As an affiliate marketer, you have complete control over your work and how much you can earn.
It's possible to put in as little work as possible but earn thousands every month with suitable systems and processes.
Part of the process is determining referral traffic that will help drive more clicks to your affiliate links, resulting in more conversions and commission sales.
Some affiliates have a problem because they've exhausted all channels to generate traffic from.
They've optimized their sites on search engines, built a following on the most popular social platforms, and filled their email list to the brim. But the best affiliate marketers such as yourself know there's always room for growth.
So, it's time to diversify your traffic sources by branching out to other channels!
In this case, we'll talk about how you can extend your affiliate marketing business to include Medium, one of the most popular platforms for publishers.
What is Medium, and Why Should You Care?
Medium is an online publishing platform that lets you publish stories and ideas to your followers.
It is a hosted website where you can sign up for an account, and everything is set up for you (think WordPress.com). From here, tell your stories to the whole world—no need to worry about the technical aspects of the site.
Upon signing up, you can go straight to writing your content, which is made easy thanks to its minimalist text.
Once published, readers can "clap" and "respond" to the story, which is similar to "liking" and "commenting" on a post.
You can also read stories from users you're followers and recommended stories based on your interests on your dashboard.
Its simplified approach to writing and publishing allows affiliate marketers to seamlessly extend the reach of their content to an untapped audience.
While Medium posts can rank on search engines, the platform's power lies in its ability to build long-lasting connections with the content you produce.
The goal of writing Medium articles is not to promote your products or services. Instead, you want to share ideas that transform and pull readers' heartstrings.
Your content allows you to engage with other people on the platform and find like-minded people who share your values, hopes, and dreams.
The Most Important Thing When Doing Affiliate Marketing on Medium
The way affiliate marketing works is that marketers promote products and services they can earn money from. To do this, the post they create includes affiliate links that people must click on, whether it's on articles or social media posts.
From there, people should buy the product being promoted for the marketers to get their affiliate commissions.
But not everybody will purchase the product after clicking on the link. So, marketers must create and promote as much content as possible to increase their conversion rates.
Medium has no problem with how much content users can produce. But it does take umbrage against promoting affiliate links on posts published on the platform.
Looking at the Medium rules, publishers must disclose affiliate links used in the content.
To be fair, most affiliate programs require publishers to inform people about the affiliate link mentioned in the content. This is evident in the disclaimer on the footer section of websites doing Amazon affiliate marketing.
But the disclaimer puts a damper on the story you're sharing on Medium. Since the platform is built on telling authentic stories and sharing ideas with people, promoting an affiliate link in your story makes it less powerful.
Some readers might think you published the content to earn commission sales from the affiliate links. While this may not be the case, you should at least understand why they'd think that.
Again, there's nothing wrong with publishing affiliate marketing articles on your Medium account. But it would help if you struck a balance between publishing content where you add affiliate links and stories that add value to your target readers, which we'll get into later.
I Already Have a Blog. Should I Still Publish on Medium?
Just because you're already posting on your blog, doesn't mean you shouldn't post anywhere else.
Publishing on Medium is a great way to amplify your message about the affiliate links you're promoting.
A potential reason you should affiliate articles on the platform and insightful articles is the lack of audience overlap between your blog and Medium.
For example, your affiliate website attracts thousands of visitors every month from different channels. But only a handful of those visitors (if any) may be subscribed to Medium for their content fix.
So, by publishing quality content on Medium, you can reach out to people who aren't familiar with you or your affiliate brand.
This way, you can widen your audience reach, attract highly targeted leads from the platform, and convert them into affiliate sales!
There are two approaches when publishing content on Medium.
The first is by republishing your blog content. That means copying and pasting your existing content onto the Medium text editor and hitting "Publish."
Content republishing is a tactic publishers use to promote their blog content by posting them as newly published content on a different platform.
The beauty of this technique is you don't have to write a brand new post from scratch.
Just make sure that you link back to your page on your site where the article was initially published. Doing so helps readers learn more about your own website and search spiders to know which version is the original.
The second approach is writing a new post.
Crafting a post from the ground up is not easy, especially if you're not used to writing stories like Medium publishers do.
But, as the saying goes, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." That means you have to write content Medium-style.
In the end, the approach should benefit your affiliate marketing efforts on the platform.
Unlike republishing content, the new Medium stories cater to readers craving interesting and out-of-the-box pieces.
Adapting this writing mindset, you can grow your audience much faster, build relationships with each, and earn their trust.
From here, you now wield the influence to republish your content promoting affiliate links without people questioning your motives.
What About Medium Partner Program?
Aside from making money on Medium via affiliate marketing, you can supplement your earnings by joining its Partner Program.
You must have at least 100 Medium followers and published at least one story to join. You also need to link Medium to your bank account to receive payments from the platform.
Once approved, you can set your stories to earn you money. You can do that by putting the content behind a paywall. Readers won't be able to read the content in its entirety unless they are paying Medium members.
So, it would help if you created stories that will compel your audience to sign up for a paid subscription so you can earn money from it.
However, the amount of money you'll make from the platform is a bit complicated.
According to Zulie Rane, a story with a thousand views will earn more than two stories with 500 views each. So, focus on quality and not quantity to maximize your earnings on the platform.
She also mentions that 94.6% of writers earn less than $100 per 1,000 views on the Partner Program.
The Partner Program won't displace your affiliate marketing business anytime soon. But it's still worth noting that you can monetize the stories and non-affiliate content you'll write on Medium.
