You may have heard the phrase, “The money is in the list” if you’ve been doing affiliate marketing for any amount of time. I never took list-building seriously until last year. Now affiliate email marketing is a priority in my online business. High commissions can be made via email (check out the Jonathan Montoya affiliate program as an example.)
My main priority is growing my email list. I learned the importance of this from Jonathan Montoya who is an expert email marketer.
Read below to learn what I do to grow my list and how I write emails.
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What Affiliate Email Marketing Is
If you’ve never heard the phrase, “The money is in the list”, you’ll become very familiar with it the longer you do affiliate marketing.
Affiliate email marketing is the process of creating and growing an email list in order to create a steady income online.
When you have an email list, you’re building a targeted list of leads that you have control over.
Some of the top marketers make tens of thousands of month all thanks to their email lists.
Think of it like this. If you have 10,000 email subscribers, you can essentially make $10,000 a month – give or take.
Having an email list does not guarantee that you’ll make money. Other factors do come into play.
For example, where are the leads coming from? Are they targeted to your niche? Are you nurturing your list by sending emails on a regular basis?
An email list is one of the best ways to have a long-term online business.
The Benefit of Building an Email List
Besides making money from your list, the best benefit is that you have an audience that you can control.
Having a large following on social media can be taken away if the platform decides to close your account.
Account closures on different platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have occurred to even the top marketers in the industry.
However, if you have an email list, you don’t have the worries associated with losing social media accounts.
Another example is Google. You’ve likely heard of its algorithm updates. These updates have been known to wipe out a website’s traffic.
If you have a blog, you don’t have to stress about algorithm updates if you’re consistently sending traffic to your email list.
What You Need for Affiliate Email Marketing
We’ve briefly covered what affiliate email marketing is and some of its benefits. So what do you need to get started?
You’re going to need a few things which I’ll go into detail below.
Email Marketing Software
First, you’ll need to choose an email marketing software. This is the software that will store your subscribers in a database and enable you to send email messages to your list.
There are plenty of email marketing software to choose from. I’ve used several over the years. The ones I can recommend include:
- GetResponse
- AWeber
- ConvertKit
Depending on the sales funnel software that you use (more on that below), there may be email software already built in.
Some marketers don’t like to use the built-in email software. If you do not have a preference, you can use what is included.
If you prefer to use a separate email marketing software, then select a sales funnel software that will connect to the email marketing software of your choice.
Zapier is also an option to connect two pieces of software together.
Landing Page
You will need a landing page (a.k.a squeeze page) to collect visitor email addresses. In most cases, it is easier to use sales funnel software.
A basic sales funnel consists of two page. The first being the landing page that will hold a form to collect an email address.
The second page is a bridge page or thank-you page that introduces your visitors to the product you’re promoting.
You’ll want to provide a lead magnet (a valuable freebie) to give away in exchange for a visitor’s email address.
A lead magnet can be a free video, tutorial, course, how-to guide (PDF), audio file, or anything you want that may help your audience.
Web Traffic
Finally, you will need a traffic source. Without traffic, you can’t grow your list and in turn, you won’t make sales.
You can choose organic traffic (blogs, social media, YouTube, etc.) or paid traffic.
Either way, it’s a good idea to send your traffic to your sales funnel and build your email list.
If you go with organic traffic, you’ll need to create content daily. It costs you time instead of money which is great if you are not able to pay for ads.
Later down the line, you can experiment with paid advertising. For beginners, it’s always best to learn organic traffic strategies first.
That way, you always have the skills to generate traffic.
Traffic + Offer = Sales
Types of Emails to Write and How Often
Building and growing an email list is one thing but what types of messages do you plan on sending and how often?
Nurturing your email list is essential. If you don’t email regularly, your subscribers may forget who you are and mark your messages as spam.
I feel it’s better to email often versus less. It is my goal to send messages to my lists on a daily basis.
There was a time when I found it difficult to figure out what to write in my emails. I don’t overcomplicate it anymore.
I talk about what I’m doing in my own online business or how my online business has helped me over the years.
I’ll also share any wins I’ve made such as making a new high-ticket affiliate commission or figuring out a new traffic source, etc.
Write messages that your list may relate to or share helpful tips. You can always tie in the product you’re promoting.
Focus On List Building
One valuable lesson I learned is to focus on building an email list. Today, my sole focus is to send traffic to my sales funnel.
A rookie mistake is to send traffic directly to your referral link. That is the same as leaving money on the table.
Most people do not buy right away. By capturing an email address, you have the ability to market to your subscribers every day.
People buy at various points in their online journey. When you have a large list, there may be a percentage of your subscribers that buy every day.
That means you’d have the potential to make money online every day. It takes time to grow an email list, but it is well worth it in the long run.
In Summary
Affiliate email marketing is the way to go if you want to build a long-term online business.
You can accomplish this by utilizing a sales funnel that is connected to email marketing software.
Send the traffic you generate to your sales funnel and focus on growing your email list.
Nurture your email list by sending messages regularly. Don’t overcomplicate it. Send messages about helpful tips, what you’re currently doing in your own business, etc.
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