Kickstart Your Affiliate Marketing Journey: A Beginner’s Handbook

What is affiliate marketing? It’s a type of marketing where a business owner pays a commission for promotion or sales of a product. A common way this plays out in our current marketing climate is with influencers on Instagram. It’s a powerful and lucrative strategy for both the business and for the influencers.

For example, it’s estimated that Kylie Jenner makes $1 million per sponsored posts on Instagram making her one of the highest paid influencers on the gram. The idea is you’re buying the influence of a specific person or business and benefiting from their reputation with their audience. Keep in mind that the sales any business would make from that single promoted post would need to be much higher than whatever they paid the influencer in order to be profitable.

So that’s great and all, but what if you don’t have a hot mill to drop off with Ms. Jenner. How can Affiliate marketing benefit you as a beginner? You can start affiliate marketing with no money down if you have a strong social network. Offer your friends a percentage off their next airbrush service for each referral who books an appointment with you. Think about it, if you can make full price of 10 airbrush tanning services and REBOOK all those clients, it would be worth the cost of one free service. (This is called a loss leader and it’s the same reason why Turkey goes on sale around Thanksgiving at the supermarket.) Just work on your dialogue and rebooking skills. Social media provides huge opportunities for promotions like this. Just be smart about it. No boss babe should work for free.

Another way to approach affiliate marketing is to approach other businesses that offer services to the same clientele that you are reaching out too. Think about where your ideal clients are shopping right before they want to get a spray tan. Salons, airbrush makeup businesses, swimsuit shops, photographers, probably anything in the wedding industry these businesses would be great to partner with for marketing. Go to these businesses and introduce yourself. See if you can set up an affiliate marketing cross promotion. This can be as simple as a shared social media post promoting your individual businesses to each other’s audience.  Or more complex like setting up a pop-up shop at a community event.

Marketing is a world that rewards creativity. Fortune favors the bold. So don’t be shy, it isn’t offensive to offer a mutually beneficial opportunity to a friend or business associate. So many startups fail because they fail to ask for help. If you show up for your clients, and your affiliate marketing partners, they will want to continue working with you. Train yourself to seek out opportunity and don’t be afraid to ask for what you really want. No one can ever want success for you more than you want it for yourself.

The upside of owning your own business is that you have basically unlimited earning potential. The downside is that no one is going to fight for your paycheck for you. You are the CEO. So, handle your business accordingly. Choose to be forward thinking and decisive. Be someone who looks for every opportunity to elevate your brand and increase your profits. Don’t be afraid to ask for an opportunity. You’ll find as you gain experience that business owners often like working together especially if it’s mutually beneficial. So, there is no reason to be shy. Be the boss babe you are and build your empire.