Good Choice. This is perhaps the easiest and cheapest
way to create an online business for yourself.
Congratulations, you're a partner!
You'll have the special privilege of partnering up with multiple large online retail establishments! How does that sound?
Earning money through affiliate marketing is about helping others find the information they're looking for online and give it to them in an easy to understand, or entertaining way. You'll be promoting products/services that you would actually vouch for, literally by word of mouth. Whether that is written word or spoken word, is up to you.
You can earn large commissions while having access to sell any of their products/services as if they were your very own; without any overhead or having to purchasing any inventory.
Essentially you'll be a partner (or online marketer) that will promote other people's products and earn a handsome commission for everyone you send to their website that ends up purchasing anything. You'll learn how in a minute, please read on...
PROs & CONs of Affiliate Marketing
Advantages of Affiliate Marketing
Becoming an affiliate for an online business is quite simple. And you won’t even have to deal with taking orders, payment processing or shipping. It's all handled for you, just sit back and collect your commission payments.
PROs
Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing
Although becoming an affiliate is simple, earning steady commissions (substantial enough to quit your job) is not easy. It requires getting the proper training. It'll take time, real work, and effort to see your efforts come to fruition.
CONs
“If you want to succeed at Affiliate Marketing, the best thing you can do is join an online training community of like-minded people that will help show you the way while motivating you.”
Kyle, co-founder Wealthy Affiliate
If you're just getting started, please do yourself a favor and join this training community.
(*clicking above will give you the best chance to get up and running with this online business model)
How will they know they’re my customers?
Well, the company you become an affiliate for will issue you a personalized link that only you will use in your marketing efforts. You will use it within your content on your blog posts, share it on social media, or your online ad campaigns.
What marketing efforts?
This will consist of creating a blog/website and having a few social media accounts that you share content on and this is where you’ll be adding your unique affiliate links. You can also learn how to promote your links using paid traffic (see below) placing your ad in front of a relevant audience.
Basically, you'll need to write articles (blog posts) on topics that interest you and write them in a way that other people can find the post when they're searching online. Once they find your article on this topic of interest in the search engines, you will have written useful info regarding said topic, so the will stay and read.
You can answer frequently asked questions in your post, tell a relevant personal story and then recommend a product/service (w/ affiliate link) that will help solve their problem or that is relevant to the topic at hand.
If you don't like writing you can hire writers, or you can even record videos on put them on YouTube to get free viewers. Podcasts are also free to start. Once people appreciate what you are sharing, they'll be more likely to follow your advice an/or recommendations.
What should I market?
The key here is to pick an industry that interests you, preferably something that you already spend time doing; a hobby or a subject you’re knowledgable about. It takes time to start seeing substantial earnings, so you'll need to be patient and really enjoy the subject matter that you'll be involving yourself in.
You'll eventually be an affiliate for many different companies and by giving your honest recommendation for certain products/services, your readers/followers will trust your advice and take you up on your suggestions.
There are TWO ways to get customers:
Getting Organic Visitors
(Free Traffic Method)
- BEGINNER -
By creating a simple blog/website and connecting a few social media accounts you can be setup and ready to earn quickly. By writing helpful blog posts or creating and sharing content on social media (YouTube videos, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) you'll be gaining traffic (visitors) for free from all the search engine results pages when you start to rank for certain keywords.
This is the best way to generate a consistent, steady flow of visitors. The more free traffic you get to your site, the more clicks on your affiliate links. Having a blog to go along with your social media accounts will allow you to build a personal brand, get people back to your site to read your recommendations and actually click on your affiliate links strategically placed within your content.
Conclusion
If you have a limited budget when starting out, you can either build a following through free social media accounts or a simple website/blog. If you have a few hundred dollars a month to spend you may be interested in learning about the paid traffic method; using landing pages and various online advertising platforms.
At the end of the day, whenever you are embarking on a new adventure - you want the best chance at succeeding. This done by following a quality training program, having a support group (online community) to ask questions or get inspiration when stuck. If you are really serious about making this work, you'll also want to get yourself a mentor or personal coach to help guide you each step of the way.