People often get into online marketing so they can work for themselves. But even if you work for yourself as an online entrepreneur, you will probably still need to work with other people to reach the top.
Networking doesn’t have to take a lot of time or effort, but you’ll need to do it if you want to attract both potential buyers and affiliates who can send you both subscribers and sales.
Making Yourself Available to Those Who Reach Out to You
As a marketer, you might feel scared when you have to talk to your niche audience. But you might not realise that your followers will feel scared if they have to talk to you too. There are a lot of people who would rather stay confused or in the dark about something than ask someone about it.
They don’t want to bother anyone, which is part of the reason they feel awkward. They think you are an expert and that if they use any of your time, you should be paid, which they may not be able to do.
You want to be known as a leader in your niche who is there to help your target audience even when they aren’t buying. Does that mean that you have to let them work on their own until they succeed?
No, that’s obvious. But you can build good will with your target audience by talking to them and making connections with them. This can be done in small steps. Networking can sometimes be done on social media sites like Facebook. This can be as simple as chatting about something other than the niche.
For example, if you’re in the anti-aging niche and you have an Instagram account, you could post a picture of you and your pet. Some of your followers might say what kind of dog it is, how cute it is, or tell you about their own pet.
These small conversations that seem unimportant and only take a few seconds help your audience feel like they know you in some small way. This builds trust, which makes people more likely to buy products in that niche in the future.
You’ll want to make sure it goes both ways. Don’t just let the conversation come to you all the time. Try to remember your audience’s names or small details about them that you can talk about now and then.
With potential affiliates, you might become even closer friends because you will be working together and need to talk about more details. Make sure that when you network, you always talk about both business and personal things.
It doesn’t have to include private information you don’t want to share. You can even talk about your favourite foods. Just don’t be so business-like that they never get to know you or feel like they can trust you.
Making Connections with People Who Can Help Grow Your Business
When you first start working as an Internet marketer online, you might feel like you’re up against the whole world. You have to make all the decisions, figure out how to do things on your own, and get yourself to do them.
But there are other people in your business field who can help you grow. Getting to know them is a good way to give your efforts a boost when you feel like you can’t do any more.
The first people who might be able to help are those you look up. This would be other marketers who have built and kept an online business going for a long time. They don’t have to be in your niche.
Most of the time, these people can tell when you’re doing something wrong and give you advice on what you can do to fix it. For example, you might be pricing your products wrong or not using a funnel to launch, and they can quickly tell you what you’re doing wrong.
You should never assume that someone who is already successful will give you free advice in this kind of situation. People who give advice like this often charge coaching fees to do so.
But if you are friends with this person and naturally interact and network with them online, they will often tell you when they see a big mistake you’re making.
In this case, you want to find a group of people with different levels and connect with them. Some may be less successful online than you, some may be on the same level, and others may be much more successful than you.
It’s good to get feedback from more than one person, because people who are more experienced often forget the little things that beginners need to know. The second group of people you should talk to online to help your business grow are those who may join your team now or in the future.
Just because someone is on your team doesn’t mean they will work for your company. It just means that you might hire them to do something in the future. Even if you didn’t hire anyone, it helps to know people who are good at copywriting, graphics, content creation, SEO, paid ads, and other things.
So, if you have a question, they can help you out by speaking up. If they don’t, they might be the best people to hire if you want to give them a project so you have more time to work on other things for your business.
How to Get Other People to Promote for You
You also want to connect with people who could promote your product and help you make more money and get more people to sign up for your list. Affiliates can be helpful, so you should talk to them carefully and build a real relationship with them.
You need to find out who sells products in your niche. You should start by looking at what your competitors are doing. In the world of online marketing, competitors often help each other the most.
You should also look for affiliates who don’t sell their own products but have a list or following in your niche and would be willing to promote you. You can find these people by seeing who has a review blog or by looking at the leaderboards for affiliate contests in that niche.
Once you have a list of possible affiliates, you should take some time to get to know them. Start by adding them as a friend on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites.