How to Do Affiliate Marketing on Medium?
Now that we have all the pieces together, it's time to create a cohesive Medium plan that ties it with your ongoing affiliate marketing strategy.
Our goal is to leverage Medium's strength as a publishing platform to help increase your affiliate earnings.
With that in mind, below are tips to help you get started:
Strike a Balance With Your Content Strategy
Since Medium caters to a specific audience, i.e., people who want to read stories and thought pieces, you may want to create content along those lines.
For instance, you don't want your first posts to be filled with Amazon affiliate links if you just signed up for a Medium account. This could alienate your target audience even before getting started with your account.
As mentioned, you want to build authentic relationships with readers, and you can't do that if you act as an affiliate marketer first and storyteller second on Medium.
That said, both approaches complement each other. To start affiliate marketing in Medium, write thought pieces on Medium, emulating users who also are affiliate marketers in their respective niches.
You'll know you've written enough stories when people start "clapping" and "responding" to your articles. From here, consider republishing your website articles containing affiliate links on Medium and monitor the results.
How your audience reacts to your affiliate content should tell you whether to continue republishing content or revert to creating stories. If you don't generate enough engagement or views, use the results to gain insights that will help tweak your strategy.
Make a Concerted Effort to Engage With Your Audience
As a Medium member, you can check what other users are publishing.
And you don't just want to read what they've written—you also want to leave your mark by engaging with their stories.
Make it a habit to engage with many stories and users every day.
For example, find five new writers related to your industry and read their stories. Then clap on the stories you like the best and respond to each one.
Share with them why you agreed (or disagreed) with points in the story while keeping it professional and showing your expertise at the same time.
Next, check out writers you've already engaged with and check out their latest stories. Then, do the same as the previous writers: clap at and respond to the stories you like the best.
You can even share their stories on social media for good measure. This helps you provide new content for your followers to read and gives writers a well-deserved exposure.
Doing these achieves two things: you expand your network by reaching out to writers you haven't engaged with yet and growing your relationships with writers you're already following.
From an affiliate marketing standpoint, the relationships you build on the platform become a two-way street.
There's a good chance that they'll return the favor of engaging with your stories and sharing them with their personal network online.
Align the Partner Program With Your Affiliate Marketing Strategy
The Partner Program is a way to help earn from Medium on top of the affiliate marketing efforts you'll be doing with it.
Initially, you'd think that the Partner Program contrasts with what you wish to achieve as an affiliate marketer. After all, you don't want people just to read the post—you want them to take action by clicking on the affiliate links so you can earn money.
But you can coordinate both income streams much better with a strategy that embraces their strengths.
In this case, you want to paywall stories geared towards Medium readers. For repurposed content with affiliate links, you can let people read them for free.
Either way, you get a chance to earn from both content types.
Think about it:
Creating a Medium story requires developing fascinating headlines and narrative structure that compels visitors to continue reading. But to do that, they must pay for a subscription to view the rest.
Once subscribed, they can read the soak in the story for as long as possible, thus increasing your earnings.
For the repurposed content, people don't have to become members to read each one in its entirety. However, the affiliate links in the post give you a chance to make money for every successful transaction upon clicking on the link.
Applying this concept to both programs, you can maximize your earnings potential without compromising the quality of the content you produce.
Plan Your Medium Strategy with Inbound Marketing in Mind
Let's face it: Medium is not designed to help you and other affiliate marketers increase their commission sales.
The fact that it has a Partner Program means that the platform is focused on helping people's voices be heard and make money in the process.
But that shouldn't stop them from utilizing Medium to improve their current system.
Every marketing channel plays a role in helping any business achieve its goal. By following the sales funnel, you can assign each channel to its respective stages and help attract the right people ready to buy your affiliate product.
Looking at the sales pipeline stages above, you can put Medium in the Marketing Target, and Marketing Qualified Lead stages.
As mentioned, you can publish stories and republish old content to reach more readers on the platform. You also narrow down users into people interested in what you say.
From here, it's up to you to decide how you can bring them down your sales funnel and get them to click on your affiliate links.
One of the things you can do is encourage people to follow and subscribe to your profile your stories. This allows them to receive your latest stories and repurposed content straight from their dashboard.
The subscribe button is stickied on the sidebar to remain visible on your desktop even as you scroll down to read the article. For good measure, encourage readers to subscribe at the bottom of the post as a call to action.
Even better, you can create dedicated landing pages on your site for each product you wish to promote on Medium. Then link to these pages on repurposed content about the product or software you're marketing.
For example, if your Medium article is related to affiliate product A on your site, the landing page should encourage visitors to sign up and learn more about the product.
Creating landing pages also helps you move readers away from the Medium platform to your website, where you can have complete control over the content you can publish.
Once subscribed, segment them in your email platform and send them a campaign promoting your product in multiple emails.
Doing this on all your affiliate promotions allows you to segment your audience according to products that interest them. This could result in higher conversion and more affiliate sales on your end!
Conclusion
Medium is a platform that remains untapped by affiliate marketers.
Most of them would dismiss it outright due to its Partner Program and how it's more about exchanging stories and ideas.
But if you think about it, affiliate marketing is in the same boat. Nobody will want to click on your affiliate links if you don't establish trust with your audience and build relationships with each of them.
Medium lets you do this in stride with its tight-knit community and talented storytellers. You can even leverage your existing content and repost them on the site, which helps extend your reach with your target audience.
By following the other tactics and strategies in this post, you can make the most that Medium offers to increase your affiliate income.
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