WHAT IS AN AFFILIATE MARKETING BUSINESS?
What is affiliate marketing? Plain and simple. It is earning a commission on sales that you make from someone else’s product or service. You do this by actively promoting those services or products on your blog, website, or social media. So you are connecting a merchant with a potential buyer. There are 4 steps as seen in the diagram. The customer goes to your website and clicks on your affiliate link to view the product on the merchant’s website. The customer decides to purchase the item from the merchant. Then as a result the merchant will then pay you a commission because of the purchase being made as a result of your affiliate link. You can watch the short video to have a more in-depth explanation of the whole process.
Join An Affiliate Program
You will need to join an affiliate program, where you will be given an affiliate link that is unique to you. This affiliate link identifies you as the person that made the referral that resulted in the sale. When the customer makes a purchase, you will be credited with the sale and earn the sales commission.
As an affiliate marketer, the merchant looks after any inventory. They also take care of shipping the product to the customer. You don’t even have to handle customer service, that is also done by the merchant of the product. The only contact that you have with the customer, is being the mediator who connects the buyer to the merchant.
How Much Does It Cost To Become An Affiliate Marketer?
Anyone can become an affiliate marketer as it is a business you can start with very little money. To start out, like with any new business, you need is to invest in some training, then you need to buy a domain name, build a website, and host that website. This can cost you around $100.00 per month. There are millions of products and services that offer affiliate programs and joining an affiliate program does not cost anything. You can opt to pay for google ads or Facebook ads but 1000’s of people make a living without paying for additional advertising and focus on getting traffic to their website organically (which is free). Imagine that, you can start a business for around $100.00 a month.
What Is Required To Become An Affiliate Marketer?
We all have interests and hobbies that we are passionate about. Think of the things you enjoy doing in your spare time. Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to turn those interests into opportunities to earn money? These are the best niches to get started with, as we usually have a lot of knowledge and experience in these areas of interest. Becoming a successful affiliate marketer takes a lot of hard work and it takes time to see the fruits of your labor. It requires commitment, dedication, and patience, because, it will take several months of hard work before you will start to see any significant growth in your business.
The time and energy you put into building an affiliate marketing business are no different than what it takes to build a brick-and-mortar business. You get out of it what you put into it. The real difference is you will not be investing tens of thousands of dollars to get started in affiliate marketing. Your real investment will be the sacrifice of the time and energy that it takes to build your business. That is what will make it a success.
How To Have Success As An Affiliate Marketer?
Treat your affiliate marketing, as the real business that it is and it will become a success. Just think you can make a business around something that you enjoy. Just because you choose a niche around a hobby you like, do not treat it like a hobby. Show up to work every day. Your business growth and earnings are in your hands, you make it happen and make it grow.
It is exciting that you are thinking about becoming an affiliate marketer. There are so many resources and programs out there and one can get caught up in investing in this program or that training and never really get down to the business of building a business.
You can lay down some foundational groundwork before investing any money in the beginning. I did this by learning about affiliate marketing from online research. There are several ebooks out there on the subject. This is how I started. I came across some free ebooks about affiliate marketing and the different aspects of starting an affiliate marketing business.
I like to pass these on to others as they helped me, in the beginning, to understand what affiliate marketing is and how it works. If you fill out the email form at the bottom of this page I would be happy to send you a copy of Modern Affiliate Marketing. One of the perks of joining my email list is each month I give away another ebook. You will also notice I offer a free ebook on different subjects centered around affiliate marketing in most of my blog posts.
Can You Make Money As An Affiliate Marketer?
The answer is yes. You can make money online as an Affiliate Marketer. But, it does not happen overnight. It all starts with proper training and following a system that works. The amount of money you make is really determined by how much time you are willing to invest into building your business each day. The more time you spend writing blog posts, SEO, and learning new skills will all contribute to your success.
So how about we move on to one of the most important aspects of becoming an affiliate marketer. You will have to decide on a niche or market audience. The process of choosing a niche is not as hard as you might think. The key is to find a target audience within the niche as your starting point. I will cover how to choose a niche in my next article, so stay tuned.