Email marketing is one of the most affordable and effective ways to reach a target audience. And this holds very true for affiliate marketing as well. If you are planning on launching an affiliate marketing campaign that is successful by engaging your audience and driving conversions, this post is for you.
Here, we’ll dive into the essentials you need in order to get started. But first, let’s take a closer look at what affiliate marketing is and then set the foundation for your affiliate email marketing campaign.
Let’s get started.
Understand affiliate email marketing
Affiliate email marketing is a method of marketing that uses email to drive conversions. Since the basics of affiliate marketing involve promoting another company’s products, you can use email marketing as a channel through which you reach customers.
Often, these email campaigns are automated to save you a lot of time and resources. However, at the heart of every good email lies the foundation of quality products in a solid and sound niche.
For example, if you are promoting clothing or electronics products, you need to be sure that these products are of a high quality at reasonable prices so that you have an interested audience that is ready to buy. We delve into these foundations of affiliate email marketing in more detail below.
Set the foundation
Setting the foundation for your affiliate email marketing campaign requires in-depth research into the products or services that you intend to market. That’s because you need to know exactly what you are promoting to your audience to ensure that they have a great user experience through your offering. For this purpose, you need to begin by selecting a niche and a product and then research and select the right affiliate programs. We discuss each of these in more detail below.
Select a niche and product
There are many niches that you can choose from in the affiliate marketing world. There is fashion and electronics, household appliances, phone accessories, jewelry, travel-related products and services, baby products, gaming, pets, computer accessories, backpacks, sport equipment, and everything in between. When you begin, you need to select products that you are comfortable promoting, either because of your previous experience or passion for a certain product. This means selecting your niche first and then opting for around five products within that niche.
Research and select affiliate programs
Once you have identified which products you wish to promote, you need to research whether the company that sells them offers an affiliate program. If they don’t, your efforts will be wasted. But if they do, you need to carefully read the terms and conditions of the program to determine the conditions of promotion and the commissions you can expect to earn as a result of your efforts.
Build your email list
You have pinpointed your niche and identified the products you want to promote. You have also established that the company whose products you’ll be promoting has an attractive affiliate programme. The next steps are to create an irresistible lead magnet and to set up a landing page. Let’s explore each of these in more detail below.
Create an irresistible lead magnet
With affiliate marketing necessarily being a purely online endeavor, it’s essential that you have a website through which to promote your chosen products while ensuring that you and the host company have the right tracking in place to ensure accurate calculations of your commission.
However, it’s not just about having a website. It’s about creating a lead magnet that enables you to collect prospective customers’ email addresses. This is your first step to building your email list. When you create your lead magnet, you want to make sure that it adds significant value to your audience.
This can take the form of a white paper, free tools, product trials and samples, discounts and bonuses, granting early access, offering free consultations, courses, an assessment that generates personalized advice, etc. Whatever lead magnet is most suitable for your audience within your chosen niche, make sure that it’s valuable and appealing. In fact, it should be absolutely irresistible.
For example, if you're a digital marketing agency, not only will white papers in marketing build your authority and credibility, it will also be irresistible for your target audience which are bloggers, marketers, and online businesses.
Set up a landing page
After you’ve created your lead magnet and have started collecting your audience’s email addresses as a way of building your email list, you want to also set up a landing page that is specially designed with your audience in mind. A landing page is a web page that is specific to a particular sale in mind. Today, you can get started in no time , thanks to no-code landing page templates.
It offers detailed information about the sale and it has call-to-action (CTA) buttons where the audience is persuaded to make a purchase. These buttons need to work properly and lead to the right sales page and the copy of your landing page needs to be compelling and persuasive to ensure that your audience is enticed to buy based on your promotion.
Craft engaging email content
You’ve collected your audience’s email addresses and built your email list based on your irresistible lead magnet. The next step is to create your email’s content. There are a few industry best practices that should be followed to ensure your email doesn’t end up in your audience’s spam folder. Here’s what you need to know.
Write captivating subject lines
The email subject line is the very first thing that your audience will see when they receive your email. It therefore needs to be catchy and compelling without sounding spammy and salesy. Consider using the technique of writing your subject line as if you’re writing to a friend. Personalization and hyper-personalization are key ingredients in today’s marketing world and affiliate marketing is no different. Keep the subject line short and sweet and make sure you also have preview text prepared so that you cater to your audience’s increasing use of mobile devices to access their emails.
Develop persuasive copy
Once your subject line is ready, it’s time to create the body of your email. You may think that you need to write paragraphs and paragraphs of text but the opposite is actually true. Instead of highly text-heavy content, focus on creating short and snappy sentences and product descriptions with clear CTAs that link to your landing page. Also important is to add high-quality images of the products with enticing descriptions that draw the audience in and entice them to click through your CTA and look for more information or even buy.
Implement automation
You may think that you need to send each email one by one. But with email automation, this is not the case. In fact, with automated email sending services, you can segment the different products you’re promoting and even segment your audience so that you create an even more personalized experience for your audience.
In addition, you can implement QR codes in automated emails. This way, you will streamline the user experience and provide easy access to products and promotions.
Track and analyze campaign performance
When segmenting your automated emails, always double-check there are no overlaps and ensure the right functions are in place so that you can better track the results of your email send-out. For instance, you’ll want to track email open rates, click throughs, and other metrics to ensure that your campaign is as successful and effective as possible.
When it comes to email marketing, integrating backtesting software can be extremely useful. This software allows you to analyze the effectiveness of your email campaigns based on historical data. By doing so, you can refine and optimize your strategies for better results.
Also worth considering is doing A/B testing, which means sending slightly different versions of the same campaign to your audience to determine which version is more effective. Once you have a clear winner, you can better target your affiliate email marketing efforts for better results.
Scale your affiliate email marketing campaign
It’s time to scale your affiliate email marketing campaign by sending follow up and reminder emails. Make sure you learn from your experience based on data and metrics to ensure you offer an even more attractive email campaign that’s highly effective. Use automation tools to help you. In addition, make sure that you diversify your product portfolio for even greater levels of success. Build onto what you have already established and grow your affiliate marketing business to new heights.
Compliance and ethics
As we reach the end of this article, there’s something to be said for compliance and ethics. Responsible affiliate marketing needs to take these into account. This means, for example, compliance with GDPR regulations, having disclaimers in your emails that indicate that you are earning a commission from your email campaign, and other aspects that ensure you are always on the right side of the law to prevent unhappy customers, poor data storage and protection, and to create a positive user experience that inspires trust in your brand.
Conclusion
Launching your affiliate email marketing campaign requires thorough preparation and a solid foundation. However, once established, you’re all set to start earning from your efforts. With the right strategies in hand, you’ll be ready to break barriers when it comes to your affiliate marketing efforts to give your gig the success it deserves.