Affiliate Marketing Made Easy with Storehippo

It’s 2019 and everything is changing. Everything has come a long way from how it normally used to be till the early 2000s. This world has changed and so have the people in it. Their needs, lifestyle, mindset; everything has evolved. 

Trying to get some reprieve from their hectic lifestyles, people now are trying to focus on self-contentment. They are now actively pursuing their passions. But they still need an income, to make ends meet. Conventional 9-5 jobs aren’t just cutting it for them. In this unpredictable world, they give their entrepreneurial side an exposure to find a backup. 

There’s no harm in trying out your luck now is there?

This is where we talk about ‘Affiliate Marketing’. While watching videos on YouTube or scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed, you might have come across several advertisements where the social media influencers are talking about it. They also urge you to give it a chance by appealing to your financial goals. So have you given it a thought?Might have wondered about things like, ‘What is it?’, ‘Does it really work as they claim? Shall I find out?  

Yes this is something that actually works, let's delve deeper and find out for ourselves.

What is ‘Affiliate Marketing’?

Affiliate marketing is a kind of performance-based marketing where a firm compensates one or more associates for each website visitor or buyer acquired by their marketing efforts. These associates are known as Affiliates.

A very good example of the same can be Amazon’s affiliate program. With amazon’s affiliate program, all you have to do is link their products on your website. It can be a blog that references a product with a backlink to Amazon, so customers can purchase the same. It can also be a marketplace that hosts Amazon’s products. The basic principle of this program is, you refer buyers to Amazon’s website and you get 10-15% commission per purchase.

Affiliate marketing often overlaps with other online marketing techniques to an extent because affiliates often employ usual advertising methods. Those methods may include -

• Use of organic SEO
• Paid SEM (PPC – Pay Per Click)
• Email marketing
• Content marketing and creation
• Display advertising (Normally Online)

Sometimes, affiliates also use a few conventional techniques, such as publishing product reviews or promoting services offered by a partner.

Sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it? You definitely want a piece of this action!!!

Advertisers often neglect affiliate marketing. It bears quite low profile as compared to other online trends like mail, search engines, web syndication, etc. Still, affiliates continue to play a vital role in e-retailers marketing tactics.

Why give affiliate marketing a chance?

1. A good source of passive income

You don't even have to sit in front of your computer all the time. Your selling skills will earn you a regular flow of income.

2. No obligations, like customer support

Customer support or customer satisfaction won't be your burden to bear. The whole responsibility of the affiliate marketer is to connect the seller with the customer. The seller takes care of any complaints after you receive your commission from the sale.

3. Work from home

You can do this job lying on a bed, in your boxers. All you need is a mobile device like a tablet or a notebook with internet connectivity. 

4. Cost-effective

Affiliate marketing can be done at a low cost, meaning you can get started quickly and without much hassle. There are no affiliate program fees to worry about and no need to create a product.

4. Convenient and flexible

Affiliate marketing is a freelancing job. You get to set your targets, and you can promote products that you like. You can even redirect your career path when you feel and also determine your working hours.

5. Performance-Based compensations

Affiliate marketing is performance-based. You get what you give.

6. SEO helps your work out

People commonly look for information online. That's why a basic knowledge of on-page SEO, keyword research and link building helps you out a lot.

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

Anyone can get into affiliate marketing so why shouldn’t you try your hand? All you have to do is get started with your own platform so that you can promote your partner’s products. This platform can be a blog site or social media.

How it actually works?

For those currently not involved with affiliate marketing, its cycle can appear quite complicated. It’s not just a channel that you can turn on and turn off like you can with paid ad campaigns. Affiliate partnerships might be multifaceted, but it’s a structure that’s built on transparency and real connections. The overall purpose of an affiliate program is to create a structure for both brands and their affiliates, which benefits them both. 

So don’t think it’s going to be something very complicated. After going through the following lines, you will realise how simple it actually is.

1. Affiliate creates a tracking link for the merchant store. (http://mystore.in?ref=ABC)
2. Customers (referee) go to the site through the tracking link.
3. Customer  makes the purchase through the tracking link
4. Affiliate sees the order and corresponding commission in his affiliate panel

Do you see? How simple the flow is?

This is how you make your passive income without any risk. When executed well, with the right partners, affiliate marketing is arguably one of the most efficient and cost-effective marketing models for making new revenue, new clients, high-value leads and incremental sales.

Getting Started With Your Affiliate Marketing

If you want to get started, simply follow these steps.

1. Recognize your site's centre and what it's focussing

To maximize your gains out of affiliate marketing, you'll need to promote products and services that piques the interest to your target audience. It means knowing your site's niche and the needs of your target audience.

2. Pick your affiliate programs after reviewing your options thoroughly

Once you know which plan to pick, you'll still have to think about which products you want to promote. If you select the wrong ones, you won't see much profit. You might even drive people away by pushing low-quality items.

3. Install affiliate marketing tools on your site

You can handle affiliate marketing on any website, but WordPress users have a discrete edge. There are a lot of great tools out there which can maximize the utility from your affiliate links. Most of them are plugins, but adding a dedicated affiliate marketing tool to your site is one of the best ways to help ensure success. 'ThirstyAffiliates' is a good example.

4. Create quality content

Remember that content is everything in the case of affiliate marketing. People won't click on your affiliate links if you don't push them to. You should create high-quality relatable content that increases your conversion rate. How you do this is up to you.

StoreHippo can help you get started with to accommodate the above prerequisites and achieve your dream of making a substantial passive income easily. StoreHippo ecommerce platform helps you build a website where you can host your partner’s products. If you have partnered with multiple affiliate programs, then StoreHippo is the right solution for you. It is an economical, simple and easy to use platform where you can accommodate multiple product lines.

Not only this, but StoreHippo’s content management system is also very easy and comfortable for a beginner. You can upload images, videos and even link external media and web pages. Its blog editor covers almost all the necessary basics required in a decent blog. You even have the backend facility to manage and moderate comments that the readers leave on your blog. 

SEO support is a must-have tool for someone using blogs and content marketing for an affiliate marketing program. StoreHippo lets you take charge of in content SEO, tags, canonical URLs, etc. You can customize these elements the way your blogging website needs.

Conclusion

Making money in your sleep is no longer a far fetched dream and a little effort along with the right platform can bring rich dividends.

Once you’ve amassed a sizable following, affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative business models to make wealth blogging. Don’t take our word for it. Check StoreHippo out. Sign up for our trial version and discover the same for yourself.