How Passive is Affiliate Income?
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"Getting Started Takes Time and Work...
But Once The Ball is Rolling The Sky is the Limit"
Introduction
I get a lot of
questions from people about the topic of affiliate marketing and because of
this I decided to put together a long article on affiliate marketing for
beginners. Many questions come up about this topic such as 'what is
affiliate marketing?' 'How does it work?', 'How do I get
started?' How can I make affiliate marketing into a career. Because all of these
questions are so closely linked together I decided to put together this all
inclusive guide on affiliate marketing for beginners that covers all the basics from A-Z.
Here we will look at:
- What affiliate marketing
actually is
- How it works
- How to Make Money From it
- Choosing the right products
- Tools for success: website,
blog, email lists
- Getting Traffic
So to start off
we can note that affiliate marketing has really been generating a buzz online
and many people are eager to get in on this gold rush, and all for good
reason: when done right affiliate marketing can be incredibly profitable.
For people just starting out, there’s no easier or faster method of generating income. For anyone who already operates their own online business, selling other people’s products can create a substantial boost to the income they’re already receiving. So it's no surprise that this business model has been receiving so much attention online in the past few years.
So what is
Affiliate marketing? And what makes it so great?
The
attractiveness of affiliate marketing as a business model is mainly due to the
fact that the affiliate only has one main task to perform, and that is to
promote whatever product or service they believe will produce the most sales
and the most profit. The product owner does all the other work.
In theory, you
don’t even need a website in order to make money as an affiliate. You can
simply promote your assigned affiliate link and then send prospective buyers to
the owner’s sales page.
Naturally
almost every other affiliate will be doing the exact same thing, and this
creates a problem especially in 2019. If all you’re doing is directing targeted
traffic through your affiliate sales link, you’ll be competing on an equal
level with countless other people who are promoting the same product. Not
only that, but in the past few years it has gotten harder; gone are the days of
getting sales by spamming social media with affiliate links. Not only
does it get people banned: it's not profitable and its not ethical.
Success
comes to affiliate marketers who break away from the herd and promote their
products in a more creative and intelligent way.
Be a Super Affiliate
There are some marketers called 'super affiliates' out there, who make a great deal of money selling
other people’s products. The reason for their success is that they
promote their affiliate products as if they were promoting their own
products. That means they are investing time in building their own
content and add value to the product so that they stand out from their competitors.
Although
there’s a given sales page that the companies give you with each of their
affiliate products, super affiliates create a page on their own website in
order to pre-sell the item. In other words, they get the prospect primed and
ready to purchase prior to sending them to the owner’s sales page.
Super
affiliates use pay per click advertising to get targeted leads. They know the
golden rule in all business is that it takes money to make money. Keeping
this in mind most of them have mastered the art of setting up pay per
click ads. They know the precise wording for their add text, how much to bid,
and exactly which prospects to target. And its exactly because
they've mastered this critical part of the game that they are able to make
serious amounts of money.
But for super
affiliates there is much more to do than having their own website and using pay
per click. There are many other actions that make up their routine.
Here is a cheat sheet:
· Writing product reviews, recommendations, and testimonials.
· Maintaining niche blog
sites related to the products they are selling.
· Guest posting on other
people's blogs and writing niche related articles
· Offering bonuses to people
who buys products through their page
· Giving away free valuable
content via their blog, ebooks, or new letter
· Building email lists with
lead capture pages and lead magnets
· Creating and using their
own marketing materials, i.e. emails, blog posts, etc
The most
important method on this list is the last one:
creating your own marketing
materials.
Sure, it is
quicker and easier for other affiliates to is just copy and paste sales copy
given by the product owner, but it is much less effective than writing your own
content. The reason for this is that people can sense that it is generic and
there is a good chance that they have seen the style before. This hurts the trust trust of your prospects and ultimately it hurts your sales.
Rather, what
super affilates do is this, they create their own original content and even develop their own unique style and a brand that can build popularity over
time. When people start recognizing your particular brand then whole new
doors open. In the short term, writing your own sales copy allows you to make
better sales copy than the average competitor. Either way you will make
more money in both the short term and the long term.
So that's it
right?.... think again!
There are more
bases to be covered in the affiliate marketing game:
Experienced marketers invest much time and energy researching product trends before choosing a product to promote. They don't just hop on to click bank and pick something after looking at a few products for 20 minutes, no. Rather than jumping at every shinny object that comes their way, the experienced marketer uses research tools to spot trends in order to pick the most profitable and convertible products.
