Interview With Kevin

“Being able to be my own boss and dictate when and where I can work is extremely appealing.”

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how long you’ve been with HN

Hi, I’m Kevin, 31 years old and have been an affiliate with HN for about 18 months now. By day I’m an IT manager and really enjoy my job but I’ve always wanted to be my own boss which is why I started looking into affiliate marketing.

 

I’m mad about fitness and training daily in the gym, being healthy, spending time with my family….oh and DIY! Growing up I was also involved in sports, either competing as a team or individually, and I joined my local gym when I was about 17 – I’ve been addicted ever since!

How long did it take you to make your first affiliate sale and how many do you generate now?

I made my first sale after about 3 months and I’ve still got the first sales notification SMS and e-mail – such a great feeling to see the first one comes in! I’m still learning on a daily basis and introducing new things to my sites but I guess I generate between 1-2 sale on average per day, so 30+ per month. I’ve still got loads of work to do but it’s great to see the hard work paying off.

 

Seeing sales being generated is like taking a drug (not that I’ve taken drugs), only the affect doesn’t wear off; you just want more and more!

What makes HN different from other affiliate networks?

Great question… HN was the first (and only) affiliate network I’ve joined. Since being with HN I’ve been contacted by a few others and after reviewing the networks I’ve decided against joining. Why? Because HN gives you everything on a plate. Resources are easily presented and laid out and really easy to use. Plus, the list of available products to promote is fantastic and the support from the HN team is second to none.

 

I hope to stay with HN for as long as they’ll have me!

How do you decide which niche you’re going to promote?

I was given some advice before I started to pick a niche that suits my lifestyle and that I love. Well, as I love fitness, sport, weight and healthy living, choosing my niche was pretty easy. None of us get into affiliate marketing for the fun of it. Ultimately, we’re here to do something that we enjoy, to improve our work/life balance and to earn money. So how do I choose my niche? I choose products that fit into my fitness and healthy lifestyle, and products that have a good ROI (good conversion rate with a good commission percentage).

What methods are you using to drive traffic to your affiliate sites?

When I first started I was focused on pumping the product names and links down visitors throats…I quickly learned that this was wrong. Once I converted my sites to real-life sources of information and using this to direct visitors to products I saw an increase in a) website traffic, and b) sales.

 

SEO and building high quality back-links to your site(s) is so important and so dealing with this can be extremely disheartening because you can send hundreds of emails to other website owners and only get a handful of responses. The trick is to stick with it. I’ve found that building relationships first with other site owners is far more important because once you’ve done this, you can share information and the back-links then start to build themselves. Despite what people think, I’m still a fan of guest posting and this has proven really useful for me, especially when I first started.

If someone asked you how to become an affiliate, what advice would you give?

Do your research and find a product or niche to promote that excites you. Don’t just do it to earn money because it doesn’t just happen overnight. In the early days, get ready to do a lot of reading. Then write content that’s innovative and “real” that invites people to want to read more.

 

Build a brand that people can associate with, that’ll keep your traffic high with return visitors as well as new ones. Biggest piece of advice is, don’t give up. Although you hear great success stories, the road to get there isn’t always easy and you will go through tough patches – keeping the motivation to keep going is the difference between winning and losing!

Can you share with us a few marketing related websites you find really helpful?

Not sure if it fits the bill but I use the Google Analytics site a lot to see where my site traffic is coming from and how the visitors behave when they land on my pages. I find it really useful to see where visitors drop off so you can tailor a page to improve it’s performance.

 

I also use a site called Majestic to monitor domain and link indexes. It’s really good to see where your back-links are coming from and how the back-links rank. You can also use the site to monitor competitor back-links and see how others are performing compared to yourself.

What makes an affiliate program appealing to you?

Being able to be my own boss and dictate when and where I can work is extremely appealing. I’m quite self motivated but seeing the results of the work that you’ve put in is a really great feeling – it’s a fantastic reward to physically see that your hard work has paid off.

 

When it comes to what makes a product appealing to me, I generally try to tick three boxes, a) can I write engaging content?, b) does the product fit within my niche? and, c) does the product have a good conversion rate?

 

Why do I consider these things? Well, I’ve already chosen a niche and product set that fits with my lifestyle and the things that I like to do – health and fitness is a big part of my life. If a product fits this then writing exciting, unique content (with a little extra research) should be straightforward. Then ultimately I want to see ROI, so for me it’s important to choose a product that’s going to generate sales – providing I get the content and promotion right!

Which entrepreneur or person has inspired you the most and why?

I’m going to answer this twice… thinking about entrepreneurs, then I’d say Richard Branson. Started with nothing and now owns one of the most recognisable brands around the world. I’m pretty sure everyone I know either owns or has used a Virgin product at some point. I also really like the work he does to help develop young people and young entrepreneurs…. Oh, and he owns his own island! That’s amazing!

 

Secondly, I have to mention Steve Jobs – love the brand or hate it, Apple is arguably the biggest brand in the world today. Steve took a single iOS platform and put it in the hands of everyone. He revolutionised communications and the interaction of multiple devices which millions of people now can’t live without. You could also say that this has paved the way for mobile affiliate marketing today…

 

I think success or failure is driven from the risks we take. Both Richard Branson and Steve Jobs took calculated risks that have catapulted them into the history books of time – what a legacy!

The HN team are quite a sporty bunch of people. What’s your favourite sport and why?

I don’t have a favourite sport – sounds a little cliché, but it’s true. I just like sport in general and I’m very competitive – what’s the point in taking part if you’re not trying to win?! I’ve been a swimming team captain, played football, field hockey, cricket and rugby… I love rugby and the whole environment surrounding it. It’s a complete war of attrition on the field and so much preparation goes on behind the scenes in terms of training. If you want to win, you need to be faster, stronger and more alert than your opponent… I guess that’s subconsciously how I selected my fitness and muscle building niche!

JOIN AFFILIATE NETWORK NOW