Step-by-Step Guide: Start Affiliate Marketing with No Money in 2023

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The biggest misconception about affiliate marketing is that it requires a significant investment to get started.

Fortunately, this is not true, and you can start affiliate marketing with no money.

In this article, we will guide you through the step-by-step process of starting affiliate marketing with no money.

Let’s begin.

Why is Affiliate Marketing the Best Business Model to Begin with No Money?

Affiliate marketing is an excellent business model to start with no money because:

• You DON’T need your own product and can promote other products as an affiliate
• You DON’T need a team or employees
• You DON’T have to deal with clients or customers
• You DON’T have to deal with an inventory
• You DON’T have to deal with customer support or refunds
• Extremely LOW to ZERO start-up cost start (this article will reveal how)

But it’s not a Get Rich Quick Scheme that requires Low to zero efforts. You need to put in the extra effort, push yourself at tough times, and keep adapting.

Is it Really Possible to Start with No Money?

Yes, it is entirely possible to start affiliate marketing with no money.

However, you need to be prepared to invest your time, effort, and creativity to succeed.

The key is to leverage free tools and resources available online and focus on providing value to your target audience.

You can start promoting products for free (strategies revealed below)

The most important thing is to focus on building a loyal audience and providing value to your followers.

How to Start Affiliate Marketing with No Money?

Let’s discuss the step-by-step process of starting an affiliate marketing business:

Find your Profitable Niche & Understand your Target Audience

The first step to starting affiliate marketing is to find a profitable niche that you can talk amount and has a high demand.

Simple 3 steps to Find your Niche:

Step 1: Choose a Problem

Choose a Problem that you can solve in any of the 3 categories: Wealth, Relationship, or Health.

Choose a very specific problem. By that I mean:

Example:

In Wealth: Say Helping people make money through the stock market that too trading or Say Helping working professionals make extra income from affiliate marketing as a side hustle or Say Helping Businesses with their Marketing, Sales, etc

In Health: Weight Loss After Pregnancy, Building Muscles for Young Adults, etc

In Relationship: Helping parents better their relationship with children, or helping husband and wife better their relationship, etc. Similar Problem that you can solve

Here are some more ideas:

Step 2: Know your Interest

Make sure that the problem you chose, you are interested in knowing about it more
…or curious about the topic
…or say have experience working in the field, etc

I chose this digital marketing niche because I was curious of knowing how come I was seeing the same shoes on Facebook that I recently searched online. What was working behind this?

This led me to discover this field and knowing about it.

Step 3: Check the Profitability Scope in Shortlisted Niches

After Step 2, you should be boiled down to a few niches. From there since you want to focus on affiliate marketing as of now, so find products or courses that you can promote that can help people solve this.

You can do this on various affiliate marketplaces like ClickBank, JvZoo, DigiStore24, etc, or individual affiliate programs.

Find multiple products. This you are doing to see how profitable these niches are.

Plus when you do this, you could also find methods people are using to promote them, which will provide you with more ideas.

Choose a Niche that overlaps all three segments.

Additional Step (Bonus)

After all these three steps even if you don’t get your niche, then look back at your life. Try and extract stories out of it and find out what you are good at.

Something which you can help people with.

People will pay you money if you can help them to solve a particular problem.

Chose that as your niche.

Even after following all the above steps, any chance, you are still not clear about your niche, forget about choosing the perfect niche.

Chose one and Start working on it.

Start with exploration. Later with time and experience, you will get much more clarity on the niche or topic you want to work on. Either you will continue with the same or will be able to understand your topic.

Just make sure, You Start and don’t let this niche selection stop you from moving forward.

Once you have found a profitable niche, you need to deeply understand your target audience and their needs, preferences, and pain points.

Create an Ideal Customer Avatar. This will help you create content that resonates with this avatar (and does not overwhelm you) and give you a better chance to portray yourself as an expert.

Find & Sign Up for Affiliate Programs

The next step is to find and sign up for affiliate programs (some of which you did in Step 3) that offer products that align with your niche and target audience.