If they have a product of their own, you should buy it to see what kind of quality they think is good enough to advertise in the market. If you want them to be an affiliate for you, don’t contact them and ask for a free copy of their own product to review.
You should definitely sign up for their list so you can see what their style is like. This will help you figure out how to socialise with them. Are they funny or serious? Are they short and to the point or do they go on and on?
You can also see what they are promoting from other people. This kind of information can tell you if their list responds well to text-based or video-based courses, as well as what topics they usually promote in their niche.
Before you ask potential affiliates to promote your product, you should talk to them for a while. You should take this step early on in the development of your online business so that when the time comes, you can reach out without it feeling like spam.
When you do plan a launch, make sure to get in touch with potential affiliates a few weeks before the event. This gives them a chance to add something extra for their buyers.
It also gives them a chance to add you to their schedule if they don’t have much time to answer emails. When you do approach a possible affiliate, you should send them a few things that are very important to their decision.
The first is a link to your JV page, which stands for “joint venture.” You might also want to tell them about the product and how it will be released in your first conversation with them about this topic.
Make sure you send them a free copy of the product to review. If you want them to promote something in your funnel, send them a copy of it so they can tell their readers about it.
Don’t ask them if they want a review copy or make them ask for one. Just send it. Make it as easy for them as possible. Another thing you might want to make clear is whether or not they will get any extra benefits if they join you for lunch.
This could be a higher percentage of their commission, a bonus you made for them to give to their list, a banner ad on your download page, the chance to promote the product before other affiliates, or something else.
Another thing you might want to make clear is whether or not they will get any extra perks if they join you for lunch. This could be an increase in their commission percentage, a bonus you made for them to give to their list, a banner ad spot on your download page, an earlier chance to promote the product, and so on.
After you send this message, don’t bother the affiliate to find out if they will be promoting for you or not. It’s fine to send a quick reminder the night before launch, but if you’re too pushy, they might shut you out and think you’re a bother.
Be Aware of Reciprocity Traps
You should be careful not to fall into the trap of promoting other affiliates’ products in exchange for them promoting yours. This is a common way for marketers to get people to spread the word about their new products.
But this approach has some problems. If you promise to promote someone else if they promote you, you’re putting your subscribers at risk, and it’s not even a good idea. And they are the ones you should be looking out for.
Some of the best marketers who make a lot of money don’t always put out good products, and then you have to recommend something you don’t really believe in.
Worse, if you spent time getting to know your subscribers, you’ll have to betray them in order to keep your end of the deal with the other affiliate. So you’ve broken their trust, and they no longer can.
You can always have a rule that says you’ll promote for others as long as it fits with your list. This lets you off the hook because you can be honest about the quality, price, or other problem, or you can just say it doesn’t fit.
You can expect some pushback from this strategy, and you should also know that some affiliates will only promote you once, since you won’t promote them back. But it’s better to keep your integrity than to burn bridges with people who paid you to help them.
Going Above and Beyond with Your Networking Efforts
You can connect with affiliates and customers in other ways as well. One popular way is to go to niche seminars where your customers and affiliates can meet you and talk to you as a friend.
All over the world, these kinds of meetings happen and usually last a few days. During the day, there will be work groups and talks to attend. At night, there is often a social element where people laugh, have fun, and get to know each other.
Keep in mind that alcohol is sometimes freely available at these events. If you drink too much and embarrass yourself, it could ruin all the networking you’ve been doing for weeks, months, or even years.
You could also start a group that acts as your own mastermind network. This is usually a close-knit group of ambitious marketers who all want to do better and get together from time to time to share ideas and strategies.
You might be invited to join a mastermind group, you could ask around, or you could start one yourself. People in this group often get together in a convenient place or even online to help each other get ahead.
Networking can be a fun way to improve your chances of being successful. It’s also a great way to keep from getting bored and lonely when you work alone and don’t have a normal team atmosphere.
It will give you a way to get help without your friends and family having to figure out what you want to talk about when it comes to online marketing. Even if you’re shy, you should be able to find a level of networking that puts you at ease and helps your business at the same time.
