Trust is one of the central planks of any successful business and perhaps more so in online marketing in general, of which affiliate marketing is a significant part. It stands to reason, therefore, we take some time consider this vital issue.
Trust — apart from all the other technological aspects — is what drives affiliate marketing. If ever we needed an argument for why we need to be ethical, why we need to be virtuous — even for sheer pragmatism — then it’s trust. If your audience stops trusting you, you’re out of business. Period.
In building an affiliate business you’re building an audience — and so, your audience is an asset as is the trust you inspire in them. This is a delicate relationship and needs to be nurtured carefully.
The Beginner’s Guide To Building Trust In Affiliate Marketing
OR . . .
The hitchhiker’s guide to the online galaxy . . .
Contrary to what you might think about your current position — a beginner wondering how and where to get started — this is not as disempowering as it might look, provided if you change your perspective: treat this as an opportunity for understanding what your future audience might be looking for. Everyone is looking for an opportunity. Everyone has a motivation for being here. Ask yourself, what’s my motivation?
That will pave the way for understanding your future audience. Every motivation is also a market. Here, it’s important to stress that every market is also a collection of emotions — in other words, address the emotions, not just the market. Empathy. Yes, that’s the gold standard. Essentially, what moves you may as well be moving others, emotionally . . .
If anyone asks me : what is the best training for affiliate marketers? My answer would be the best training for affiliate marketers is being in the beginner status — which most think of as a disadvantage. My take, however, is radically different, because, I consider this experience as gathering material for a future audience by, first, understanding, your own emotions and then projecting forward to understand how other s might be feeling . . . empathy training for affiliate marketers.
Trust And Empathy
How would you feel if someone broke the trust you gave implicitly to them? Never do unto others, as you wouldn’t to yourself. That’s the first commandment of affiliate marketing.
One of the central questions that most beginners might ponder is: what are the signs of a reputable affiliate platform?
While there are no easy answers, common sense suggests that one sign of a reputable platform is that it wants you to succeed — sincerely. And, they are likely to show that by the alacrity with which they engage with you. Particularly, this applies to any perceived discrepancies in any of their subscriptions.
In my particular case, I found out that a third party (not an affiliate marketer as such) was charging me even after I had suspended my membership. When I raised this issue with my contact person — who actually happened to be the owner of the platform — I was reimbursed immediately. Similarly, with another third party — a reputable company — I had the same issue. Again, I was reimbursed immediately. For me as a buyer, this has created trust and reinforced it at the same time. In future if I need these services again — on the strength of these positive experiences alone — they will be my natural choices.
I cannot of course guarantee a repeat performance in someone else’s case, but I do hope it makes the case for trust.
Will everything work exactly like this for you? I honestly can’t say. However, I can say this that one of my practices is to search for reviews on Google or Trustpilot. You can do the same.
You can go through publicly available information (open source) to help you further in making informed decisions about the trustworthiness of any platform, should you have any doubts whatsoever.
Footsteps In The Online World
To win the trust of your audience, you’ll have to resolve their issues promptly and to the best of your abilities. Any limitations or delimitations of the service you provide must be disclosed to your audience to the audience in advance — aspire for transparency, in other words.
The advice you provide must, above all, be in good faith. Promote something that you cherish to the best of your belief and knowledge. Nothing less.
As I have stated earlier — focus on your audience; focus on their aspirations; try and understand what it is they are searching for. Only and only then does it become personalised advice in affiliate marketing.
The idea behind affiliate marketing isn’t about selling products per se — that’s the brand’s job. Sincere insights in affiliate marketing stand far above and beyond the products and services you’re promoting.
Your personal experience is your most important asset — it lends authenticity . . . how you actually feel.
Now the question is: can you experience every product or service before promoting it? Is that even practical? Possibly not. However, you’re choosing a niche — and that gives you some readymade insight, perhaps, even first hand experience.
That’s why my advice is always to start with something small but scalable.
Personal Anecdotes
My first-hand experience of using third parties referred to earlier is pertinent here. Now that I have the experience of using these third parties, I can share my insights about them with others in an authentic manner.
In running an affiliate marketing business you’ll come across a number of third parties who have been recommended to you either as part of the platform itself or separately as something you can consider applying in your business to make it more effective. These could be, for example, keyword search services, SEO services and so forth.
Rather than begrudging these as costs, view these as an investments — not just in generating more business for you but as opportunities for building authority subsequently with your audience.
If it’s not possible to build up your knowledge and project the required authority immediately — and it isn’t, immediately — do these in small instalments and genuinely.
Educate your audience with your insights mainly but where you feel that insights might not have developed yet provide them with the fruits of your research. You will be surprised the distance an audience can travel propelled by your line of inquiry.
For example, you have been using a product to clean the kitchen sink and started wondering whether it’s friendly to the environment. You went and looked it up on a number of databases and the brand’s own disclaimers. You can report this to your audience, factually — without interpreting the data . . . using this as . . .
Your Template For: Building Authority In Affiliate Marketing
“Looking up this product on X , I found that its pH value is A . . . On this finding, I can neither recommend nor reject this product. However, what I found was . . . [Your Honest Experience].”
The audience isn’t looking for a scientific report sprinkled liberally with data sheets and graphs, but an experiential account, a human experience.
If it’s a scientific product, for example, a piece of equipment used in genetic engineering, go to the numerous databases where these are evaluated and the information is publicly available, and quote these sources.
It’s unlikely you’ll be getting into that niche; however, I hope it serves to illustrate my point. And the template could be applied to anything you promote by using it as a prompt and replacing the X and the A.
Cheers.