Starting an online business can be tricky, especially if you need more capital. There’s a popular misconception that you need money to start a profitable affiliate marketing business. In reality, it’s not; if you know what you are doing, you can start affiliate marketing with no money.
Affiliate marketing is a skill, and you must learn it. The good thing is you can always learn as you go.
Affiliate Marketing: Meaning
Most people usually market other people’s or businesses’ products. Once they make a sale, the owner of such a product then gives them a commission; this is simply what affiliate marketing entails.
To illustrate, Let’s say we have a vendor, customer A and customer B. The vendor is in an affiliate agreement with customer A. Suppose the vendor sells to customer B because customer A promoted the vendor’s business. Then the vendor, according to their agreement, pays customer A a percentage of the income made from that sale.
You may assume that you need a huge capital to be an affiliate, however, you can start affiliate marketing with no money if you keenly follow what i have described in this article
How to Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money
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Pick a niche
A niche is a particular part of an industry you specialize in. You might have heard this before, and that’s because people want to know what exactly they can get from you. Sadly, the content you create isn’t for you; it’s for your audience.
Running around, selling different products and making random content will get you nowhere, especially if affiliate marketing is something you want to keep doing.
Now if you already know the affiliate marketing niche you want to venture into, that’s great! However, picking a niche can be quite challenging. So here are some ways you can find out your niche.
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a. Base your niche on a good affiliate program you’ve found
If you need to know what exactly you can venture into, you can try basing your niche on a good-quality affiliate program. Usually, it will involve promoting the products and services of your chosen affiliate partner.
b. Hobbies
You can use your hobbies to start affiliate marketing with no money. What are you interested in? What do you love to do? People love to listen to people with the same interests as they do. You can use your hobby as your niche; chances are some people have the same hobby as you.
c. Experience
If you’ve had experience in a particular field of business, then you can base your niche on that. Examples could be marketing, health, fitness, or anything at all. It could even be something like animal care. The good thing is you’ve got the experience, so you know what works and what doesn’t.
d. Solutions to your problem
People who struggle with particular problems can proffer solutions to those problems for others. So what’s that thing you worked with your whole life? Base your niche on that!
e. Share what you’re learning
A lot of people talk about sharing your journey online. Documenting the process when you’re learning something not only allows you to measure your progress. But it is good content, and you need good content for people to trust you and buy the stuff you recommend.
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Sign up for an affiliate program in the niche you’ve chosen
In my first step, I talked about finding good quality affiliate programs. Plus, you’re trying to start affiliate marketing without money, right? Finding free and accessible programs can be very challenging. A good affiliate program will have working products and a high commission rate.
Here are some examples of accessible affiliate programs –
- Jumia affiliate programs
- Konga affiliate programs
- Amazon affiliate programs
- Clickbank (Specializes in digital products)
- Fiverr affiliate programs
Also another way to find affiliate programs is by creating them yourself. To do this, you will need to look out for businesses in your niche and then give them an offer. Say you’ll promote their product on your marketing channel, and in return, they can give you a small percentage of the sale they make from you. Make sure it’s a mutual agreement, though. And it’s always better to ensure a document that ties that agreement.
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Select a marketing channel
If you want to start affiliate marketing with no money, having a marketing channel is crucial to the success of your business. It would help to have a good marketing strategy to get your products out to your ideal clients. Your marketing channel could be social media, a website or any platform.
You should know who your ideal clients are depending on what type of products you’re selling. For example, an affiliate marketer who sells beauty products has a perfect client. This client is a lady, usually between the ages of 20-50 (Though this may vary). Such an affiliate marketer can also have an ideal client of beauty or make-up business owners. It all depends on what you want to do.
Those clients also have platforms they are on or spend their time on. Beauty products usually do well on platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
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Create content
I’m sure you would love to skip this part, but it is a crucial step if you want to start affiliate marketing with no money. You need to give free affiliate marketing content to your ideal client. By doing this, you’re building an audience that likes and trusts you.
Now you can start recommending a product before you have a hundred thousand followers. Depending on what platform you’re using, you could be able to start promoting a product right away. But remember, people usually wait to be sold right away. So start small and then scale the business up.
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Sell and promote well
If you’ve been able to build your marketing channel, you can start promoting your products. When making this type of content, start by giving free content.
Let’s take YouTube, for example; almost all successful YouTubers work with affiliate programs. You see them making only part of the video solely about a product. That’s because they know people love free stuff. Instead, they make a video that’s beneficial to their audience and then include that product in the video. Mind you, they’ve already made tons of videos before that one. They also ensure that their product is excellent and beneficial to their audience.
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Keep growing and stay on top
Every business and life venture requires continuous learning; you should stay on top. Take a course, contact an expert, and be teachable and willing to learn from others.
Also, you need to set aside time to check up on products you’ve promoted. Some can lose value, and others may not be in production anymore. You must be constantly aware of the state of the products you sell.
Conclusion
Starting affiliate marketing with no money is more straightforward than portrayed; you only need to be consistent with your plan and strategies.
Remember that nothing comes from comfort, so you must keep showing up if you want to succeed.
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