Are You Ready To Get In To Affiliate Marketing?
If you’re new to online business, your head may be swimming with all of the potential business
models you have at your fingertips. In fact, some people get overwhelmed trying to decide what the right path is for them to take.
Affiliate marketing programs are one branch of the internet profit tree. It’s perfect for newbies, advanced marketers, and those who want to go at their own pace (slow or fast). But it’s not for everyone.
Let’s go over a few decision-making criteria that could help you see if you should get in to affiliate marketing as your preferred online business option.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is when you generate targeted traffic to a particular website selling a product for which you get commission on each and every sale. You don’t own the product and your job is to come up with creative ways to connect a prospective customer to the product landing page.
FREE Checklist: Affiliate Marketing For Beginners
Here’s an example of how affiliate marketing works:
Joe Marketer decides to sell a popular “How to Get a Girl” information product. He logs on to the internet, goes to the ClickBank Marketplace and looks up the dating topic. There, he is presented with a choice of maybe a dozen different products to sell and decides on one whose sales page and statistics prove it converts well.
He clicks “get hop link,” which incorporates his own unique ClickBank ID into the URL. He can then take the new URL and includes it somewhere in his sales funnel. When someone reads his sales material (an article, social media post, a pay per click ad, a YouTube video, etc, which pre-sells the product), and they click through to the sales page and buy it, Joe gets the affiliate commission – usually 50-80% of the price of the product.
Of course, Joe wasn’t limited to selling products from ClickBank. There are other top paying affiliate programs out there. Large websites like Amazon.com and Wal-Mart and others have affiliate programs, too. Just about anything you can think of is available through an affiliate program.
There’s A Low Start Up Cost
Whether you have a shoestring budget set aside or you’re working from nothing, if you want to get in to affiliate marketing you don’t have to shell-out loads of cash to get started. In fact, you can actually get started for nothing. However, I would recommend investing some cash into few things. These include a website domain, hosting, and some advertising if you want to. But it’s not a necessity to get the ball rolling. The investment you’ll be making will be effort, not cash.
There’s No Hassle of Product Creation For You To Worry About
Creating a product can be daunting to new online business owner. You have to learn all sorts of things. This includes niche research, product creation through multi media platforms, how to launch a website and create high-converting sales copy, and more. Plus, there’s production costs involved. These may include paying for graphics, launching on a paid platform, and paying for a tool that delivers your product to the target audience.
When you get in to affiliate marketing, you’re not burdened by all of these inconveniences. All you’re doing is being the middleman. That means you go into a niche to bring together buyers and sellers. You’re the liaison between the two. This can be just as rewarding as being the one who created the product.
Become The Go-To Person
The key to becoming a super affiliate is to build a list of email subscribers and become their go-to person whenever they need advice. Someone they can trust. You’re not actually providing the advice (you can if you want) but you’re just saying, “Oh you need help with getting a girlfriend? I know of the perfect product for that – here’s the link.”
Of course, building a stronger rapport with your readers will increase conversions. If you take the time to review and maybe even implement products and share your results, that will help you convert even better.
It Allows You To Go In To Different Niches To Test For Profitability
Diversity is one of the best reasons to get in to affiliate marketing. You get to dip into lots of different niche markets to see what works best for you. You’re going to get to determine:
- Whether it’s easy to compete in that niche.
- How much you can potentially earn.
- Whether or not you find it satisfying.
All three of these are very important factors for your online success as an affiliate. Some niches will be harder to break into than others, so as an affiliate, you can test the waters to see how easy it is to dominate before you buy a domain and pour your heart and soul into it.
As an affiliate marketer, you can dabble in many niches all at once – getting a feel for what satisfies you. You’re going to probably hear a lot of advice about keyword volume and competition – but it’s important to pay attention to which niches make you feel like getting up out of bed early just so you can get engaged with your audience!
You Don’t Have To Buy Stock Or Manage Customer Service
One of the most time consuming tasks when selling online is handling emails and requests from customers. They may have download issues, need clarification about the product, or want other help.
As an affiliate, none of that is your problem. It all rests on the shoulders of the product creator. It’s their job to handle the customer once you send them there, so you can continue working on what matters most – converting new customers.
Affiliate marketing is right for just about everybody. Even product creators adopt an affiliate strategy to complement the product development branch of their business. You don’t even need sales experience to become a great affiliate. Your job isn’t to sell the customer, but to connect them to the solution that they’re seeking.
Free Checklist: How To Get In To Affiliate Marketing
Companies are happy to pay commissions to people just like you, in return for selling their products and services. As an affiliate marketer, you have the potential to generate an online income when you choose the right niche, stay committed, and understand your audience. . Focus on what the people in your niche really need and want. To learn more about how to start affiliate marketing, download my free Affiliate Marketing For Beginners PDF Checklist.