Cassie was a stay-at-home mom with her
own blog. She enjoyed running her website but she really wanted to
find a way to make the blog pay for itself so she didn’t have to
worry about covering her web hosting fees each month.
A friend introduced Cassie to the
concept of affiliate marketing. As an affiliate marketer, Cassie gets
a unique link to a product or brand. She shares this link with her
blog readers and when they make a purchase through that link, Cassie
earns a small commission.
There are so many wonderful advantages
to giving affiliate marketing a try. Here are just a few perks you
can expect…
Perk #1: Affiliate
Marketing Is Flexible
Cassie’s favorite aspect of affiliate
marketing is that it’s flexible. She can schedule blog posts,
Facebook videos, and even emails with affiliate links days or weeks
in advance. As a busy mom, this helps Cassie from getting
overwhelmed.
Unlike other forms of online work,
affiliate marketing gives you plenty of control. You can choose when
you’ll work and when you’ll play. This means if you have an
unusual schedule, want to travel, or care for sick family members,
you have the freedom you need to live life on your terms.
Perk #2: No Big
Platform Required
The thing that surprised Cassie the
most about affiliate marketing is that she didn’t need millions of
followers in order to begin earning. In fact, Cassie’s social media
accounts and email list were quite small when she began.
Some people mistakenly believe that you
should wait until you build a huge audience before you try affiliate
marketing. But the truth is that you want to be exposing your
followers to offer (e.g. affiliate products and services) right from
the beginning.
Perk #3: Affiliate
Marketing Is Newbie Friendly
Some online jobs require extensive
knowledge about a particular subject or expertise in the form of
technical skills. This can be intimidating to newbies who are just
learning to navigate the online business world.
Fortunately, affiliate marketing is
very newbie friendly. If you know how to copy and paste, you can
learn how to become an affiliate marketer.
Perk #4: No Huge
Up-Front Investments
As a stay-at-home mom, Cassie’s
budget was already stretched thin. She didn’t want to go into debt
to finance her business, so she was looking for a way to earn extra
income that didn’t involve a big inflow of cash.
When she began affiliate marketing,
Cassie quickly realized she could promote the same products and
brands she was already using in her day-to-day life.
You don’t
have to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars when you get into
affiliate marketing. All you really need is a web presence and a
willingness to learn.
Perk #5: Learn What
Your Audience Wants
It can be
tempting to start building products when come online. While product
creation can certainly be lucrative, most newbie business owners
don’t know enough about what their audience wants to create a truly
profitable product.
But with
affiliate marketing, someone else has already done the hard work. A
product creator has researched, created, and launched a cool
offering. All you need to do is share that product with your
audience.
Perk #6: Affiliate
Marketing Is Lucrative
Smart business owners understand that it can take months or even
years after starting a business to see a profit. But that isn’t the
case with affiliate marketing. Depending on the network you sign up
with, you may start getting paid in as little as a week once you make
your first commission.
Cassie made her first commission in
February and she was receiving PayPal payments in March. They were
small at first, but these commissions quickly became bigger and
bigger as Cassie learned how to navigate the world of affiliate
marketing.
Perk #7: Develop
Relationships with Product Creators
Even more lucrative than the
commissions can be the relationships you develop with product
creators. When Cassie went through a divorce, she shared the story
with a fellow marketer. He hired Cassie to do his ghostwriting and
recommended her services to his friends.
Product creators notice affiliates who promote hard and consistently
generate commissions. They are often open to working with these
affiliates in other situations because they recognize their value.
Perk #8: Affiliate
Marketing Is Recurring Income
Once Cassie
discovered affiliate marketing, she began to see what was really
possible with an online business. She went through and put affiliate
recommendations in her autoresponder series, on her most popular blog
posts, and underneath her YouTube videos.
As a result, Cassie began to
consistently earn affiliate commission that have continued to come in
even years after she did the work. In fact, Cassie makes more than
enough to comfortably support herself and her three boys despite
being a single mom.
You may
think of affiliate marketing as something you do once – for
example, by publishing a blog post about a new product or mentioning
it on social media. But your old posts and tweets can continue to
generate revenue for months or even years to come.
Perk #9: Your Risk Is
Low
Some business ventures are very risky.
If you make the wrong move with your brick-and-mortar store, you
could lose your entire business and depending on how you financed it,
you could also lose your home or other assets.
By contrast,
affiliate marketing is a very low-risk business. You share some links
online and if no one makes a purchase, then you haven’t lost much
except for the time you invested in your promotional efforts. Even
then, a smart product creator can look over your failed attempts and
tell you why it went wrong. This can lead to a wonderful growth
opportunity if you’re willing to learn.
Many brands and product creators offer
something called “swipe content”. These are pre-written emails,
blog posts, and social media updates. You can use this content to
promote the affiliate product. All you have to do is customize the
content for your audience and add your unique affiliate link.
Of course, not every brand has “swipe”
content available. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be left
to struggle on your own. You can always reach out to the original
product creator and ask for a promotional opportunity. The product
creator might be open to an interview, guest post, or another form of
collaboration that doesn’t require you to spend hours creating more
content.
Bonus Perk: The Sky’s
the Limit!
The more you become comfortable with
affiliate marketing and as you begin seeing positive results, you can
expect more brands and product creators to approach you. This means
instead of having to spend your time researching and vetting every
single product, opportunities will come to you.
That’s what happened for Cassie.
After she’d been an affiliate marketer for three years, she had
several major brands approach her and ask to be featured on her
website. Not only was the partnership financially lucrative, it also
gave Cassie the opportunity to grow her blog presence in exciting new
ways.
Affiliate marketing can be a fun and
simple way to start earning money online. You can do it right now
even if you have absolutely no experience. All you need is a
willingness to learn and a good work ethic!
With the Get
Started As An Affiliate Marketer workbook, you’ll discover the
power of affiliate marketing, learn the best ways to promote digital
and tangible products, and find out how to compete in affiliate
competitions.
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