The art of choosing the
right product is critical for success in affiliate marketing. It
requires the right combination of past experience, gut instinct and the ability
to determine the level of interest and demand, especially in identifying rising trends.
Keeping this in mind there are THREE major factors to consider when choosing a product to promote:
· 1.) How effective
is the products sales page? Can you fix any problems that are are
present?
· 2.) Can you verify
the quality and value of the product?
· 3.) Do you have
access to enough product information to market it effectively?
These are all
pass fail questions you should be asking when thinking about a product. If a product cannot pass any of these questions,
then it's not worth promoting, plain and simple.
Super affiliates work hard to get the results that make affiliate marketing so attractive to us. Their success, like most things worth while, doesn't come over night--it is the result of their hard work and correct decisions regarding which product to promote, which sales copy to use, building their own sales channels and understanding paid advertising.
The
ultimate pay off from all of this is the ability to make tons of money simply by
writing a few emails and/or running some add campaigns. It's basically a
money making machine that can be turned on with a few clicks, but the machine
must be built first. Is it worth it? I think the answer to that
question is obvious.
Choosing the Right Product- Step by Step
It can
be quite difficult sometimes when deciding on the right product for affiliate
marketing, one of the reasons for this, is that the factors that determine a
product's profitability aren't always very clear.
Unfortunately
there are some situations where trial and error, in other words actual testing
is the only way to know if a product is a winner or not. Luckily though, there
are other factors you can consider when choosing a product that will reduce the
risk considerably.
1. Product Demand: it is
essential to first identify whether or not there's any significant demand for
your product. This can be done by using google's keyword planner to identify
how man searches are being done for a product each month, you can also look at
the stats for sold items on sites like Ebay and Amazon for instance. But
this not enough; let's say you found a popular product, but the caveat is that
you don't know who buy's that product and if you can reasonably target that
audience or not. So the second phase of your research is to find out who
your target audience is, look at what you need to reach them, and then assess
if it fits your skills and overall business model.
2. Sales Page Health: Look at the product's sales page and
decide if it has good sales copy. Do you think it can convert visitors
into buyers? How much work will you need to do to override any issues on the
sales page? If it's that bad you should consider a different product to
promote.
3. Profit
Potential: What percentage will you get for every sale? Usually
physical products have a much lower profit margin while digital products are
much more generous, I means like 30-100% profits in many cases.
Ebooks
and software products for instance often offer 50% commission. Some people
offer 100% commission with the idea of up-selling their new client further down
the sales funner.
Physical items on the other hand might be easier to sell in some situations,
but their commissions often range from 5-20%. The price of a product
however can override this downside, for example if you sell BBQ's at $3-600 a
pop, you’re not doing too bad.
4. Quality
and Reputation: the quality of the product is critical for your
success and this goes hand in hand with the reputation of the seller/creator.
Selling a bad product will usually hurt sales, but more damaging is it will
hurt your reputation. Reputation and trust is key to long term success in
affiliate marketing.
5. Tracking
and Testing: You need to track everything in your
online marketing business, and with that information split test different
products, sales strategies, and traffic methods. That is the real key to
success, testing, testing, testing. But you cannot test anything without
collecting valuable data. So track your visitors, our ads, your sales,
your leads, your click through rate CTR, your open rates etc. Then
compare different methods and stick with the ones the work best..
NOTE: you can earn 50% commissions from digital products, by going to Muncheye.com
How to Search for Affiliate Programs
There
are three different ways you can find affiliate programs:
1.
Searching the web according to your chosen niche.
2.
Affiliate marketing networks such as click bank, warrior plus, or JVzoo.
3.
Affiliate marketing directories.
1. Product Demand: it is essential to first identify whether or not there's any significant demand for your product. This can be done by using google's keyword planner to identify how man searches are being done for a product each month, you can also look at the stats for sold items on sites like Ebay and Amazon for instance. But this not enough; let's say you found a popular product, but the caveat is that you don't know who buy's that product and if you can reasonably target that audience or not. So the second phase of your research is to find out who your target audience is, look at what you need to reach them, and then assess if it fits your skills and overall business model.
2. Sales Page Health: Look at the product's sales page and decide if it has good sales copy. Do you think it can convert visitors into buyers? How much work will you need to do to override any issues on the sales page? If it's that bad you should consider a different product to promote.
