When starting an affiliate marketing business, it is very common to get lost in the sea of shiny tools and unknowingly caught in the habit of keeping purchasing new tools for all kinds of affiliate marketing purposes.
Frankly speaking, you do not need a lot of tools for affiliate marketing. For me, every month I just pay for my email tool, website hosting, and domain names, that’s all. And I think every beginner in affiliate marketing should know what are the essential tools and what are those good-to-have tools.
If you are a beginner in affiliate marketing or considering starting to do affiliate marketing, then this is a great post to read! It will save you lots of money and time because I will help you focus your effort only on the essentials.
In order to be effective (& profitable) in affiliate marketing, you need to have the following:
- Website (main purpose is to attract organic traffic. Other benefits include selling other products/services).
- Landing page (main purpose is to capture leads and subscribers).
- Email list and sending tool (a software that allows you to send ad-hoc and scheduled emails)
The costs can add up pretty quickly if you were to subscribe for various services for all the three items above. For me, I just use GetResponse as it can help to create a website, create landing pages and also, build lists and send emails.
The following is a video that I have made to illustrate why I choose GetRespones as compared to other software in the market, you can take a quick look below.
I strongly recommend GetResponse for beginners in affiliate marketing because it can help you save costs as it comes with the essential tools that required by affiliate marketers. The investment is only US$19 per month. If you are paying annually or bi-annually, the costs are further lower to just $13 per month.
Let’s talk about each of the features of GetResponse and why you need it for affiliate marketing.
1. Email list building and sending
You will need to have an email list in order to be profitable in affiliate marketing. An email list is a list that contains the email addresses of your subscribers. A subscriber is someone who subscribes to your newsletter or wants to hear from you to share your expertise. All profitable affiliate marketers who in this industry for many years will have their own list.
The screenshot on the left (dashboard from GetResponse) shows that I have different lists that contain different numbers of subscribers so I can promote different niches of products to them whenever I want.
The importance of having your own list is because this way, you own the traffic. Unlike followers who follow your social media profiles online, you don’t own those social media traffic. One day, if FaceBook or Instagram changes their algorithm, your reach to your followers may be negatively affected (this happens before and it will happen again in other social media platforms).
Having your own list so you can promote any affiliate offers is a good approach because email marketing has proven to be the highest conversion marketing channel! This doesn’t come as a surprise because you are recommending a product/service to a list of subscribers who already know you and trust you – this makes list-building a very profitable model for affiliate marketing.
GetResponse comes into the picture where it gives you the ability to send emails, schedule automated emails and segment your list and create more than one list if need be.
2. Landing page
Another great feature that comes with GetResponse is that it allows you to create an unlimited number of landing pages (free plan limited to 1 landing page).
The purpose of a landing page is to get people to subscribe to your mailing list. A common method is to offer something valuable (like a eGuide or eBook for free) as a freebie for someone to join your mailing list.
The following is a screenshot of some of the templates offered by GetResponse for you to choose from:
The reason why many affiliate marketers use landing page to get subscribers is because this is the fastest way to get subscribers and followers.
Landing page is a perfect method for most new affiliate marketers because you do not have to take a long time to create a website. Most landing page can be setup and launched in a few hours (or under an hour if you are experienced).
The following is a landing page example of mine using it to get subscribers by offering a free course:
3. Website
This third feature is perhaps the most impressive by GetResponse because most other competitors do not have this feature yet!
By signing up for a GetResponse account, you will be able to create websites (limited to 1 site for free account and the basic paid plan).
The advantage of having a website for affiliate marketing is that your website visitors and subscribers will take you more seriously and consider your recommendations. Having a website will project a more professional image and you can also sell other products or services in your website as additional income source.
The biggest reason I have a website is because it helps to bring in visitors from search engines every day to read what I have written and the tools I recommend. Having a website is a great way to get organic free traffic from Google!
On the left, you see a simple quick website I created using GetResponse.
You can even create a website using the AI Generator in GetResponse!
If you are keen to take a look at how the above website is created inside GetResponse, check out my YouTube tutorial series below:
How to join GetResponse?
You can start off by signing up a free account here (my affiliate link) at GetResponse to try things out. You will get the following features:
- No expiry of this free account!
- Up to 500 stored email contacts.
- Send up to 2,500 newsletters per month.
- Limited to 1 landing page.
- Limited to 1 website.
Do take note that a free account does not come with an autoresponder feature (which allows you to schedule automated emails).
My bonuses for paid GetResponse users
If you have a budget of US$19/mth (or US$15/mth, if you sign up for the annual plan), then you can sign up via my affiliate link here and get all my bonuses here. Click here for my bonus details.
I hope you find this post useful and I wish you all the best in your affiliate marketing journey!
