How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

How to make money with Affiliate Marketing is really not that difficult.  It’s not easy but all the same, it’s not hard.  It’s simple, not complicated.

By Bill Fletcher

The business model of Affiliate Marketing is a straight forward design.  You simply represent a product or service, market that product or service to your customers and make a commission on the sale…Simple.

This is only one of a series of articles on Affiliate Marketing and How To Make Money.  Look for other articles in this Blog site for great tips and advice.

Affiliate Marketing Part 1

5 Steps To Affiliate Marketing Success

Here’s a clarification on any Marketing programs such as Network Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, MLM and even a Brick and Mortar business.

“There is NO easy money and there are NO magical tips.  There is NO such thing as “getting rich overnight.”   NO such thing as not working.”

Any business will work but only if you work the business. If you’re after easy money, get rich quick programs… then this article is not for you.  However, in a series of article I will help you understand how to operate a Home Based Business or Work From Home Program with Affiliate Marketing as it’s core product.

But again, any business will take time, focus, work, dedication, and training.

This article will cover the following:

• What is affiliate marketing and the different types of affiliate marketing.
• The advantages of being an affiliate marketer.
• Some tips and good practices to become a successful affiliate marketer.
• My personal recommendation.

Introduction

The question now is: “can you really make money from affiliate marketing programs?”

My answer is NO!  WHAT?  Shocked?

Many Affiliate Marketers jump into Affiliate Programs with the thought that the money will just roll in.  They think that by starting their business on a Monday that by Tuesday or even

Wednesday they will be making money.  When this does not happen, by Thursday, they’re disappointed and by Saturday, they quit.

Affiliate Marketing depends on other factors that only you can bring forth.  Your level of commitment, focus, education, time and the proper program or product/s you’re offering.  Also who is the Affiliate Company?  That is very important.  What is their track record, management, do they have a product or service in demand and is the pricing in line with the buying public, what is their wiliness to support you?

So as you can tell by the statements “jumping into Affiliate Marketing should be a due diligent investigation.”

In an earlier article I described two forms of Affiliate Marketing:

Affiliate Marketing 1 – Offering a companies product such as children shoes.  Marketing that product on your site, blog, Facebook, Twitter etc.  When the product is sold, you make a commission.  This typically a free sign-up with the company.

Affiliate Marketing 2 – Offering a company product such as coaching, training, mentoring and videos.  Marketing that product on your site, blog, Facebook, Twitter etc.  When a product is sold you make a commission.  This is typically a Membership program with the company.

Full explanation article:  Affiliate Marketing Part 1

What is Affiliate Marketing?

According to Wikipedia “Affiliate marketing is a marketing model in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts”

What this says is, you are the affiliate member, either free or membership.  You will be rewarded when you help the Affiliate Company sell a product or service.  Your reward is in the form of a commission.

Here’s an example, you promote a Facebook Training Course (product).  Someone sees your promotion and purchased the product from the Affiliate Company.  You will now earn a commission.  Or you promote children’s shoes.  When someone purchases children shoes from your marketing, you earn a commission.

Affiliate marketing is by far one of the quickest, easier and cheapest ways to start making money online.  Why?  All you have to do is to promote the products.  You don’t have to create, ship or inventory the product.  You simply link up a buyer and a seller and you take a commission on the sale that has been referred by you.

Why You Should Become An Affiliate Marketer?

Affiliate marketing is considered to be one of the world’s fastest growing and best internet marketing techniques to earn real money online.

•  Cost effective: Marketing on the internet is fast, easy and inexpensive.  No product to produce. No employees.  Low overhead.
•  Global Market: Online marketing gives you the opportunity to reach people all over the world.
• No Storage or Shipping:  This is taken care of by the company.
• No customer support:  The company does that for you.
• Passive income:  Some Affiliate Companies offer a Passive Income.  This means that you sell a product once but earn income as long as the buyer stays with the Affiliate Company.  Affiliate marketing can create a steady flow of income even when you are not in front of your computer.
• Work from home: The best benefit of Affiliate Marketing the ability to work from home.  Starting part-time many marketers start to earn a good income.  At some point in tim, a lot of them quit their job and work full-time at their home business.  Now they can work in the comfort of their own home.

How To Becoming a Successful Affiliate Marketer

Benefits of becoming an Affiliate Marketer can be very rewarding.  But as mentioned earlier..it takes commitment, focus and time.  You will not become rich overnight and to be honest, some marketers won’t make any money or very little.

However, Affiliate Marketing is definitely an excellent way to make money if you operate your business as a business. In order to be successful in Affiliate marketing you need to know the market needs, learn how to promote products, what works and what doesn’t. You need a product that is in High Demand or a Nitch.

If you are a member of an Affiliate Company, you will want to have an Affiliate Company that offers support, training and coaching.

Later I will have a suggestion on such a Company.

The following are a few tips on becoming successful in affiliate marketing.

1. Choose Only Good Products In High Demand

The first mistake many affiliate marketers make is that they register with too many different affiliate companies and try to promote everything. Pursuing too many programs down this path can become overwhelming. All you need in order to be successful is a handful of good high demand products to promote.  You will want to align your product/s based on your Website or Blog topics.

Look for a nitch something your interested in or have some experience.  What is popular?  You don’t want a “here today and gone tomorrow” product such as “The Pet Rock.”

Promote a Membership Affiliate Company with a good reputation, growing, leaders, and established.

2. Promote Products From Various Traffic Sources

Most affiliate marketers put up ads only on their Website or Blog post.  Now while this is a good strategy and one that I personally use, there are other ways to drive traffic .  The more targeted traffic you can send to the sales page the more your chances are of making money.

