Email Marketing is one of the most profitable traffic sources for businesses across the board and it is no different in the case of Affiliate Marketing.
With 99% of consumers checking their email every day, creating and nurturing an email list means having a highly targeted, captive audience at your fingertips.
In this article, you will learn the step by step of how to create and use an email list to make money with Affiliate Marketing. But before let’s review why this strategy is so important and valuable.
Why you want to build an email list for Affiliate Marketing
Highly Targeted Audience for your affiliate offers
When using other sources of traffic for your affiliate marketing offers, you will inevitably reach a percentage of people who are not really interested in what you have to sell.
Perhaps they saw an ad and clicked on it just out of curiosity or maybe they came across your website through a google search but it was not really what they were looking for.
On the other hand, if you follow the process we will outline, people who join your email list will have a higher chance to be interested in hearing about your offers and actually buy them. It is a highly targeted audience.
Lifelong Asset for your Affiliate Marketing business
An email list is what separates the ‘quick-buck-chasers’ from the affiliates that will be able to build a long term business.
With other traffic sources, you are never really 100% sure you will be able to use them the next day. Google could change its algorithm causing you to lose organic traffic, Facebook could deactivate your account, your Instagram Ads could get disapproved, your YouTube channel could get banned…you get the point.
The chances are, if you follow the policies, that is not going to happen but the point is that you do not own any of these platforms and they can always change the rules to favor their own interests.
An email list, on the other hand, is an asset of your own. Your email software could close or get out of business but the list will always be yours and you can simply migrate to another service.
Plus, after you have collected the emails you can contact them for free as many times as you want (outside the cost of your email service).
Now we have remembered the importance of an email list for Affiliate Marketing (and any other business), let’s go through our step by step guide.
Building Your Email List for Affiliate Marketing
The process and pieces that go into building a successful email list for your affiliate business can seem a bit overwhelming but they are actually pretty simple when splitting them into the essential factor:
1. Lead Magnet for your email list
The ‘Freebie’, ‘lead magnet’ or ‘downloadable’ is basically the piece of content you are gonna offer visitors in exchange for their emails.
As we have seen, an email is a valuable resource and, even though consumers might not be totally aware of it, they also won’t give it away too easily. You need to put an offer of equal value in from of them, hence: the freebie.
As an internet user yourself, you have definitely seen and traded your email in these conditions. Some examples are websites that will usually have them as pop-ups or footers or YouTubers that end to say ‘if you want to learn more about this, make sure to download my guide/ signup for my webinar’.
How to create the perfect ‘freebie’ to attract your visitors
Freebies can come in the form of a Free PDF Guide, a webinar, a report, a video series, a worksheet, etc. What is important is that your potential customers see the value of it and are willing to provide their email in exchange. And, of course, that it is relevant to the people you want to attract to your list.
Are you wondering how do you know who you want on your list? Start by answering these questions:
- What is my potential customer struggling with?
- What am I going to offer them (the affiliate product)
- How is the product going to help with their problem?
Once you have the answers, you will have a clearer idea of what your lead magnet can be. Let’s take a look at these example for a Weight Loss Plan
- What is my potential customer struggling with? Excess Weight
- What am I going to offer them? The Weight Loss Plan
- How is the product going to help them? Detailed Workouts, Meal and Accountability Group.
Now we can create a Lead Magnet that relates to losing weight. If they are struggling with excess weight and I offer them a resource with the ‘5 Secret Habits You Can Change Today to Start Losing Weight’ they will probably be interested in it, right?
Your email list opt-in offer is 80% of the list building equation. Make sure to go through these questions and brainstorm a few ideas for your ‘ freebie’.
The higher the perceived value of your lead magnet the more emails you will collect.
2. Landing Page for your email list opt-in
Also known as opt-in or squeeze page, a landing page is a simple website where visitors will be able to enter their email address in exchange for your lead magnet.
This type of landing page usually has the unique purpose of collecting emails to start building your email list. For this reason, it is important to keep it short and direct to not distract visitors from this ultimate task.
Before diving into the technical part of building this page (hint: it is very easy), let’s take a look at the essential parts of a successful landing page.
Anatomy of a high-converting landing page
a. Headline
After your landing page design and overall first impression, your headline is your opportunity to capture your visitors’ attention fast.
A good headline is concise and ‘pokes’ at a specific problem they are having offering them an enticing solution.
A persuasive headline will appeal to their curiosity, fear of missing out, and immediate concerns. These types of headlines are the ones that your audience won’t be able to resist.
Some attention-grabber headlines that work very well use this type of structure:
- “Did you know ____…”
- “Experts revealed secrets behind ____”
- “Stop wasting time on ___”
Keep it nice, short and obvious. You don’t want to complicate things by trying to make it too clever.
b. Copy
When done correctly, adding an extra piece of text after your headline can help increase your conversion rate by ensuring your visitors your offer is something they can’t pass on.
