Affiliate marketing seems like the ideal opportunity to earn money the unconventional way, without doing the standard 9 to 5 job. All you have to do is find the right audience, find the right products, advertise them properly, get people to trust you… Wait, it isn’t that simple after all, is it? The truth is, there’s a lot of work to be done if you want to be successful at affiliate marketing. And, one of the tools you should use to make your effort more successful is email marketing.

Building a strong email list is essential for having a successful email marketing campaign. If you’re not sure how to do it, we’ve got you covered. Below, you’ll find our ultimate guide with 6 writing tips to help you build an email list for affiliate marketing.

Let’s take a closer look.

1. Create Strong Opt-in Forms

The first step you need to make in building an email list for affiliate marketing is to create an opt-in form that will help you get people to subscribe. In theory, opt-in forms are supposed to ask your potential subscribers whether they want to subscribe to your email list or not.

But, in reality, opt-in forms are supposed to convince people to subscribe.

This is why you need to write an optimized and clever opt-in form. Here’s what we suggest:

• place them all over your website, from your Home page to your blog
• allow people to personalize choosing to receive emails only about specific things
• let them know they can opt-out easily
• allow for easy subscription e.g. via Facebook, Gmail, etc.
• only ask for an email address
• include a call-to-action (CTA)

For example, an opt-in form can pop-up when your website visitor reaches for the exit button. You can ask them:

• Leaving already? Receive weekly updates, tips, and content about a healthy lifestyle! Subscribe now!

Think about the best places to put your opt-in forms, and make them interesting, informative, and clear. Let people know what they’re agreeing to exactly.

2. Create Segmented Email Lists

Once your subscribers’ list starts to grow, you’ll need to create separate segmented lists based on their preferences, interest, and online behavior. You shouldn’t send the same emails to all your subscribers, since there’s no way they’ll all equally enjoy them.

So, divide your subscribers into groups based on:

• the type of content they like to read
• demographics
• the products they’ve already bought
• the links they clicked in your previous emails

Your email content should be aimed at specific groups of people, catering to their needs, interests, and preferences.

3. Provide True Value

Once you get people to subscribe to your list, you can start dropping affiliate links to their inboxes. You’ll just make them unsubscribe. Instead, you need to slowly build up to it.

So, you first need to think about providing true value to your subscribers so that they start loving your emails. You should create emails campaigns sharing:

• educational and useful content from your blog
• invites to your webinars
• your e-books
• useful niche-related information
• news

The content you’re sending needs to show that you’re professional, know what you’re talking about, and they can trust you. In case you need help, there are academic writing services that can help you improve your email scripts and write better email copies.

4. Don’t Sell But Help

When you’re doing affiliate marketing, you must know the products or services you’re promoting. Just agreeing to promote anything that comes to your hands is not a good tactic. It will show you as someone who’s only trying to earn, instead of actually help.

So, once you choose the right things to promote, you’ll have to build the right email content around it. It’s not enough for you to just send the link and ask people to check it out and buy it.

So, make sure that you’re:

• creating content related to the product you’re promoting
• naturally inserting the affiliate link in the content
• providing helpful advice to your target audience
• recommending something they could truly benefit from

So, if you’re a beauty blogger, and you’re doing affiliate marketing for a natural cosmetics brand, you should create the content that explains:

• the benefits of natural cosmetics
• how it’s made
• how to choose the right products
• who should use them
• etc.

Then, add an affiliate link to a product you chose or believe your target group will like.

5. Recognize Pain Points

Your target audience, or the segmented groups you’ve made, all have the pain points that led them to you. Either they’re looking for a way to solve a problem, need advice, or information.

By recognizing these pain points, you’ll be able to:

• address them in their emails
• suggest how to solve them
• provide help
• suggest the affiliate product as one of the solutions

Make sure you make this affiliate link relevant, helpful and explain why you’re including it.

6. Be Honest About Affiliating

Honesty is the key to any trusting relationship, including the one between you and your target audience. So, you need to clearly state that the link you’re sharing is a part of your affiliate marketing campaign.

Tell them:

• they get a discount for using your promo code or following your link
• you earn a commission from every sale done this way

Still, make sure to reinforce the message of trusting this brand and recommending it based on your personal experience, and not because you’re earning from it.

Final Thoughts

Building an email list for affiliate marketing means building trust and strong relationships. After having people subscribe to your email list, you have to constantly give them valuable content, useful information, and relevant facts.

Hopefully, the 6 writing tips provided above will help you build a stronger email list and boost your affiliate marketing success.

Author’s bio. Jessica Fender is a copywriter and blogger at GetGoodGrade with a background in marketing and sales. She enjoys sharing her experience with like-minded professionals who aim to provide customers with high-quality services.