Physical items on the other hand might be easier to sell in some situations, but their commissions often range from 5-20%. The price of a product however can override this downside, for example if you sell BBQ's at $3-600 a pop, you’re not doing too bad.
Searching the Web
If you've done proper product research using
the principles we looked at in choosing the right product (choosing a product
in demand and targeting the right audience) then searching for affiliate
programs on the web can be the most rewarding option albeit the most time
consuming.
To do
this you will first need to research appropriate keywords. Assuming you've already found the right keywords and done your
research using the keyword research tool, you can then conduct searches
using these keywords. Also pay attention to the keywords that google
search will suggest since these are often the actual words and phrases that
people are actually typing when doing their search. This you will want to note
for when you try to rank your blog posts and your website. This is a whole
other topic on its own though, and I have step by step guides for this on this
blog.
By typing these relevant keywords into google search you will find websites for the products you
want to promote. Many of these sites will have affiliate programs listed either
on their main menu or down on the footer of their page. Click on their
affiliate programs link and see if their commissions look attractive, then
evaluate their sales pages and affiliate tools before making any
commitments. Review the criteria we discussed about choosing the right
product when doing this.
Another
part of your search involves typing any given keyword plus the word 'affiliate' into google. For example, “custom jewelry affiiate” or “affiliate vapes“. This
will either lead you straight to the affiliate programs of relevant companies
or lead you to other people's affiliate sites for those products. Either
way you will find related affiliate programs which you can then evaluate.
Once you
have found a good affiliate offer that passes your standards, you can then open
an affiliate account with that company and begin building your website, blogs,
email list etc. In short begin building your money machine...
If you've done proper product research using the principles we looked at in choosing the right product (choosing a product in demand and targeting the right audience) then searching for affiliate programs on the web can be the most rewarding option albeit the most time consuming.
By typing these relevant keywords into google search you will find websites for the products you want to promote. Many of these sites will have affiliate programs listed either on their main menu or down on the footer of their page. Click on their affiliate programs link and see if their commissions look attractive, then evaluate their sales pages and affiliate tools before making any commitments. Review the criteria we discussed about choosing the right product when doing this.
Affiliate Networks
I highly recommend looking for our product on popular affiliate networks.
Popular affiliate marketing
websites such as Commission Junction ( https://www.cj.com )
and Click Bank https://www.clickbank.com )
make finding profitable affiliate programs super easy. They include a wide
range of niches along with great rating systems, which makes these networks
ideal sources for matching an affiliate program with your chosen product.
Warrior Plus (https://warriorplus.com) and
JvZoo (https://www.jvzoo.com) are
also excellent buy they deal mainly with the making money on line niche.
How to Be Competitive
If there is one thing I've made clear in this guide, I hope that
it is the fact that there is a tremendous amount of competition and this means
that you need to build your own site and sales copy and develop a unique style
of your own that is fine tuned by testing, testing, and more testing...
there is no magic bullet.
How to do this:
1. Use Your Own Website
If you don’t already have a website, typically using wordpress
which is a simple site builder which you can load onto your hosting account,
get one. If you have a website but it doesn’t lend itself to promoting other
people’s products and services, put a site together that does. You really
should get a custom domain to build your personal brand. The cheapest
place for that is domain cheap. You can then get
cheap hosting on blue host or host gator. They have the best deals that I
can find. Blue Host is about $2 per month
for one domain, and Host Gator has a plan for unlimited domains with prices ranging
from 3-8 dollars per month. Personally I prefer Host
Gator since I am able to build several niche blogs without extra cost.
I have a separate article that shows you how to set up an affiliate site using
word press. Which you should only look at after studying this guide.
There are several advantages to having your own site:
Having your own wordpress site allows you to pre-sell your
affiliate products. Sending cold traffic to affiliate links just doesn't work
in 2019. If you warm the traffic up by first bringing them to your own
sales page or blog you can warm them up before sending to the affiliate
page. Give them quality content and show them your personality. Do
that and people will, like you, trust you and want to buy from you.
You can give them useful tips that then open the door for them
buying the product, you can write testimonials, or you can made direct
recommendations by stating a problem and then identifying a solution that
points to the product you are promoting. Naturally the niche you choose
will dictate the sales method, different methods work better for different
niches.
3. Use Youtube and Your Blog to Promote Your Niche
Blogging and/or using Youtube is probably the best way to promote
your products. The absolute best is probably using youtube and your blog
together.
These methods allow you to reach a large number of people
interested in your niche and to build a relationship with them which ultimately
produces followers and vlauable leads for your business.
