.
Then think of a unique fake name that you want to be recognized as especially when you’re planning to have a website, blog, or YouTube channel.
This is very important because even if you want to remain anonymous, you still need to establish an online identity as you grow your audience.
However, affiliate programs will require your personal details upon joining so they can pay you for your marketing efforts.
Finally, once you’re part of an affiliate program, that is when you can become anonymous on a platform or channel that you own.
Where can I post my affiliate links for free?
Social media is probably the best channel to post affiliate links for free.
You can use Facebook and create a page, profile, or group, build a YouTube channel, or any platform where you can find your target audience.
It’s all about looking for a place where people in your niche are most likely “hanging out”.
If your target audience is interested in home decor, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook groups are the most common places to find those types of people.
Start by joining a Facebook group about home decors and do your thing as an affiliate by posting a recommendation with your affiliate link.
Instagram is also a good place for affiliates except that you can only use one link in your profile, and this link is usually the landing page of where your affiliate products are listed.
How do I promote affiliate links without social media?
Even though social media is the best way to reach your target audience, running a blog or website is also a good place to promote affiliate links.
Affiliate marketers apply SEO or search engine optimization to drive traffic to their websites.
This is one of the most effective ways to get organic traffic especially when social media isn’t your thing.
But it will take time to rank on search engines that’s why you need to be extra patient to achieve the results that you want.
How do I start affiliate marketing as a beginner?
Learning how to be an affiliate marketer can be a very long process and sometimes it might take a little while for you to earn your first commission.
There are lots of internet gurus out there that claim to teach you about different strategies in affiliate marketing.
Some would even tell you that using this or that is the best way to get conversions, yet these people aren’t really affiliates themselves.
As a beginner, you’re probably thinking that taking an online course is your ticket to success.
The only problem is that most courses about affiliate marketing will only teach you the basic concepts, strategies, and sometimes it can have outdated content as well.
Master Affiliate Marketing to $10K Course, is not just any course out there that teaches you the basics, since it also teaches you all the essential steps that every affiliate marketer should take.
It covers everything from the basic principles until you can create a system that automates the process for you.
And to make it even better, you also become an instant affiliate once you become part of the program.
Isn’t it great? You get to learn the best strategies in affiliate marketing, and you can even start promoting the course to earn commissions.
That’s like hitting two birds with one stone!
You’ll also gain lifetime access to the course and its bonuses so you can keep updated with the latest strategies.
Start your journey as an affiliate marketer by clicking here to take the course.