There are several affiliate networks and marketplaces that you can use to find affiliate programs, such as ClickBank, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, and Amazon Associates.

Before signing up for an affiliate program, make sure to read the terms and conditions, commission rates, and payment methods.

You should also check the quality of the products, the reputation of the merchants, and the support and resources that they offer to their affiliates.

Choose affiliate programs that offer high-quality products, generous commission rates, and reliable support.

Learn in Detail: How to Find and Choose the Best Affiliate Program for your Niche

Start Promoting (7 Ways to do It With No Money)

Once you have found your niche and signed up for affiliate programs, it’s time to start promoting products.

This is the step that would have required you to invest money. But we will discuss Free Methods and Tools that will help you to promote products with no money.

Here are the promotional strategies:

YouTube Videos

YouTube is one of the most popular video-sharing platforms that you can use to promote products. It is also an evergreen platform.

You can create detailed video reviews, tutorials, and product comparisons that provide value to your audience and promote affiliate products.

Make sure to optimize your videos for SEO and include affiliate links in the video description.

Learn in Detail: How you can Build your Audience and Promote Affiliate Products to Boost your Earnings

Short-Form Videos

With the rise of Shorts, Reels, and TikTok people consume these videos in bulk and are very engaged with them. As a result, social media platforms give a huge boost to them. And if people are liking it why stay back?

You can create short videos that grab the attention of your audience and promote your offer.

If you are thinking that you won’t be able to promote a product in such a short period of time. You are correct.

See this as an ad that you are publishing on these platforms and getting eyeballs for FREE.

Your work is to direct people to your landing pages and automated training and from there sell the affiliate products.

Learn in Detail: How you can Create Engaging Short-Form Videos for Affiliate Marketing

Social Media + Facebook Group + DM Script Strategy

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are great for promoting products and building a following.

You can create social media posts, share affiliate links, and engage with your followers to build trust and credibility.

Join various Facebook groups related to your niche and find friends who might be interested in learning more. Add them to your friend list. This way when you share any post, it will reach more people.

Use the formula of Value, Value, Value, and Offer. Create three posts giving lots of value and promote your products in the fourth post.

Pro Tip: Don’t just post links and try to traffic drive directly. But Tell people the outcome they can achieve, or offer something and ask them to comment a keyword, below the posts if they desire it.

This way you can engage with them, and deliver your content through the inbox. Plus social media will also give it the maximum reach.

Example:

See how this guy is using social media to get leads and sell his affiliate product. By asking people to comment “send it”, he is creating engagement. This way Facebook is getting more people to his post and he is also getting leads & sales.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual search engine that allows you to create pins that link to your affiliate products.

You can create eye-catching pins that provide value to your audience and promote affiliate products.

Make sure to use keywords, hashtags, and high-quality images to optimize your pins for search.

Learn in Detail: How you can do Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest

Free Course Method

You can create a FREE course that teaches a specific skill or solves a problem that your target audience faces.

Inside that, you can teach people specific strategies and introduce affiliate tools as a pathway for doing a particular.

This way your affiliate products become a No-Brainer and people will not face resistance to buying them.

Learn in Detail: How you can Create and Sell your Online Courses

Start your Own Medium Blog

You will need to invest money for starting your own blog under your domain in WordPress. But you can do blogging inside Medium for FREE.

It is a popular blogging platform that allows you to write and publish articles on a wide range of topics.

You can create a Medium blog and write articles that provide value to your audience and promote affiliate products.

Make sure to optimize your articles for SEO and include affiliate disclosure in your content.

Start with Quora or Reddit

Quora and Reddit are popular question-and-answer forums that you can use to promote products and build a following.

You can answer questions related to your niche and provide value to your audience.

Don’t include direct affiliate links in the answer. But direct them to a landing page (affiliate funnel), or your blog. And share affiliate links there.

Learn in Detail: How you can do Affiliate Marketing on Quora

Optional: Offer Exclusive Bonuses

Offering exclusive bonuses is an effective way to incentivize your audience to purchase affiliate products through your link. You are giving an ethical bribe to purchase the products through your link and not others.

