If you’re relatively new to the world of making money online, you’ve probably never heard the term ‘affiliate marketing’ before. Or at least, you probably haven’t heard the term used in the context of the internet.
Affiliate marketing is basically a process through which products and services that are available online are advertised by a blog or an internet personality, who will be paid by the marketer for the promotional efforts.
This is often most done through Amazon but various other marketplaces online have the same service on offer. It’s one of the most effective ways to make money online and the industry is only getting bigger.
If you are promoting affiliate products, one of the best avenues for your promotional strategy is YouTube. In this article, we will briefly cover how to promote affiliate products on Youtube.
Why Should You Consider YouTube For Your Affiliate Promotion?
When YouTube first appeared on our computer screens way back in 2005 with its remarkably unassuming maiden video entitled ‘Me at the zoo,’ very few of us predicted what would have become of the site in the years that followed.
And here we are, over 15 years later and YouTube is one of the biggest corporations in the world, worth over $150 billion dollars and it’s essentially become a huge part of the entertainment industry.
If you are a success on YouTube, you effectively earn celebrity status. This is why it’s the perfect place to promote affiliate products because so many people use it and if you can gain a following on there, you are guaranteed to yield results.
And the great thing is that it’s not just a medium for entertainment, people use it to seek out information about products and services. So you could focus YouTube content entirely on the affiliate products you’ve been tasked with promoting if you so choose.
But before you get started on the content, you need to decide on which affiliate program is right for you:
First Step: Find the Right Program
You need to find a niche for yourself. There are dozens and dozens of great affiliate programs out there and when you look into them, you’ll see that there is a wide variety of products and services that you can become a part of.
Amazon is a great place to start because it is so vast. Pretty much anything that can be bought, can be bought on Amazon. Except like, houses and private islands. But everything else from electronics to toys to jewelry to clothes and everything in between is available on Amazon.
You can become an Amazon affiliate and promote whatever kind of product takes your interest, provided there is an affiliate program associated with that. Unless it’s something very obscure there almost certainly will be.
In addition, you could try another retail site like Etsy or a service such as NordVPN, MasterClass, or Under Armour. See what works for you, because in some cases you will see that affiliates make videos that focus entirely on the products, while others will just link to the product.
What you’re going to be promoting will likely determine that. If you choose to be an affiliate for NordVPN then chances are you won’t be making entire videos talking just about that service, but you might if you’re promoting electronics.
So choose the program wisely, and based on what type of videos you actually want to make. Which leads us to:
Deciding on Your Content
There are certain styles of videos that can attract a lot of viewers and are very likely to generate revenue for the merchants that you are promoting. This will in turn make you a more desirable partner in the future.
So let’s assume that the program you have chosen is through Amazon, which is more than likely will be, and you’re promoting something like kitchen appliances, televisions, or power tools. What kind of videos could you make about that?
7 Ideas For Promoting Affiliate Products on YouTube
Let’s have a look at some of those ideas we have curated:
1) How-To Videos
This is the most straightforward method and likely one that will draw quite a bit of views. First and foremost, you’ll need to get your hands on the product, which may actually just be provided to you by the marketer.
Learn about it and how to use it and then make a video explaining this in detail. Work on things like your presentation skills and how you speak, try, and take a light-hearted but informative approach.
This is a great way to promote a specific product because you are making it the sole focus of your video and if your channel is full of informative videos of this kind it will entice people to keep coming back.
2) Reviews
This is quite a similar process but with a more of a subjective approach. Instead of explaining how to use the product that you’re promoting, you would just explain why it’s such a good product and why people should buy it.
If you choose to go down this route, don’t give a negative review. Even if you don’t think the product is great, find good things about it because it’s your job to get people to buy it. You can list some cons but make sure you give an overall positive response to the product.
3) List Videos
A good angle to go on if you have a number of different products to promote, which is actually quite likely once you progress further into your affiliate promotion career. Make a list of various products in the same category and then go through them in your video.
What you should do if you’re following this method is to make sure to be concise with your analysis of each product. Again, be positive on them, you can rank them if you want but don’t imply that the cons of any outweigh the pros.
4) Video Description
This option and the next few on the list are for if you are taking a bit of a different approach. Promoting affiliate products in the video description is good if you are creating content not directly related to the products.
If you want to do it this way, you’re going to need some compelling content to actually have people watching your videos at all, but if you do, then the description is a good place to put your affiliate links.
This way, you won’t be alienating viewers who get irritated by promotional material and sponsorships in the video itself. Speaking of which:
5) In-Video Promotion
You’ve no doubt seen this yourself. You’re watching a video about something that’s of interest to you and at the beginning, the content creator discusses a product or service that’s sponsoring them.
You can do something similar, start your video by mentioning that you are associated with this particular product or service, and then explain a little bit about it and why people should make avail of it. It should only take a couple of minutes and then you can move on with the rest of the video.
6) Comments
The YouTube comment section tends to be a very active place. It can also be a very contentious place but the fact is that if someone watches a video of yours, they are more than likely going to scroll down to the comments.
As a creator, you can write a comment in your own video and then pin it so that it’s always the first one people see when they scroll down. This is a great place to advertise because again, it won’t irritate people who are trying to get something else out of your video.
It’s arguably better than the video description too because a lot of people do tend to skip over that so they can get to the discussion.
7) Community Page
A community page is a place that people can find by clicking onto your channel and it’s just a place for general discussion about the channel itself. A lot of people don’t even know that this exists because you actually have to go to the channel to find it.
With this in mind, if you want to advertise on the community page, you should be sure to reference your community page in your videos to incentivize people to visit it.
However, to enable this feature, you need a minimum of 1000 subscribers.
YouTube Guidelines
What you need to remember about YouTube is that from their perspective, they are an entertainment and education medium. Of course, it is a company and the goal is to make money, but their attitude towards the content is that it should be entertainment.
If you check their terms of service, affiliate links are allowed, provided they do not prove to be the sole purpose of the video. If it appears as if the video only exists to drive traffic to another site, YouTube will terminate it.
This is why you must be careful about how you approach your advertising. If you are doing the how-to, review or list videos, make the content about the products, but not about where you can buy them. Link of course but don’t make it the focus.
Conclusion
So if you want to make money by promoting affiliate products on YouTube, know that there is a lot that goes into doing it right and actually providing the service that the marketer will be expecting you to provide.
But it is definitely possible to be successful, and if you go in with the right attitude and prepare yourself ahead of time, you should be able to make a solid income.
Note: This Guide on How to Promote Affiliate Products on Youtube was contributed by Amy Rhodes. If you have interesting content to contribute, then check our Guest Blogging Guidelines.
Related articles you might like:
- Content for Affiliate Marketing: It is not as difficult as you think
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- How to make money with Affiliate Marketing? – Expert Advice
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