Are you ready for them?
The growth and focus on mobile responsive websites as well as authority websites seemed be the trend of 2015.
But it seems there's so much more that's happening as we move further away from traditional "niche" sites that are based around one or two products.
We've asked 5 top affiliate marketing experts to share the insights and challenges they see coming up in 2016 and their solutions/suggestions to take advantage of upcoming trends and changes.
Let's start.
Drazen Prastalo, founder of IncomeMesh.com
Affiliate marketing won’t change drastically in 2016, those who were successful in 2015 will remain successful if they continue to follow the same principles.
The affiliate formula is always the same - find out what people need or desire (pain points) and put the solution in front of them.
Now, what separates successful affiliates from unsuccessful ones is persistence (most of the time).
Yes, we all fail from occasionally, but the ones who keep going are the ones who succeed in the end.
From my personal experience finding the solution for people’s problems and showing it to them in a clearest way possible, is the way to go.
Sure, traffic matters, but you don’t need tens of thousands monthly visitors to make money online. I have about 3000 visits per month and I make between $500-$1000 promoting affiliate products.
I do that by presenting the products in a bit different way, answering all the question a potential buyer could have and I do my best to show a live demo of each tool/product I recommend.
You can see what I mean in my Thrive Leads Review article.
For everyone starting in affiliate marketing I would suggest to be as descriptive as possible when reviewing products.
Use unique images, videos and text. Write longer articles, format your articles nicely and optimize your website for SEO.
First impression matters too, so make sure your website looks nice, but keep the usability and functionality at the highest rate possible.
In short, if you want to be successful in affiliate marketing in 2016, make sure to be different, to over-deliver and to answer all the questions your visitors might have (so that they don’t need to look for it elsewhere).
David Schnieder, CEO and co-founder of Ninja Outreach
Affiliate marketing is done through the medium, which customers want to buy.
Traditionally this has been content but now I believe we are seeing more and more people move to video, as that is what people want to consume.
Therefore, one trend I see is video playing a larger role in affiliate marketing, which will inevitably give rise to video search engines like YouTube (already important, but easily overlooked).
Additionally, we are seeing more and more marketers using personalized drip campaigns that are highly triggered based on user behavior.
This makes complete sense to me, and I believe it will start to catch on now that lower cost tools are available like Drip (not cheap, but affordable).
Sean Si, founder of SEO Hacker and Qeryz
What key trends will shape 2016 affiliate marketing strategies?
I think Affiliate Marketing will increase on eCommerce products and will see a massive segmentation on SaaS products - basically due to SaaS products are vastly increasing and eCommerce is rising in usage, visits and popularity.
Is it all about mobile? More quality traffic? More copywriting and content?
Personalization? Focusing on user experience?
I think mobile affiliate marketing is very interesting if mobile websites and payment gateways can make affiliate purchasing (or purchasing in general) to have a seamless, friction-less experience for mobile.
Everything's compressed and simple in mobile browsing - so if mobile purchasing could be as compressed and simple in 2016, I think affiliate marketing could see a huge boost in sales volume.
The Google-backed Accelerated Mobile Pages could also prove to be a powerful way for affiliate marketers to earn through publishing - and distributing those publications to mobile apps that take advantage of AMP loading such as Flipboard and the Native Twitter app.
How can affiliate marketers best grow and engage their audience for the new year?
Email marketing. I think it's been proven and tested that email is the best converting and retention method that affiliate marketers use.
There's tons of data to back my statement out there. Email is changing drastically. Google is making it so - as well as the other multiple email plugins and integration out there such as Streak and Hubspot's Sidekick.
Justin Cooke, founder of EmpireFlippers
In the last few years, we've seen a ton of standard, run-of-the-mill affiliate sites.
You know the type - those niche-specific Amazon review sites that aren't well differentiated and don't have terribly helpful content.
There are two things I'd love to see in 2016:
1. Honest, heads-up review sites.
This probably wouldn't work if you're comparing one set of belts to another, but what if you were to create in-depth, meaty write-ups on CRM's for small-medium sized businesses? (i.e. Salesforce Vs. Microsoft Dynamics) Optin Software? (Leadpages Vs. Unbounce)
If you look at most of the reviews for this software you'll find fairly crappy content in systems that have no data (probably test accounts?) from marketers, not real users. Can't we do better than that as affiliates?
2. Blended monetization methods
Instead of your standard niche Amazon affiliate site, why not take a more holistic view of the visitors? What problems are they trying to solve? Are there any infoproducts or paid communities that might be a good fit for them?
These are the kind of questions that will lead to more opportunities for affiliate marketers.
It will be interesting to see how 2016 shapes out.
Zac Johnson, founder of Blogging.org
Having been in the industry for 20 years now, I've been able to see a lot of transitions in affiliate marketing over the years.
People are always saying this will change and that will change... but at the end of the day, it's about changing your business with the environment.
Affiliate marketing is always going to be here (in one form or another) and it's always going to make money as long as you continue to focus on the value provided and user experience.
Yes, yes... you've heard that before -- but as cliche as it sounds, it is the real business model behind legitimate online businesses that make money year after year.
Anyone can make money with a fly-by-night ad campaign or website, but if you want to make long-term money, you need to think like a real business.
Here are some key tips to help you find more success with affiliate marketing in 2016.
Find a niche and work really hard at becoming the authority in that space (especially if you are focusing on a brand or being a well-known expert). The more you niche down and have an exact audience, the easier this will be to accomplish.
Google is still Google. The best traffic is still coming from Google, plain and simple. When someone searches for something in Google and they find what they are looking for, that is a working business model. Put in the time and effort to create something that provides value time and time again and your site will rank higher and work for you while you sleep.
Link building is still a top priority. No matter what "SEO experts" say and how many Google updates come out, at the end of the day, if you want to rank ahead of the competition you need to acquire high-quality backlinks to your site.Guest blogging, infographics, PR and social media are all great methods for increasing backlinks. Need even more ideas? Check out this list from Backlinko.
YOU are the business! For most affiliate marketers, it's a one-man operation. This means you are going to be responsible for your own success and failure.
Don't let one winning campaign get to your head.
Instead, think about how you can grow and scale into something much bigger -- this includes building out your own sites, ad campaigns, mailing lists and actually owning the data and products you are selling.
Affiliate marketing is here to stay, now you need to make sure you get the most out of it in 2016!
No comments:
Post a Comment