You can include some short information on what is included in your lead magnet and what can they expect such as.
- The type of resource they will get. (4 part email series, pdf guide, webinar replay, etc.)
- What they can find inside the freebie (sections, content, etc.)
- What results they can expect
- What they will be missing out on if they pass
- What will happen after they sign-up. (How soon they will receive it, etc.)
c. Your awesome lead magnet
We have already covered this in our first step, so now is just the moment to ‘place’ your freebie on the landing page.
If you are offering a pdf guide, ebook or report, you can use Canva to create a mock-up cover and make it more attractive to your visitors.
Or if your offer needs a bit more explanation -and you are comfortable on camera- you can place a short video of yourself explaining it.
Remember that your lead magnet must be an offer they can’t resist. It should give your visitors something more valuable than holding on to their email address.
d. A call to action (CTA)
You need to know your visitors what to do next to download your freebie. Have a clear, visible and compelling call to action button.
Make sure it is above the fold and if you have a longer landing page, it is definitely worth repeating it.
Notes:
- it is tempting to use big numbers and results but make sure you have consistent proof for it and your lead magnet can actually get them the same outcome.
- after your visitors opt-in in your landing page, you have the option to redirect them to the affiliate offer you are promoting. If you are going to do this, t is important that your design is aligned with the affiliate page so they are not left wondering if landed are in the right website.
Building your landing page
A lot of affiliates are overwhelmed by the idea of building a website or even a landing page. However, nowadays there are several solutions that allow marketers and entrepreneurs to build a landing page in minutes.
For the purpose of this article, I am going to share the two I think are best for the purpose of building an email list.
For the newbie: GetResponse
The reason I chose GetResponse over other software is simple: it has both a landing page builder and an email automation software. If you are new at affiliate marketing this means you get to save some up-front money and not worry about integrating them
Get Response landing page builder features a simple drag-and-drop editor along with some templates and even an AB test functionality.
At only $15/month for up to 1,000 subscribers, this is the cheapest solution you will find for a lead page builder + autoresponder.
Even the $49/month plan that allows you to create email automation and host webinar, is the cheapest out there.
For the Super Affiliate
While Get Response offers a cheap solution short-term, it lacks the features necessary to create an all-in-one long-term business.
For this case we recommend Clickfunnels. If you have spent some time in the digital marketing world, you have probably heard of Clickfunnels.
Clickfunnels is not only a landing page builder but it is intended to be a business-in-a-box-solution. You can build complete sales funnels, host webinars, create membership sites, accept payments, etc.
It also features templates, ab testing and an easy (easier than GetResponse) drag-and-drop builder interface.
Clickfunnels offers two plans, the basic at $97/month and the premium at $297/month. Only the premium plan includes an email autoresponder but you can connect the basic plan seamlessly to any other email software
3. Email Autoresponder for your affiliate offers
The third and final piece in your list building process is choosing and setting up your autoresponder.
This is where you will host your email list. The visitors that opt-in in your landing page will be added to the list you create here. After that, they will begin receiving your emails, starting from the one containing your freebie.
Here are the options we recommend for your email marketing software:
For the newbie: GetResponse
If you are using GetResponse as your landing page builder and email software automating your email autoresponder is very easy.
- After you have your landing page ready, you can go ahead and create your email list.
2. Next, you go to the subscription settings of your landing page and chose the list you just created.
3. Finally, you just create an autoresponder for this list and design the first email that will be sent to people who gave you their email.
For the Super Affiliate: Active Campaign
In the previous section, we recommended Clickfunnels as a landing page builder for those looking for a more complete solution.
In this case, Active Campaign is your best choice for an autoresponder. I might be a bit biased because I use it but I have also tried several other software before and I believe ActiveCampaign to be the best email marketing software out there.
It is simple, reliable, and has the ability to do everything you can ever imagine with email marketing. Also, it can be easily integrated with your Clickfunnels account.
After following these steps, you can create your set up your integration.
- In your Active Campaign account, create a new email list.
2. Then, go to your Clickfunnels landing page and click on the settings tool to add an integration.
3. On the tab setting select the name of your Active Campaign Integration
4. Select the action ‘add to list’ and the name of the list you created.
5. Done! Your email list is ready to start collecting your contacts from your landing page.
People who opt-in in your landing page will be added automatically to your email list and!
Now you can go ahead and create your first email including your freebie and create your following campaigns to offer your affiliate products.
Takeaway
Building an email list is the best way to create a long-term scalable income for your affiliate business.
It will help you protect and expand your business, get an edge over other affiliates, and build deeper relationships with your audience.
