I knew so well that social media was a great affiliate marketing channel when I started my online business. However, I didn’t want to use that approach, so I did my experiments and found other profitable ways to build your business, which I will be sharing with you in a moment.
Absolutely Yes! You can make money with affiliate marketing without ever using social media. And that is not to mean you won’t make a ton of money; you can. There are many ways affiliate marketers promote products, and understanding all your options as an affiliate marketer is one of the best things you can do for yourself.
Unfortunately, many newbies think social media is the only way to push affiliate products. But, as you will see in this article, there are several other effective ways to generate quality leads for your affiliate business with a lot more predictability than social media can provide.
How Do I Promote Affiliate Links Without Social Media?
The straightforward answer is that you can only promote affiliate marketing products and services by building an audience. So whether you are using social media or some other channel to grow your business, you will need to build an audience. But building an audience is not the only way out for affiliate marketers.
The other way, however, is much more expensive and requires some level of expertise and mastery. If you promote a high commission paying product, you can rely on ads to get you the quality leads you need faster than organic and other strategies.
Primarily, you can promote affiliate links without social media through organic and paid means. So let’s explore some of the alternatives to social media for building your affiliate empire.
How to Grow Your Affiliate Marketing Business Without Social Media
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money on the internet. It is also one of the most flexible ways to make your money. It doesn’t matter where and how you choose to promote your links.
Some of the best ways include SEO and blogging, guest posting, email marketing, and podcasting. These are all great alternatives to social media, and you can get started for FREE with most of them.
The internet is filled with opportunities. Let’s explore these social media alternatives in detail.
1. Blogging & SEO
Blogging has existed for almost as long as the internet has existed. It has moved from a way that people journal about their lives to a medium through which we receive breaking and regular news, learn about our interests, and research our next favorite products, services, and brands.
Blogging has become a very crucial aspect of marketing. In addition, the rise of content marketing has made blogging much more relevant.
As an affiliate marketer, one thing to know is not to forget the “marketing” part of the term. We, as affiliates, are first of all, marketers. And even though we are not paid for a 9-5 job, we hold power to make more and help our favorite brands reach more people. This is marketing bliss.
Blogging is a great way to achieve this as an affiliate marketer. Search engines have become a good part of our daily lives. With the free traffic potential for highly optimized content, you can bring in a couple of thousand dollars after a few months of consistent work.
Content marketing requires a lot of work, but it can pay you even when you choose to stop writing or creating content. Super affiliates use teams of writers, which you can readily afford after a year of grinding.
To start blogging, all you need is hosting, a domain name, and a website that can be built for free with WordPress.
Hosting such as Siteground and Godaddy are great options to explore when choosing a hosting provider. However, I find Wealthy Affiliate a great place to get an all-in-one package (hosting, domain name, affiliate marketers’ forum, and training) for blogging at a meager price for starters.
As the name implies, Namecheap is a platform that is popular for its cheap domain names.
As already mentioned, WordPress is free, and you do not have to pay. Most hosting providers have a few clicks process for you to install WordPress and start building your websites.
With WordPress, you will need a superfast theme that is also functional and modern. Envato elements and marketplace is one of the largest markets for the best digital themes and products. For me, Generatepress is my go-to theme which you can use for up to 100 websites per account.
Alternatively, a website development team can take care of getting your blog up and running in a couple of days or weeks.
2. Guest Blogging
If starting a website is a huge step for you now, the perfect alternative is to become a guest blogger. While starting your blog means starting from scratch, guest blogging is a very good way to capture an audience from an already highly trafficked blog.
By contributing to high profiled blogs within your niche, you can add your link to your posts. Most blogs will allow you at least one link per article. This means you get to promote your links to their audience for the price of an article.
If you aren’t a good writer, you can hire a freelancer on Fiverr to write it.
3. YouTube Channel
YouTube has one of the largest consumer bases on the internet. Its search engine is the second most used on the internet, next to only Google itself. That means a lot of attention, and you can be sure to find an audience on the platform.
Millions of people watch videos every second, with even much more content uploaded to the platform. You find different people from various niches thriving on YouTube. One of the ways most YouTubers thrive is through affiliate marketing. By suggesting products and services that they use, YouTubers can use their massive audiences to generate a steady income.
There are lots of opportunities to add links to your YouTube channel, starting from your channel home, where you can add a couple of links. But perhaps the most important spot for links is in the description of your videos. Whether you mention the links in the video or not, you can always add links to equipment, books you are currently reading, products and services you use.