Of course, you can’t simply use your blog or youtube channel to
just straight out sell things. You will need to provide valuable and useful
content, something that will not only make people want to hear you, but will
have them following your posts and videos.
The easiest content - at least for anyone who relies on affiliate
sales - is simply to provide product reviews. If, for example, you promote
various pet supplies and training ebooks, you could create a blog for that
particular niche and then include in-depth reports about different aspects of
individual products.
You could also give tips and advice with regard to using any of
the products. Or you could provide ideas on how the products can best be
utilized. You could even ask readers to offer their own opinions and
recommendations.
In most instances, these types of postings will spur comments from
viewers, which in turn will spur comments from other viewers. And of course,
the more comments that get posted, the more interest will be generated overall.
4. Write and Distribute Articles
Writing articles was more popular for getting traffic and sales
about five years ago, while in 2019 the most potent way of building your
brand and getting traffic is probably facebook and youtube.
However, you shouldn't underestimate aritcle writing, as it is
still used by some of the top bloggers in the industry and it is still a
powerful tool to build your brand, especially if you combine it
with social media, youtube, and your blog. All of these mediums
allow more eyballs to see you, your brand, getting you more traffic, more
trust, and ultimately more sales.
In your articles makes sure to link to your facebook profile, your
sales page, your blog, and or youtube channel. Again all roads lead to Rome and
all articles should lead to your product reviews and ultimately your affilate
sales page.
Once your articles are polished and ready simply submit them to as
many online directories you can find. Again this can be done with a simple
google search. Here are two well known directories to get you started:
Article City
Ezine Articles
5. Give Away Bonuses
This method is very powerful as you are essentially bribing
prospects into buying from your link instead of a competitor's. This is all
done by throwing in another product or service that adds to or enhances the one
that the prospect is buying.
The more valuable the bonus the better so long as you can afford
to give it away. Typically digital products such as ebooks or software
are used as bonuses, many of which you can get in bulk on PLR stores.
These are online stores that sell the private label rights to products so you
can rebrand them and sell them or give them away.
I will do a post just on bonuses in the future, but for now you could simply
search PLR and your niche keyword in google to find some good PLR.
Even if you are selling physical products you can still give away an ebook that
well help them use that product. So you need to use your imagination a
bit here.
6. Give Away Your Secret Sauce
Successful affiliates don't dismiss visitors who are not
interested in buying. Rather, they offer them valuable tips and information for
free in order to engage the visitor and buld a relationship with that viewer
that lasts over time. Again this ultimately builds trust and allows you
to pitch to them indirectly through the free information that you give
them.
Give them your secret sauce, you want to wow them with the value your website,
or blog provides them. This makes them think that they are missing out if
they don't purchase the product. The logic goes like this, if his free
stuff is this good at helping me solve my problem, what am I missing if I don't
buy the product he/she recommends?
You can give them:
- An
Ebook
- A
cheat sheet
- Some
software
- A
free email course
Whatever you do though, make sure that you regularly refer back to
the problem that the client came to you for, help them with it and then remind
them about the product which will help them even more.
7. Capture Names And Email Addresses
The money is in the list. This is not much of a secret
anymore, its chanted across the web by every affilate marketing guru out there,
and for good reason: it's true.
Many people who visit your site and sales page aren't ready to purchase and
need more time, or to get to know you better and learn more about the
product. If you don't capture their email and build a relationship with
them chances are, that they will eventually buy, but from someone else.
Building an email list is critical for your success. Experts estimate that on
average each subscriber on your list is worth $1 per month. Keeping in mind that some companies have tens of thousands of
people on their email list should give you cause to open your eyes now and take
action.
To build your list you will need a landing page and an autoresponder. Get response gives the best
service because it gives you both landing pages and an auto
responder. They let you try their service for one month free. But
the reason they are great is because the have the best autoresponders and you
can make a landing page just by dragging and clicking images in their page
builder. It's great for beginners because you don't need to make your own
site and you can set up a good lead capture page in minutes. You can start for free by clicking here.
I will eventually put up a guide just on email marketing and
autoresponders, but for now what you want to do is set up a landing page and
pre-write several newsletters into your autoresponder. You get
people to sign up to your list by offering them a free ebook which you will
send them by email. Then you send them some useful tips once a week and
mix in some promotional emails. As your list grows and you master writing
your emails you will start making money while you sleep because the emails are
sent automatically by your autoresponder.