Google Adwords can be used to drive targeted traffic to your sales page. You simply make an ad in your adwords account then use your affiliate link in the target page URL of the ad.

Obviously, you will have to continuously measure the conversions and see if the campaign cost is less than the campaign profit in order to keep the campaign running, I am sure you get the idea. One of the most effective ways to get “Targeted Traffic” is Facebook.

However, to be good at Facebook marketing, you need some good training and coaching.  Why?  Facebook is continually changing.  Doing it wrong can be expensive and you could be “taken down” if you promote wrong.  Again, stay with me as I have a suggestion on how to avoid these Facebook mistakes. Don’t forget Twitter, YouTube and a host of other social media platforms.

Another tool you will need is a KeyWord tool.  Your blog article should include “Key Words” that your target audience is search for.

3. Test, Measure and Track Your Affiliate Campaign

It is a good idea to use different product promotion strategies so you can figure out what is working and what is not.  I highly suggest you do split testing and measure the performance of each campaign then take actions accordingly. Changing a few things here and there can increase your income dramatically.

Make sure to place banner ads on different areas of your site’s pages. Some positions will make the ads more noticeable than others. Again, Facebook is a good source of tracking successful campaigns.

4. Research the Demand of the Product

If you try to sell a product that is in low demand then chances are that you are not going to get many sales no matter how hard you try. So it is a good idea to spend a bit of time researching and finding out if a product that you are thinking of promoting is a product that your audience needs. More on this important topic later.

5. Choose the Right Merchant

Here’s a suggestion, go to Amazon.  Choose a category and see what is selling in your interest.  Then Google companies or that product line to see if they offer an affiliate program.  This will take time.  From personal experience, I found a product line I was interested in.  I Googled that product line and found 35 companies that offered that type of product.  After several day of research, only 3 offered an affiliate program and one of them I was not interested.

Do your research, this is your business do not take this lightly.  Spend time now and not later with a mistake.

“Thanks for reading this far.  Does what you read sound confusing, complicated and frustrating?  As mentioned, Affiliate Marketing is not Hard…and it’s not Easy.  It is Simple when done the right way.  Be Sure To Read The Conclusion.“

Here is where I will make a suggestion on a viable Affiliate Company that needs serious consideration.

When you promote a product you also promote the company who is behind the product so choose wisely.  If your product line is children shoes, make sure the quality of the shoes are first rate.  The last thing you want is an unhappy customer.  This can hurt your credibility and future sales.

If your decision is to promote an Affiliate Company, you need high demand products, reputable Affiliate Company, excellent support, coaching, training, a staff that will help sell products for you so all you do is drive traffic to them.  You will want a High Commission so that you can make money.

And you want a total package that you can rely on year after year.  If you find this company you will want to stick with them by promoting their products.

6. My Recommendation

I have looked at many Affiliate Programs and Membership Affiliate Companies.  I purchased products to see the quality of material, support and return policies.  I have joined four Membership Affiliate Companies and each made promises that they could not meet.  I asked for training and coaching to help market their product and while I got training it was not to my liking.

What I am saying here is that I struggled with these companies.  I promoted the product with very little success because the membership price was too high, follow-up was lacking, management was only interested in up-selling me, and the product itself was low quality.

After the better part of 6 years of looking, spending hundreds/thousands of dollars, working their program, learning what works, I found only TWO companies that I can say really works and is by far the best in the industry.

Six months ago, I came across a Membership Affiliate Company that was well known in the industry.  I was looking for:

• Personal Coaching.
• Affiliate Marketing Training.
• Support.
• Training.
• How To’s.
• Low Entry Cost.
• Good Commission Structure.

I also wanted a management team that are professional in Affiliate Marketing and a CEO who is top in the field of Affiliate Marketing.  I did not want a company who was only interested in up-selling me.

I found the company and receive sooo much more than I expected.

Take a serious look at Wealthy Affiliate and see for yourself how they put together a “full package” that almost guarantees success. Don’t just hope and pray that you can be successful, align yourself with Wealthy Affiliate follow their advice, don’t waver in the personal coaching and watch your business grow.

Conclusion

I hope you got some good information in this article.  Remember, there are other articles in this Blog dealing with Affiliate Marketing, Home Based Business, How To Make Money, tips and advice.

Final thoughts,  If you think that visitors will click on your affiliate links and buy just because you placed dozens of affiliate links on your Website or Blog then you are wrong! You need to have a structured well designed plan in place.

Affiliate marketing is a business, you will have a much better chance of succeeding if you treat it like one, have a good product line, support and a company that will train, coach and remove all the doubt, frustration and confusion thereby freeing you up to do the marketing.

What I laid out above may sound like a lot of hard work, and it can be, Affiliate Marketing is easy to learn, easy to start and a great way to earn an income.  You will get out of your business what you put into it.  Study, learn and implement based upon the training and coaching you receive and you can make a success in the lucrative business.

I’m sure I haven’t covered everything.

Take a closer look at Wealthy Affiliate, the management, products and mainly the support. If you’re like me you will see the value of joining and becoming an Affiliate.  Plus it is the only Affiliate Company that will allow you to try their program for FREE for 7-Days.

Thanks,

Bill Fletcher

 

 

 

 

PS: How Can I Make Money With Affiliate Marketing?  If your an Affiliate Marketer and not making any money you need to see how Wealthy Affiliate can help you.  If you’re a struggling marketer, you need to see how Wealthy Affiliate can help you.  If your looking for a way to make serious money as an Affiliate Marketer…you need to review what Wealthy Affiliate has to offer. Click here to see what Wealthy Affiliate is all