If you lack the funds but need to build an online business, you can’t go wrong with affiliate marketing. Despite being a multi-billion dollar industry, affiliate marketing has relatively low entry barriers. So, how do you start affiliate marketing with no money?
To start affiliate marketing with no money, you should build an audience on YouTube and Facebook. These content creation platforms allow you to review and promote affiliate products to your followers. Affiliates earn a commission when someone buys a product through your affiliate link.
The idea of starting an online business with no capital might seem far-fetched, but it’s possible.
You only need to put in time and effort into growing a large audience, and you’re off to a great start. Read on to discover how to launch an affiliate marketing business on Facebook and YouTube.
Related Post: How To Start Affiliate Marketing Without A Website
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Affiliate marketing is a business model that pays an affiliate a commission to promote and sell products. In this modern marketing approach, companies recruit thousands of internet marketers into their programs and pay them a small commission for each converting sale.
Ideally, affiliate marketers are people who own websites, social media pages, and YouTube channels. They use these platforms to build an audience and promote affiliate offers. They then direct the people to buy the product from the merchant’s website.
In the online scene, affiliate marketing is about driving web traffic to an online merchant’s store and earning a commission for each converting sale. Merchants issue each affiliate with a unique ID and use it to track their sales and calculate their commissions.
Setting up an affiliate website is a relatively low cost as it entails paying for a domain name and hosting. However, if you’re on funds, you can skip the website and jump straight to Facebook and YouTube.
Related Post: The Top Free Affiliate Networks That Don’t Require Any Money
Affiliate Marketing on Facebook
Facebook is one of the most beginner-friendly social media platforms when looking to build an online business. It’s especially well-suited for affiliate marketing newbies because it allows you to create an audience of up to 5,000 people.
Facebook allows you to build an audience with 5,000 potential leads as you begin your affiliate marketing journey. The key to success when looking to use Facebook as an affiliate marketing tool lies in building a targeted audience.
Since Facebook is a social networking platform, you should build a network of people with a distinct interest in a particular subject. Instead of having a friend’s list brimming with random people, it’s best to create a vast network of potential sales leads.
Once you build a network on Facebook, the platform will reward you with a steady stream of organic traffic. Your affiliate marketing efforts will pay off quickly if your network is full of warm leads.
Here’s a 4-step process to start affiliate marketing on Facebook:
Create an Appealing Profile
Naturally, you need to sign up on Facebook and create a profile before using it for affiliate marketing. You’re better off creating a personal profile instead of a business page when starting out.
Be sure to use your real name, add a professional-looking picture profile, and include any interesting facts and details you don’t mind sharing. Ensure that your Facebook profile paints you as a genuine individual.
Build a Network of Warm Leads
Since you’ll be using Facebook for lead generation, you need to build connections with people who stand to benefit from the affiliate products you’ll be promoting.
Therefore, you should build your friend’s list from communities that center around your area of interest. For instance, if promoting pet products, search for and join the Facebook groups and communities devoted to pet ownership.
Start interacting with group members as you befriend them by sending friend requests. Strive to befriend 50 to 100 people a day and add them to your friend’s list.
Post Useful Content Consistently
Building an active Facebook account is crucial to the success of your affiliate marketing efforts. Post consistently at least once each day, but you can do it up to three times.
The secret here is to post valuable content that your audience will find useful and relevant. Fill your wall with thoughtful, well-researched content that will wow and impress the audience.
More than attracting likes and comments, such an approach earns you organic followers and establishes you as an authority figure. People will want to hear from you and look forward to your posts.
Promote Affiliate Offers
Building relationships and establishing authority on Facebook are crucial factors in your affiliate marketing success. If you create value for your friends and followers, the affiliate posts won’t seem spammy.
However, you need to practice moderation and promote an affiliate offer for every 2 to 5 value posts on your Facebook profile.
Interact with your audience by reacting and replying to their comments and answering questions. The idea here is to build a vibrant community that will attract people to check out your profile.
To reap the benefits of using Facebook for affiliate marketing, make sure you’re promoting great offers. High-ticket items, subscriptions, and digital products are the best because they carry high commissions.
Learn To Break 10K Per Month Utilizing Nothing But Your FB Profile & Affiliate Marketing Here
Affiliate Marketing on YouTube
Since YouTube is a video curation platform that requires content creators, it’s a perfect way to get into affiliate marketing without money. Better yet, the platform lets you harness the convincing power of videos to build your online business.
Each video you create and upload on your YouTube channel remains online until you take it down. Therefore, each video has limitless earning potential, and there’s no limit to the number of videos you can upload.
YouTube is a free platform owned by Google, and it handles all the technical stuff. Create an account and upload videos, and you’re a YouTuber.
Here’s a 3-step guide to affiliate marketing on YouTube:
Create a YouTube Channel
Since YouTube is a Google-owned platform, you need a Gmail address to create a YouTube channel.
Signing up is quick and easy and only needs you to pick a name for your channel. You can use any name you wish or even your real name. Be sure to write a detailed description of what the channel is about and a little information about yourself.
Develop a Content Strategy
Unlike Facebook, where you interact directly with people, YouTube relies on a search engine to serve your content to the interested audience. A content strategy lets you hit the ground running and increases your chances of success.
Tutorials, product reviews, and demos are the most efficient content when using YouTube for affiliate marketing. Therefore, it helps to create video content in these three areas.
Here are a few tips to help the content creation process:
- Tap into your passion, hobbies, or things you love. Choosing a niche that you’re already immersed in increases your chances of success. You can start by reviewing products, software, and services that you’re already using.
- Check YouTube for popular trends. Entering a term in YouTube’s search bar brings up a list of things that people are searching for about that topic. That can give great ideas to shape your content creation efforts. Watch and borrow a leaf from the most popular videos in your niche.
- Carry out keyword research. Use some of the free keyword tools to unearth popular keywords and generate content ideas for your YouTube videos. Targeting popular keywords increases your channel’s reach and visibility while letting you create useful videos on popular topics.
Start Creating Videos
Creating high-quality and useful videos is at the heart of your success as a YouTuber. Therefore, you need to refine your camera skills, video shooting skills, and video editing skills. Luckily, you can find free courses and tutorials on the internet.
Your success also ties to the kind of YouTube videos you shoot and upload on your channel. You need to populate your playlist with exciting and useful content, not a bunch of random videos.
Once your YouTube channel is live, you can sign up with various affiliate programs in your niche. On joining an affiliate program, you can place the affiliate links into the YouTube Videos description.
You can refer people looking to buy the product to the video’s description to access the affiliate link. Some programs offer bonuses and discounts for people who use your affiliate link, increasing the conversion rates.
Related Post: How To Start Affiliate Marketing With Clickbank – A Free Affiliate Network
Final Thoughts
YouTube and Facebook allow you to start affiliate marketing with no money by allowing you to build a large audience of warm leads. You only need to sign up and create content on the platforms to build an audience.
On Facebook, you need to build an audience and establish yourself as an authority before you can run affiliate offers. With YouTube, you can run affiliate offers as you build your channel and establish your subject authority.
You can use both platforms concurrently to increase your chances of success as an affiliate marketer.
Sources
- Project Life Mastery: How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing [With No Money or Website]
- Location Rebel: How to Start Affiliate Marketing (The Complete Beginners Guide)
- Plann That: Facebook Affiliate Marketing: The Complete Guide for Beginners
- Affiliate Marketer Training: How To Start Affiliate Marketing On Facebook
- Authority Hacker: YouTube Affiliate Marketing: Who Does it and Is It Worth it?
- Ippei: Affiliate Marketing With YouTube: Step-by-Step Guide (2021 Update)