Affiliate Marketing Toolset: build your arsenal for success

In order to succeed you need to be prepared. After all, to fail to prepare is to prepare to fail (I am actually cringing right now). However saccharine the statement, there is no avoiding the need to build a formidable affiliate marketing toolset.

Quick recap on the affiliate journey so far

In the last post I discussed the basic terminology and fundamentals of affiliate marketing. This hopefully provided an insight into the potential this m my sector has to offer.

Today we are going to move away from the theoretical into the practical where we can establish an affiliate marketing toolset to help create engaging content.

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What do I actually need to get started?

While researching affiliate marketing I have collected some foundational knowledge that has helped me kick start my journey. Today I will share these findings in the hope that you too can start your journey to financial freedom.

The absolute basics of your affiliate marketing toolset

Let’s start off with the absolute must haves. These are the key affiliate marketing toolset items that you should have in your arsenal.

• A website
• Social media accounts
• Affiliate accounts (clickbank CJ affiliates)

Affiliate marketing toolset: A website

I think this is the number one requirement. There is no way you can successfully market digital products without a digital presence. Fortunately, this is also one of the easiest items to establish.

There are three key elements to creating a web presence:

• The actual website and hosting
• A domain name (and email address)
• Content

Fortunately you can now cover off the first two items very easily with an all in one hosting solution. GoDaddy, for example, offer a managed WordPress service that delivers hosting, a domain name and Office365 account for managing your email address. What’s better is that they configure everything for you! Easy.

With the first two items covered off you are left to just create content. This is where WordPress really shines and makes your life easier. The tools at your disposal help you to create engaging yet well-ranked content immediately.

Affiliate marketing toolset: Social media

In the modern world it is difficult to conceive any marketing effort that does not include social media. It is such s key part of most of our daily lives it is arguably the single source of entry into a consumers psyche.

This has not gone unnoticed by the big players in the social media world. The likes of Facebook and Twitter have worked hard to build tools that can help you reach an unprecedented level of engagement. These are the modern day affiliate marketing toolset that you will need. So arm yourself now.

Affiliate marketing toolset: Content

Content is key. What type of content also seems to be pivotal – blogs, posts and video content all yield different results in different scenarios.

There is one cornerstone in content creation – the concept of value. The information you disseminate has to be providing meaningful value to the consumers. Failure to follow this will result in a poor traffic stream and therefore poor results.

This is an area that interests me significantly and will be the focus of many future posts. I will venture into split testing my content for maximum consumer uptake. Watch this space.

How do I actually create these basics?

So, we have talked about what your affiliate marketing toolset should look like. Now it’s time for us to start putting this knowledge into practice. I will show you the basic setup I am utilising.

Website, domain and email address

Thanks to the proliferation of service providers this has now become much easier. You can get web hosting, WordPress installation, domain and email address for incredibly low prices. The best I have found at present is Bluenote. For an incredible $3.95 a month you get the hosting, a free domain and an SSL certificate. This is a very low barrier entry to a web presence and is almost certainly within the financial grasp of everybody.

As a proud owner of a domain and hosting package you now have the means to create a unique email account. Do NOT use free accounts like gmail or hotmail – they give entirely the wrong impression. I would also recommend you view the email packages on offer at Bluenote (the setup is super easy).

As part of the hosting you get WordPress installed – I will discuss more about this in the Content section.

Social media accounts

Social media is ever present in modern society. In short, if you are going to advertise to consumers then you need to have a presence on social media.

As a minimum you should create a Page on Facebook and a dedicated Twitter account. Depending on the nature of the products you are promoting there may be a need for establishing a presence a Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat or Pinterest. Make sure you research your target demographic and see where they most likely hang out.

There will be later blog posts focussing on the utility of social media to drive traffic to your content. This can be quite a complex area but is capable of yielding very impressive results. Make sure you subscribe to this site to be kept up to date with the latests posts and news.

Content in WordPress

This is where the magic happens. You will be using WordPress (because, frankly, why would you want to make your life more difficult?). The interface is incredibly easy to understand and navigate.

Nonetheless, get yourself familiar with creating, updating, previewing and publishing a post. Thankfully, the wonderful folk at WordPress have made this incredibly easy.

Each installation will have three buttons as above. They are very self explanatory and help you kick start the creation of your content.

What is incredibly powerful with WordPress is the catalogue of plugins available. This sounds innocuous but they are hugely helpful.

The number one plugin you will utilise is Yoast. This will allow you to create very targeted content that has the requisite level of content to allow for successful ranking in the niche you are looking to exploit.

When creating content in WordPress you have access to the following dashboard of information:

By following the guided output above you can create the best possible content for your consumers.

Are you ready?

You note should have the basic affiliate marketing toolset at your disposal. If you would like to keep on top of all the latest posts please subscribe here.