If you're interested in working flexibly from your laptop, affiliate marketing might be an option. With many products online for affiliates to promote and many ways to promote them, it's a very flexible business model which can give you time and financial freedom. Initially, though many affiliates struggle to make sales. It's a process to learn the skill of marketing affiliate products. However, if you're determined to learn that skill, it can serve you for the rest of your life.
Once you're successful as an
affiliate, you can live anywhere, work for yourself and never need another job
or employee ever again. This is a large "prize" and one worth working
for. But many drop out before they get to the point of even making a single
sale.
The learning curve for affiliate
marketing can be a steep one, and there are no guarantees. You'll need to sell
something before you can make anything. So if you're desperate for money it's
probably not something you should rely on for income straight away. But if
you're serious about building an income from the internet and willing to put
in the effort, the rewards can be great.
There are many ways to do affiliate
marketing and depending on your own circumstances you can opt for one of
several strategies, or choose a couple. The general advice though is to pick a
marketing strategy and stick to it for the long term until you get traction.
Jumping from one strategy to another can mean you spread yourself too thin. \
Any strategy can be tough, so it's a
good idea to stick to the one you're comfortable with. Blogging, or content
marketing is a slower strategy than using paid marketing. Some
affiliates will invest in high ticket programs and then use paid marketing to
build and scale their business quite quickly. This requires a lot more
investment than someone who wants to use free programs and generate traffic
through blogging, for example.
Depending on your own particular
circumstances you can choose a strategy to suit you and your budget. Free
marketing strategies can take much longer though and require a lot more work.
Blogging, or video creation are two such strategies. By uploading a video to
YouTube each day, or creating a blog post, you shouldn't expect too much to happen
in the short term. But over months and years of doing this activity, you can
generate a nice passive income by promoting affiliate products through
your content.
Over time, your content will grow
and videos and posts you wrote years ago can still generate you an income. As
your volume of content grows you should see your income growing from sales too.
This will also depend on a number of factors too, of course. Depending on your
topic and ability to create useful and interesting content, this can take
several months or even years before you see regular traction in your online
business.
A much faster method is to use list
building and paid marketing. With list building, you create a list of email
subscribers and send them regular emails through an autoresponder. As your list
grows, and you build relationships with your subscribers, they should get to
know, like, and trust you. You monetize your email list by providing useful
affiliate products which will be of value to your subscribers.
Initially though, as an affiliate
marketer, it can be tough. With a list of only 90 people, it's much more
difficult to make sales than with a list of 90,000 subscribers. In the early
days, it can be difficult to see this, and all you look at is the lack of sales you
have made!
Affiliates, therefore, need to be
patient and understand that they are building a business. Many affiliates don't
see this through and quit far too early. Before even building an email list of
1000 subscribers, they declare that "it doesn't work" and quit!
A good analogy of affiliate
marketing is to look at the Chinese bamboo tree. A Chinese bamboo tree gestates
underground for 4-5 years before anything breaks the soil surface.
Once it does break through the soil,
it can shoot up to 90 feet tall in a six-week period.
Affiliate marketing is much the
same. The gestation period can be months or years. This is the hardest time for
affiliates because they have no proof that their business is working.
There are some other ways you can
optimize your traction with an online affiliate business too. For years I
struggled with affiliate marketing because I didn't know this. I joined Amazon
and eBay affiliate programs and worked hard building content only to make next
to nothing!
Later I found out about digital products
which paid much more in terms of commissions. Amazon, for example, pays from
1-11% commission on a product sold by an affiliate. Digital products typically
pay much more and often from 40% to even 100% in some cases.
Subscription digital products offer the affiliate a greater opportunity to earn regular income from a small
number of sales. As a beginner, it's definitely worth using subscription
affiliate products. These are things such as memberships and software products
used by online businesses themselves.
A subscription product can allow a
relatively new affiliate to start earning regular commissions much more
quickly. Since initially getting your first commission is the hardest part,
subscriptions give you an added bonus and help you attain more stability with
the same amount of work.
High ticket products are another
consideration for affiliates too. With a high-ticket digital product, you can
earn much larger commissions for a single sale. A $100 product, for example, might offer you a $40 commission. Whereas a $1000 product will give you a nice
$400 payday - with what amounts often to the same amount of work.
It's also worth joining an online
community and getting the help and support of mentors if you're going down the
affiliate path. With a mentor, you have support and guidance. In those moments
when you want to quit, they will put you back on track and support and assist
you. When there's only you working alone, it can be very difficult when you're
not making much progress.
