Step-by-Step How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing

If you are looking for a “low cost” way to make money online, we would recommend affiliate marketing. Unlike an e-commerce business, you don’t need to have a large amount of capital or have to hire a team to handle customer service.

All you need to do to start affiliate marketing is to help other businesses sell their products. The best part is, you will earn commissions between 3% to 7% of the product price from that sale. Moreover, affiliate marketing requiring only a few hours of maintenance from time to time, yet still making money.

If you’re interested to get started with affiliate marketing, below are the comprehensive steps you’ll need to take:

Step 1: Decide what is your interest or niche

First, you’ll need to decide what kind of topic you’ll like to do. What’s your niche? It’s best to start with your interests rather than copying what other people are doing. The reason being is, it is easier to create content consistently based on your interest and preference. You’ll know well what’s your target and how to work on it.

So, ask yourself, “what is my interest?” If you’re interested in the business landscape in Malaysia, then you can create a website/blog talking about all the business-related news and tips. Dig deeper into your interest and create something that is unique yet interesting for readers to read.

Step 2: Choose your platform to start on

Now, you’ve picked your niche, let’s move to the next step – choose the platform to create content on. Normally, affiliate marketers tend to go with their own website. Some even choose YouTube, and other social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

But, if you’re born to be a writer, perhaps you can consider starting a blog. If making videos is your hobby, then it’s better to create video or visual content and post it on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram.

Don’t be greedy. It’s best to focus on one platform first before branching out. Keep in mind that you’re still new in the area, so you might find it overwhelming to juggle with different contents on different platforms every day.

Step 3: Hunting for products or services to promote

What kind of product/services you want to promote?

If you are not sure your favourite products or brands are recruiting affiliates, the easiest way to find out is via Google. Simply type [brand/product name] and affiliate and lets Google list out the result.

Bear in mind that some products or brands will only accept affiliate marketers with a specific number of followers, subscribers or visitors set by them. However, if you’re still new and haven’t got much subscribers or followers yet, there are quite a lot of small brands out there that don’t require it.

Step 4: Now, time to create content

Creating content is a crucial part of affiliate marketing. Set a timeline to publish your contents. Some prefer to update their blog daily, while some prefer to post new content weekly. The bottom line is, always follow your timeline and don’t let your website or blog un-updated for too long.

It is recommended to follow some bloggers, YouTube channels or any social media accounts to get inspiration. Remember, your content must talk about the products too. But, do not go overboard with the promotional. Maybe start with one promotional content and followed by 10 non-promotional content to avoid your audience from getting bored.

Step 5: Improve your strategy

Affiliate marketing will take time, it’s not an easy process. You can’t expect to start today and make a dollar by tomorrow. But, you need to keep working on it anyway. Invest your time on affiliate marketing.

Keep on learning and improving. The social media world is constantly changing and what you’ve learned yesterday might not be working today. So, have a little patience and expect some changes along the way. Don’t be afraid to invest in learning how to create content and product promotion strategy as it will help you to grow.