But in a more active promotional way, you can choose one of those products that relate directly to your audience and mention them in your videos. This will draw their attention to the fact that there’s is a product you find awesome and that they too could like it.
If you get a good deal from the brand, you could offer free trials or discounts to get them started.
4. Build an Audience on Medium
Medium is a free platform for writers to build an audience. The platform itself pays writers through their program. But your focus as an affiliate marketer is to use Medium as your blog, build your audience, which could mean creating an email list.
Medium is great if you want to blog but do not want to go around SEO, managing a website, and all of the backend stuff in maintaining a blog. With a simple sign-up process, you can start with Medium and start making money almost instantly if you can write content that goes viral on the platform.
That is the good side of Medium. It is not just a way to blog, but it also has a community and a feed that brings readers the best content in their niche. Unlike blogging, where you have to share your content to get readers, Medium can deliver you a ready audience to nurture, which is what every affiliate marketer needs.
Whether you choose to go with Medium or not, keep in mind that an audience and a list will always have your back as an affiliate marketer, even if that is all you’ve got.
5. Paid Ads
Paid ads are a straightforward way to generate leads for your high commission paying affiliate products. Unlike everyday consumer goods and services, certain products are enterprise-level. A single conversion can pay substantial money for your costs as an affiliate marketer.
For such products and services, you need a rather more streamlined process for finding leads and converting them to sales. Paid ads are a foolproof way to generate such leads with laser-focused targeting on the ideal buyer of the product.
Through your skills in targeting, landing page design and optimization, and the entire lead generation process, paid ads can become the beginning of a funnel that is ever bringing you quality leads.
6. Email Marketing
Email marketing could be used alone, but that is not always the best as it makes getting subscriptions tardy and unnecessarily difficult. However, combined with blogging, paid ads, or integration with another platform, you can have a stream of subscriptions pouring in from a high traffic course such as your youtube videos.
Capturing leads for your email marketing gives you a rare opportunity to the inbox of your leads where you can educate and nurture them until they are ready to make the sale. By using various marketing and copywriting strategies, you can set sequences for multiple types of buyer personas and stages for your conversion funnel.
Email is one of the best strategies to use if you are a fan of automation. All you need to do is set up proper email sequences optimized over time to convert. Then maintain a constant inflow of leads.
7. Podcasting
Podcasting is on the rise for good. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have quickly caught on to the trend after clubhouse made a critical entry into the social media space. Today, podcasts are popping up everywhere.
While a podcast is an entire business on its own, it also serves as a good source of traffic and an audience for your affiliate links. With the strategies shared here, you can use them to start almost any business, whether to sell your course or other knowledge products, physical products eCommerce.
You can always rely on blogging and content creation, SEO, podcasting, a growing email list, etc.
8. Online Forums and Discussion
Online forums are the gutters where the everyday folk pour out their pains and joys. It is also in these same forums that people share candid opinions about products and services as well as ask for recommendations.
This is a rare opportunity that most affiliate marketers are not focusing on and could easily bring you more money as an affiliate marketer. However, it must be made known that I am not suggesting spamming a couple of moms with baby products from Amazon.
Forums have rules that could quickly get you banned and kicked out. So instead, you become an authority by building a reputation, showing expertise, and making connections on these forums. Occasionally promoting your links on such platforms is the best way to do this.
Focus on showing care and only suggesting products when it’s been asked for or when it is appropriate.
How Do I Start Affiliate Marketing Without Any Followers?
1. Basics: Choose a Profitable and Growing Niche
The genesis of any affiliate marketing business is getting started with a profitable and thriving niche. A niche is a part of an industry. As an affiliate marketer, you need to look for a niche in an industry that pays its affiliates well.
Finding a niche can be a little more difficult, especially if you are looking for a new niche just shooting up. Here are some suggested places to get started.
- Google trends
- SEO Keyword Research with Ahrefs or Semrush
- Traditionally profitable niches include fashion, relationship and sex, money and personal finance, investment, travel, and tour. SaaS is a relatively new industry. You may need a small niche within the SaaS community to promote productivity, sales, marketing, email marketing, or accounting software. There are lots of exciting niches that could also be your passion.
2. Perform an Audience Research
Having an audience is critical to the long-term success of your business. You could start a business, spam some platforms and get scanty results and a few commissions paid to you.
But you know what? You will eventually get blocked, banned, and reported. You will lose access to such audiences. Do you know why? Because you didn’t spend time making them your audience. Neither did you build your audience.
