How to Convert Affiliate Posts into Sales

Let’s say you’ve already taken the first step in your journey to become an affiliate marketer. You’ve picked your niche, you’ve found some great brands to work with, and you’re starting to snowball the number of your followers. That’s wonderful! But to turn this into a true hustle—or maybe even a full time gig—you’ve got to use that platform to start making sales.

Easier said than done! You can’t reach into your audience’s pocket and make them buy anything!

That’s true, but while you might not be a born salesperson, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are some tried-and-true marketing techniques that you can apply to boost your sales.

Here are points one through one million: be genuine, be authentic, and be honest.

Anyone can earn a quick buck by making a viral TikTok about a product that seems too good to be true because it is. Even embellishing real positive points can be tempting. But that is a short road ending in mistrust and a bad reputation. If you want to play the long game, you have to be trustworthy. Your followers will buy something because they know your recommendation is genuine and the product is worth their money.

In other words, do your research and don’t only promote something to have something to sell, or only say it’s viral because it’s in the brand’s script, even though it was released a week ago.

Along with this, make sure your content is valuable to your audience. Revenue from affiliate marketing might be the real first priority for your business, but make sure it seems secondary for your audience. Finally, if you’re talking about products you genuinely love instead of speaking from a script, your audience is probably going to pick up on that.

Here are some other ways to be genuine:

• Share a personal story. Why do you personally like the product?
• Don’t just include the pros—throw in a con or two! This will show your audience that you’re not just a salesperson, but you’ve put consideration into the product.
• Show it in action. For example, if you’re a beauty blogger, show the foundation you’re showcasing in different types of lighting to illustrate what the coverage really looks like. Not everyone is a TikToker in front of an HD camera with perfect lighting.
• Include real reviews from other product users to provide even more opinions than just your own.

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. “Get it before it’s gone!” If you want to see a great example of this at play, you can look at Kylie Jenner’s lip kit launch in 2015.

Despite being part of one of the most famous families on earth with an unfathomable social media reach, Kylie launched her lip kits with only a few thousand products available. This “broke the internet” when over the next week or so, the news cycle published hundreds of free articles all about how her amazing lip kits sold out within seconds. Today, those lip kits have even weathered a questionable product quality scandal and are still one of the most successful lip products out there.

Though it was probably an artificial shortage, this story proves the power of scarcity. It shouldn’t be overused, but is a powerful sales tactic.

Have you heard of “girl math”? An example of girl math is having $1 off a $6 drink at Starbucks and justifying that you didn’t spend $5, you saved $1! We are all consumers, and we are all guilty of justifying a purchase that we didn’t really need because it was on sale.

If you already want a product, getting that little bit of incentive might just be the difference between making the sale and not. If you can find a product on sale for your followers, they and their wallets will appreciate it. Many brands will also offer you your own coupon code.

It might be tempting to sign up for any affiliate program, especially at first when you haven’t yet built your online presence. But it pays to be picky!

Take the time to walk through the terms and conditions when you’re researching the program. Make sure the brand has a solid reputation in its own right. Can you find anything from influencers about what they thought about working with the brand? Look into what materials and promotional information the brand can provide to help you. And remember, while the brands are not your enemy, they’re equally not your friend. They are also a business, and their decisions are based on their own bottom line, not yours.

While this can result in a mutually beneficial relationship, remember–don’t be emotional! Evaluate a brand based on the quality of their products and the value of their affiliate program, and be prepared to walk away if it’s not a good fit. Choosing the right affiliate program will help you generate sales.

Even companies that have been advertising since the days of Mad Men don’t have everything perfectly figured out—human psychology is a tricky thing! Besides, your audience might have a particular interest and a specific way they like to be communicated to.

Are they a tech audience that needs to know all the specs? Are they into beauty and need to know what works with their hair or skin type? Are you selling décor and really only need to emphasize the cost and beauty?

Try different methods when you communicate to your followers and see what works. Use strategies like A/B testing, where you promote the same product in two different ways to see what sticks. You’ll probably want to do tests like this continuously, since your audience or products might change as your following grows.

And remember, no matter what you’re testing, being as helpful as possible will also help with your SEO!

If you’re testing like you should be, you’ll know the pain of crunching the numbers. This part might be as exciting or sexy, but it’s still crucial.

You are running a business, and you need to know how that business is doing! You need to establish your key performance indicators, but you might not have the time or even the brain capacity to devote to this technical side of your company. That’s why you should let Shared Vision do the heavy lifting for you. Not only can you take advantage of amazing features like branded shopping lists and broken link fixes, you’ll also be able to see all of your key metrics at a glance.

If this sounds like something your business needs (and we know it does!) try it today: sign up here.