You can offer bonuses such as e-books, courses, templates, or one-on-one consultations. Make sure to highlight your bonuses in your promotion stage.

This will also help you to Stand Out in a Crowded Marketplace.

Learn in Detail: How you can 10X your Affiliate Sales in a Crowded Market using the Power of Bonuses

Most Important: Build your Email List with an Affiliate Funnel

Whatever may be your Promotional Strategy or Traffic Source, don’t forget to build your Own Email List.

Building an email list is the most important aspect of affiliate marketing. An email list allows you to build a relationship with your audience, provide value, and promote affiliate products over time.

This helps you to increase the Lifetime Value of a Customer and maximize your profits as you will be able to sell to a person multiple times.

You can use an affiliate funnel for building your email list and promoting products at the same time.

You can Start with the FREE Version of Tools for the Initial Stage.

Build an Affiliate Funnel using Systeme.io.

You can create:

• Sales Funnels
• Email Marketing
• Online Course Builder
• Blogging Platform
• Marketing Automation
• Community

…All in FREE Forever Plan.

Although you can use a domain with an extension of systeme.io like xyz.systeme.io which they provide as default.

But I will recommend you at least buy a domain that will cost you about ₹700 for a year. Just pay that and get started for FREE using Systeme.io. It is an All-In-One Marketing Solution that is perfect for everyone (especially Beginners).

Read my Complete Systeme.io Review if you want to know more information about it.

Best Tips for Getting More Affiliate Sales

Here are some tips to help you get more affiliate sales:

Create Content Consistently

Consistency is key when it comes to affiliate marketing.

Make sure to create content that provides value to your audience on a consistent basis.

You can use a content calendar to plan your content and ensure that you are providing value to your audience. It’s really important to create brand remembrance.

Also, don’t create commercial posts only and promote products. But mix it up with informational content. Focus on building relationships with your audience.

Provide value, engage with your followers, and build Trust over time. Once Trust is established, selling products becomes easy.

Build an OmniChannel Approach

Most sites and blogs will recommend you focus on only one traffic source and master it and then move to other. But I have a different approach to it. I’d suggest you take a multi-channel approach and not stick with only one platform.

If you want to focus on only one thing, then choose a Content Creation Format (like Images, Short & Long Form Videos, or Written Content) and not one platform. You can post the same videos on different platforms and get the attraction.

Short Form Videos: TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels
Long Form Video: YouTube, Facebook, Linkedin
Written Content: All Social Media Accounts, Medium Blog, Quora
Images: Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook

Just Make sure to use a consistent message and branding across all channels to create your own Brand.

Use AI Tools for Faster Growth

With ChatGPT and Bard, AI has blasted into the scene. You can utilize the Free version to your advantage.

It will help you to create SEO-Friendly blog posts for your Medium Blog, create Social Media Content, Write Quora Answers, and Do YouTube SEO (Keyword Research, Tag Research, Description Writing, Script Writing, Title Generation, and Idea for Thumbnail).

Plus you can use Pictory for Creating Faceless YouTube Videos or editing one and Canva AI & MidJourney for creating AI-generated images for Pinterest.

Use Ai as an assistant and save lots of time by doing days of work in minutes.

Conclusion

Now you are aware of How you can start your Affiliate Marketing Business with No Money. It’s time to act Now and follow the Strategies discuss in this article.

Remember, the idea here is to get started and start earning your commissions. But once you do, don’t forget to invest money. It will shorten your learning and growth curve.

You need to invest money for:

• Developing your Mindset to go to Next Level
• Mastering the Skills and learning from experts
• Enhancing your Toolset and investing money for marketing purposes

It requires hard work, dedication, and a willingness to learn and adapt to the ever-changing digital landscape.

Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and strategies in affiliate marketing. Attend webinars, read blogs, and network with other affiliates to stay ahead of the curve.

Remember, success doesn’t happen overnight, but with persistence and effort, you can achieve your goals and create a sustainable income stream through affiliate marketing.