Like I said in the introduction, it takes time to build the money
machine, but once its fully running, it works for you even when you are sleeping
or on vacation.
8. How to Use Your Own Promotional Materials
Most affiliates rely on promotional materials that are supplied by
the owner of the product. That would include things like solo add swipes,
banners, pre-written sales copy, and not to mention their product images.
Even if your affiliate company gives you quality materials, the
fact that everyone else will be using the same materials will make them less
effective. You need to stand out and the only way to do that is to find
your own unique way of promoting the product on your own website, blog, your
youtube channel etc.
The same goes when using paid ads. You will need to have
your own sales copy, your own hand written emails. If your using facebook
adds or google addwords, lead them to your own lead capture page, or sales
page. If you use solo ads make your own promotional emails, don't just
copy and paste the email swipes that the company gives you. Again: stand out, be original and success will be yours in good time.
9. Master Getting Targeted Traffic to Your Website, Blog, and Landing Pages
I have a separate article that shows you how to set up an affiliate site using word press. Which you should only look at after studying this guide.
There are several advantages to having your own site:
I will do a post just on bonuses in the future, but for now you could simply search PLR and your niche keyword in google to find some good PLR.
Even if you are selling physical products you can still give away an ebook that well help them use that product. So you need to use your imagination a bit here.
Give them your secret sauce, you want to wow them with the value your website, or blog provides them. This makes them think that they are missing out if they don't purchase the product. The logic goes like this, if his free stuff is this good at helping me solve my problem, what am I missing if I don't buy the product he/she recommends?
You can give them:
Many people who visit your site and sales page aren't ready to purchase and need more time, or to get to know you better and learn more about the product. If you don't capture their email and build a relationship with them chances are, that they will eventually buy, but from someone else.
Building an email list is critical for your success. Experts estimate that on average each subscriber on your list is worth $1 per month. Keeping in mind that some companies have tens of thousands of people on their email list should give you cause to open your eyes now and take action.
There are two ways of getting targeted traffic to your websites and landing pages: paid and non paid. Paid traffic can make you the most money, but you need to first learn the ropes. If you jump into paid traffic traffic without knowing what your doing, you will lose your shirt.
Here are some forms of paid traffic that serious affiliate marketers use:
Google Adwords
Bing Ads
Facebook Ads
Solo Ads
Here are some forms of paid traffic that serious affiliate marketers use:
Google Adwords
Bing Ads
Facebook Ads
Solo Ads
READ ABOUT USING SOLO ADS HERE
Solo ads are your best bet when starting out, while the others usually require training and some expertise. So feel free to google them or get an ebook on the topic. For now your better to stick to mastering solo ads and free traffic methods.
Non-paid traffic can make you a lot of money as well, but it takes time and work to build it up and to make sure that it is only quality targeted visitors. For this reason I don't like the term 'free traffic' because it is misleading. Free traffic isn't free because it takes work and skill. But, unlike paid traffic it's less risky so you should start out with un paid traffic first. I have published a very useful guide on getting free traffic which I recommend studying and using once you have set up your landing pages and websites.
To learn more about free traffic click here:
Six Ways to Get Free Traffic in 2019
Solo ads are your best bet when starting out, while the others usually require training and some expertise. So feel free to google them or get an ebook on the topic. For now your better to stick to mastering solo ads and free traffic methods.
Non-paid traffic can make you a lot of money as well, but it takes time and work to build it up and to make sure that it is only quality targeted visitors. For this reason I don't like the term 'free traffic' because it is misleading. Free traffic isn't free because it takes work and skill. But, unlike paid traffic it's less risky so you should start out with un paid traffic first. I have published a very useful guide on getting free traffic which I recommend studying and using once you have set up your landing pages and websites.
To learn more about free traffic click here:
Six Ways to Get Free Traffic in 2019
Some Parting Words
Traffic is important, but it’s useless if you haven’t built up a
good system using a website, blog, lead capture page and autoresponder
first. All of these things should be set
up first if you want to reap any real benefits from your traffic
campaigns. Also all of this should only
be done after much research and planning.
Remember this is a long term game, you will be building your own brand,
so you need to make sure that your product and niche is a winner. If you take
the steps I have shown you here and perfected them, you will have a money
machine ready to start. To power this
money machine, you will then need to master paid and non-paid traffic. So, if you stick to this plan and do your
research, slowly but surely you can reach a point where you can decide your own
pay check.
