What Is Affiliate Marketing, And Can I Be Successful With It?
So, no doubt you have heard about Affiliate Marketing as a way to make money online, and after a quick search, up popped hundreds of posts and advertisements from people in their bright orange Lamborghini saying how they have made millions from affiliate marketing and that you can too if you only follow their magic system...
You know they ones!
The problem is, they are often too busy talking about how much money they have made, they forget one important thing...
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
In a nut-shell, affiliate marketing is when you promote someone else's products or services and you make a commission each time a lead that you refer over to the offer you are promoting purchases the product, whatever that might be.
You would get a special link to the offer you are promoting which would be unique to you, so that when someone clicks through from your link and makes a purchase, you get your bit of the profit.
The benefits of this business model are that you don't need to have your own products or services to sell, you just promote someone else's, and also you don't have to deal with customer support after the sale is made which can be a time consuming part of other business models.
So, all you need to do is find something to promote, get your link and drop it all over the internet, sound easy?
Well, unfortunately, it isn't quite that simple - it takes a bit more effort than that to get up and running, a lot more in fact, particularly if you are looking to start with no previous experience, so let's dive in to how this actually works, and whether there is any money to be made.
So, Does It Actually Work?
Yes, it most certainly does.
But...
What it isn't, is a get rich quick way of making money as a lot of people seem to make it out to be. It is a business, and you need to treat it as such.
That means putting in the effort every day to build it up from nothing. That typically means creating a blog website (just like this one) and churning out informative content (just like this article!) that will provide people value to get people, or traffic, to start to come to your website. You can also use paid ads to send people over, but if you are starting off with no or little money, you will want to focus on generating 'free' traffic through SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
Now, technically, no traffic is free, as you pay for it in one way or another... Paid traffic, well that is obvious right, you pay for that with cash which can get you more immediate results. If you don't have cash then you have to pay with your time - either way, you are going to need to start producing content first.
People will eventually start to come to check out your content providing it is original and informative or entertaining and focused on a particular niche/topic.
The way you can then earn money is by referring people to products withing your articles that might be of interest to them, and if they purchase through your link, then you make a commission, for example:
^^That right there is an affiliate link (#fulldisclosure)... If you are reading this blog post, then it is extremely likely that you are interested in getting started in affiliate marketing, or have recently started but still trying to figure it out. Hence, it makes sense for me to offer you a product that you might find useful, so in this case, if you were to click the link you would find that you would go through to a program called the 12 Minute Affiliate, which is a done for you system for people getting started as an affiliate, which takes away the requirement for you to build your own website, create your own content and learn how to advertise, as it is all built into an easy to use system.
It is however important that if you are going to promote affiliate products, that you make sure that you are promoting high quality, reputable products. There are a lot of naff products out there, and if you start trying to push these, you will damage your reputation which will make it very difficult for you to have any sort of success, so always put your audiences needs first.
One thing you would notice if you click on the link, is that it does not take you directly to the affiliate product - rather it will take you to an opt-in page where you would need to put in your email address to continue to the product you are interested in. This is an important part as an affiliate that a lot of people miss out - they just send people direct to the offer.
The problem is with sending people direct to the offer, is you are helping someone else to build their business (the offer you are promoting), but you are not building your own!
To have a business as an affiliate marketer, you need to build up an email list. This then provides you with the opportunity to keep in touch with your audience and continue to sell other products to them that they might be interested in, that is why it is important to capture people's details.
The landing page above is known as a bridge page, where you explain to the visitor what the product is and how it can help them. You could also use a lead magnet type opt-in page where you give something away for free that your target audience would be interested in to get them to sign up. for example:
How much Can You Earn As An Affiliate Marketer?
There are 2 main ways you can earn money as an affiliate marketer...
1 - you get paid as a one-off payment when somebody purchases a product or service that you have referred them to. This can be a single one-off payment if somebody just buys a single product, or, on some products - typically information products such as courses etc., you might receive additional one-off payments as the customer transcends the value ladder of the company that you referred them to (basically as they buy increasingly expensive items that are offered to them), which can boost your commissions significantly!
2 - the second way to get paid is through a recurring income. This would be when the product or service you are promoting is a membership/subscription type product, such as software, or access to a group. For this, you will get paid every month for no extra action, for as long as the customer you referred continues with their membership/subscription. This type of payment can provide more security, as you know you will have money coming in, even if you do nothing for a month!
Done right, Affiliate Marketing can be a great way to achieve financial success, and you can make any where from some additional money each month, to a steady income, all the way to the crazy money making $30, $40, $50k+.... per month!!
Conclusion
Is Affiliate marketing a scam? No.
Can you make money with it? Yes.
Is it a way to make money quick? No.
Should you try it? Well....
I have a saying, if you are going to do something, don't do it to see if it works, do it UNTIL it works...
The word 'try' in itself implies that you are willing to accept failure. If you have this mindset, then you will never find success with any business model, no matter how many shiny pennies you chase!
Find something you want to do and commit to making it work, set appropriate goals and continuously work towards them...
Successful people don't quit, they make adjustments.
If it all sounds a bit too much to take in, then I recommend getting started with something like the 12 Minute Affiliate system which does most of the heavy work for you. This way you can get familiarised with the whole process of how everything works by following a simple checklist as you set it up, and start making sales quickly. Once you feel confident you can the venture out on your own - or just stick with the system if you wish!
The good thing about this system is it is created by a guy called Devon Brown who is at the top of the affiliate marketing game - this guy runs multi-million dollar companies and has shared the stage with the likes of Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi and Russell Brunson, so you can rest assured it isn't another one of the 'Fake Gurus' just trying to get your money!
In fact, it actually takes very little investment to joint the program, so there is next to no risk. The initial cost is only $9.95 for the first month as a trial so you can make sure it's for you, then only $47 a month thereafter, by which point you should be making sales to cover the cost!
If this sounds interesting to you, and you want to take advantage of the trial price while it is available, or perhaps you are not quite sure yet, then click through the link below to head over to the initial FREE training module which will provide you with the information you need to make your decision.
==> Click Here For The FREE Training Module
==> Click Here For The FREE Training Module
And bare in mind, that if you do decide to invest in the program, then as you have clicked through from my link, then I will make a commission.... see, that's how it works ;)
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