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A Roadmap to Safely Monetizing Your Audience by Becoming an Affiliate Marketer

As an influencer, you have an audience because you have something interesting to say. Your audience engages with you because they find value in you, and they even may end up buying something you sell because they trust you and your content.

When looking to monetize your audience it’s very easy to compromise the trust you’ve built. To preserve your audience’s trust, among other things, the time you choose to monetize your audience is key. That’s why first you should consider when would be the right time to monetize your audience. And then you proceed with the “how”.

How big of a following do you need to have?

There isn’t a defined number of followers that guarantees your success as an affiliate marketer, or as any marketer for that matter. It may be surprising for you to hear that the number of followers isn’t what matters most. Engagement is.

In his business classic, Kevin Kelly argues that you only need 1000 true fans to make a living online as a creative. Here is how he came to this conclusion:

If each one of your 1000 true fans, annually, spends 100$ on your products, you’ll be making 100,000$ a year. 

Although, note that he says “true fans”. What he means by that is a fan that will buy anything you offer. Fans with that kind of engagement are not easy to come by.

Moreover, brands are actively looking for micro influencers (less than 50k followers), and nano influencers (less than 10k). That’s because, statistically speaking, a smaller follower base is much more engaged with the creator they follow than a bigger one might be. So, brands get a higher ROI through small creators.

Either way, there is something to be taken from Kevin Kelly’s argument and brands looking for smaller influencers. For both, the number of followers is secondary. Engagement comes first.

If you’re wondering if this is the right time for you to monetize your audience, stop looking at your follower count. Instead look at your engagement rates. No matter how big your follower count is, it will amount to nothing if your audience isn’t invested in what you do.

Get to know your monetization options and why affiliate marketing works

Once you decide to monetize your audience, you have to choose the method you want to use. We’ll discuss the 3 main roads you can take. Compare them to one another and reach a conclusion as to why affiliate marketing is optimal for any industry.

Advertising

While it’s possible to make money through ads on your pages, many of the ads actually have the opposite effect — turning your audience away. To make it worse, ads can make your website lag and laden with spam.

Essentially, what you’re doing is renting out space on your website, video, or creator space for a third party to advertise their products or service. The way you usually get paid is for every thousand impressions and every click.

The issue with renting out space on your creator space is that it usually hampers UX. You might have come across this: you’re reading a blog or browsing a website. Suddenly, your reading is interrupted by an ad that has nothing to do with what you were consuming.

ADS-hampering-UX

 This is mainly why one in four users use ad blockers.

So, advertisements hamper your audience in two ways. First, they intrude on the user experience. Secondly, what they offer usually does not cater to your audience. Paired with the overall bad reputation advertising has, it’s not a safe or effective way to monetize your audience.

Influencer Marketing

With influencer marketing you promote a product or a brand and they pay you for a number of posts or mentions.

Since 80% of marketers find influencer marketing effective, paired with the 89% that say ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels, it is an effective way of monetizing your audience. But this is from the perspective of marketers, and not from your perspective as a creator.

An article from Forbes conveys the creator’s perspective. Depending on the brand you decide to collaborate with, you may be required to dictate where you’ll be taking the photo/video including what outfit you’ll wear. Sometimes even the amount of makeup you apply, including the color of your nails. And most importantly, how the product will be featured.

The brand pays for each post and mention so they obviously need to have some control over what you post.

So, influencer marketing is effective as a monetization option. However, it can be limiting from a creator’s perspective.

Affiliate Marketing

With affiliate marketing, instead of getting paid for each post or mention, you get paid for each sale in the form of commissions.

What affiliate marketing does best is the opportunity to promote and sell products that match and cater to your audience. If done right, while selling products, you’ll also be increasing your credibility as a creator. Moreover, you have control over how you decide to sell and promote your chosen products.

Before you start selling, you have to choose an affiliate marketing program. There are a lot of options out there. Each one with their own pros and cons. Some provide promotional and set-up support, others don’t hold your hand at all. Some are free, others are not.

What makes affiliate marketing a safe way to monetize your audience is the option to choose who you want to represent and how you want to do it. Additionally, you can become an affiliate with little to no investment.

Nevertheless, you have to be selective about which program you choose.

The UCX Affiliate Program

It’s completely free. You’ll have the ability to choose from hundreds of brands and thousands of products.

What further differentiates us from other affiliate programs is that we also build your site to sell products on. You receive hands-on support with marketing collaterals and everything in between from your first sale and beyond.

We incentivize you to invest in marketing and promoting your storefront, instead of paying us a subscription.

As for commissions, you can get up to 50%.

Gather Insights About What Your Audience Wants

You can’t sell anything you want to your audience, and affiliate marketing allows you to choose what you want to sell.

Simply put, knowing what your audience wants comes down to asking them what they want to buy. It’s not that you are clueless about what your audience might want, it’s your inventiveness that brings them together in the first place. But, having data driven information is what grounds the understanding of your audience.

Here is what you can learn by gathering insights from your followers:

  1. Understand what your audience wants
  2. What kind of  products would add value to your following
  3. How to keep a brand consistency that your followers trust

With the right insights, you gain a clear picture of what your audience is interested in and what they would want to buy. You can safely start choosing the products you want to sell as an affiliate.

Build trust through your content

Show why you are an affiliate for something not who you are an affiliate for. Instead of trying to sell products, try recommending products first. As an affiliate marketer, you have complete editorial control over your reviews and what you choose to do. And, as such your identity and branding will remain intact.

Monetizing your audience isn’t a walk in the park. It requires persistence, patience, and commitment. However, the flexibility of affiliate marketing allows for a safe way towards it. You have the freedom to experiment and learn what your audience wants. Affiliate marketing allows you to become a full fledged creator that not only monetizes their audience but also provides value to their audience through the products you sell. And, as such, increasing the trust that they already have on you.

Get the flexibility you need to become a successful affiliate. With the UCX Affiliate Program you choose the products you want to sell and showcase them on your personalized affiliate store (we create the store for you, for FREE). Curious to get started? Start by browsing the brands you can collaborate with here.

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