Having an audience of your own is like a cushion that shields you. You can take suggestions from your audience, discuss new products with them and get first-hand feedback on ways to grow your business.
You can perform research around the ideal audience for your niche. Find out some of the platforms that they enjoy using. If you have several options, you can choose what you are experienced in.
3. Build Your Channel
While it is possible to make money once you have your affiliate link, you will soon find out that it isn’t sustainable without generating leads and a way to nurture them from cold to warm to hot and ready for purchase.
Your channel will allow you to take them through the benefits of the purchase and how it will change their lives. This makes a more compelling reason for them to buy the product and use your link because you got them to make the decision.
4. Sign For Affiliate Products
Most affiliates do not take the time to think about the products that they promote. Your brand should be known to determine the products you promote. If you want to promote a certain kind of product that doesn’t fit in, you may have to create a new brand.
It is the reason why some super affiliates have different niche websites. A consumer will not take advice about which type of dog food to buy from a website that is not authoritative enough to give such suggestions.
You may be well established in your niche, but entering particular niches requires much more strategy to give thought to.
What is probably sustainable is to keep a relatively broad niche within your industry so you can easily get into other related niches without feeling “out of your niche”.
5. Create content
Content goes where you cannot go and is live 24/7. Content can get more sales and conversions for you as a marketer than almost any other method.
If you are good at creating quality content, you will be the go-to expert on your niche.
6. Use Ads If You Have the Budget and Skills
Ads are a good part of the mix. But running ads requires different expertise that will take time, money, and skill to hone and become great at. So if it isn’t worth it, don’t push it.
Instead, use organic methods and work with experts when you can afford to hire them or learn the skills yourself.
7. Make Your Dream Come True; Consistency
The name of the game is consistency. Most platforms and channels work based on an algorithm. It is not a secret that all algorithms love content.
Whether Google, YouTube, or some other channel, your ability to churn out regular and frequent content is paramount to maintaining your relevance.
How To Be Successful In Affiliate Marketing Without Social Media
Success for affiliate marketers without social media depends on a few factors. These factors hinge on marketing hence apply to any channel or platform you choose to work with. They are principles every successful affiliate marketer or not can always rely on to grow and build communities that drive value for their business.
1. Have a System for Generating Leads
All successful businesses can tell you how many leads and sales they need to hit their targets. They know their numbers. This is because they have solid and proven systems that generate and convert leads at specific costs that help them plan and strategize.
When it comes to leads, focus on the Quality Vs. Quantity battle. Build quality. Specific affiliate programs pay so much that a few conversions are all you need to make a month’s money.
2. Always Focus On Your Audience
Build your audience and never relent on it. If possible, use a system such as email marketing which puts you directly in the inbox of your leads, and you can take them through an optimized conversion process.
3. Optimize for Conversions, Nothing Else Matters
It doesn’t matter how much the affiliate product pays if you cannot get conversions. Most bogs can make millions annually through small commissions from everyday items such as furniture and home care products.
4. You’re a Marketer
Affiliate marketing is marketing. You may be in for the money, but you are first a marketer and promoter of the products and services. It would be best if you approached it as a marketer.
If possible, have a strategic plan for how you go about your promotion. This will simplify your workflow and make your revenue flow more predictable.
5. Obey The Numbers
In the age of digital marketing, ignoring the analytics and what the numbers are saying will only be equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot. Instead, look at the numbers and use them to ask the right questions that will move your affiliate business ahead.
Final Words
Social media is not the only way to succeed in affiliate marketing. No matter how quickly you want to make money, you can always do it without social media. Despite the learning curve, I made my first sale within six months as a newbie with consistent work.
The important thing is that I found the relevant platform with the right training, resources, and community that rightly guided me on the dos and don’ts in the online business world. Now, I’m making money online without any major social media.
While social media is popularly used, that is not the only way to succeed. I’ve found that organic traffic through quality content pays great dividends. Even for those that employ social media, organic traffic is usually their major traffic source.
You don’t have to be an expert at it. All that you need is a little guidance from those who are experienced if you’re now getting started. A place like Wealthy Affiliate can help you jump start. The best part is you can test out their premium services for a week without providing any financial information. Start here.
Over To You!
Do you have any experience with using social media to make money online? Kindly share with us your experience in comparison to generating organic traffic with blogging, and I’ll be glad to connect with you.
Until then, take care, and I wish you well in your endeavors.