We are transcending The Employee Mindset with Affiliate Marketing. 40+ hours a week not needed.
What Do You Mean By Affiliate Marketing?
Neil Patel states, “You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.” The best part is you are not required to have a store or even products.
- Find A Product –
- What has the highest conversion?
- What will produce the most revenue?
- Build A Funnel For That Product
- Write A Good Headline To Get People To That Funnel To Buy That Product
(You will have to research 100’s of products/investments include dedicated time, very little money and massive action)
That’s It. Sounds easy enough, right? More like yeah, right.
Let me explain.
The Entrepreneureual Mind
Affiliate Marketing Earnings With The Top Affiliate Marketing Sites
Clickbank
The two biggest affiliate marketing sites around today are Clickbank and Amazon. These two are not the only affiliate marketing sites around, but they are the most beginner-friendly. First, we will discuss Clickbank. Clickbank is an online video course website that sells courses from various niches, from health-related niches to make-money-online niches.
With Clickbank offers, you can make up to 75% commissions on each sale. A basic review of the product or service to your audience will do. Make sure you are honest and don’t forget to leave your affiliate link with a strong call to action.
Amazon Affiliate Program
Amazon is probably the biggest e-commerce website in the world right now. Moreover, they sell anything and everything. Therefore, you can rest assured that Amazon has some product that is related to your niche. In contrast, the commission rates are much lower than Clickbank.
Indeed, Amazon may have lower commission rates, but you will receive commissions on everything your customer buys for the next 48 hours once they click your link. In comparison, this is where the lower commission rates make up for Amazon. Similarly, the same rules apply to product reviews. People buy from people, and honesty is the best policy.
High Ticket Affiliate Marketing – Entre
Entre is a premium entrepreneurial institution that will teach you step by step how to affiliate market, among other business models. With Entre, you are also paid a commission on products sold. The products sold are educational courses geared towards self-improvement and self-empowerment. In addition, Entre will pay a premium for a lifetime customer. Lifetime = 6 months with an initial cost of $39 ish. Check out the full Entre review here.
What Is The Best Online Earning Method?
What is the best online earning method? There are so many ways out there that allow you to earn money with little to no investment.
Email Marketing
Nothing in the affiliate world is as valuable as the email address of your target audience. In addition, email marketing is one of the oldest and most profitable methods of affiliate marketing.
Social Media Marketing
Influencer marketing has taken off in the last decade or so. All it takes is an audience of about 100,000 loyal followers, a steady supply of content, and genuine concern for your audience’s well-being, and you could make well over the million-dollar per year mark. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube…Sky’s the limit.
P.P.C.
You may very well decide to use pay-per-click to promote your products. P.P.C. includes buying traffic and paying for every valid click to your affiliate link. If your target audience is dialed in, the potential for making a profit is tremendous. On the other hand, if it is not, you could incur a significant loss.
What Is The Point Of A Sales Funnel?
The first part is easy enough and non-negotiable. You will have to invest time to research products that you are going to want to sell. Secondly, you’ll want to invest some capital to purchase said products for your review or what have you. Finally, if you’ve ever had a regular 9-5, product knowledge is king. The inner workings of the business matter, but knowledge of the product you are selling is a must. Gaining product knowledge can be achieved simply by purchasing or researching the product you intend to review.
- Sales Funnel – A device used to create a purchase decision journey that will lead a potential prospect into a buyer. According to chair10marketing.com, “A sales funnel is a tool that allows you to lead each visitor along a similar path to the ultimate goal: revenue. If you’re not using a sales funnel, you’re probably missing out on some valuable leads and losing the chance to make a sale. Learning more about sales funnels can help you put this powerful marketing tool to work for your brand.”
You can market to an email list after you’ve captured their email address on a website, such as a landing page or an opt-in page. So to simplify, the funnel is in place to collect an email at the least. We want a way to sell products to our preferred audience. Why? Because email marketing has the highest R.O.I. (Return On Investment) of any form of advertising in terms of marketing.
All This Sound A Little Intimidating??
Press The Easy Button ==> Million Dollar Blueprint!! Unfortunately, this blog barely scratches the surface.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
SEO can be difficult for new or small business owners. Without prior training, SEO can feel like space, boundless and incomprehensible, not to mention the commitment. But, with some understanding of how SEO works and the mindfulness to build your digital assets, so they work in tandem, I feel your success will not be a question of “If?” but “When?” Just remember commitment and consistency are two of the main ingredients.
Important terms –
- Keywords – initially, people used keywords to make searching for data on the internet more accessible. However, over time keywords have become key ‘phrases.’ These key ‘phrases’ are what you type in the search bar when searching on the internet.
- Crawlers – search engines use these to follow the links to various URLs (Universal Resource Locator or the address of a webpage) for every website that is currently online. So when you click ‘search,’ the information you receive has been tracked by the crawlers, sent to a database to be compiled by relevancy, then sent back as your search results.
SEO For Affiliate Marketing
Many different factors, including popularity, backlinks, descriptions, etc., make it crucial to SEO optimization. First and foremost, focus on choosing your key phrases. Some keyword research may be beneficial in pinpointing specific key phrases that are related to your niche. Next up are the metadata tags or “the keywords of the underlying data,” as Charles Edwards states in his book Social Medial Marketing. Metadata tags are essential because they make sure the “crawlers” catalog the page. Finally, there are four types of metadata tags you’ll want to make sure you are regularly optimizing.
- Metadata Attribute Keywords – Keywords related to the current page specifically.
- Title Tag – The name the search engine displays when the page you are searching for is referenced.
- Metadata Attribute Description – The description that displays as part of the search results.
- Robot Metadata Attribute – These ensure the “crawlers” know to document the page.
Believe me when I say that we only scratched the surface of SEO. What do you mean by affiliate marketing? SEO is the gravity that will centralize all of the digital assets you produce. If you want to outrank the competition and provide the crawlers with information to get potential buyers to see your digital assets, you better make sure to strategically and tactically optimize your SEO. No sweat, there are many people out there who are willing to share what they know about SEO. You don’t have to be a genius. You have to be willing to put in the work. Never stop optimizing, especially when it comes to SEO.
Shoestring Budgeting
Being straight-up honest right now, when I started, I did not know anything about anything. I was and still am employed by a big orange box store while I continue the journey to becoming a digital marketer. So I really cannot show hatred or resentment at all. On the contrary, they gave me the push and some initial education that was a cornerstone to my ultimate investment to escape the rat race and become a self-employed entrepreneur. They have also contributed to my learning of owning a business and the necessary mindset to do so.
Furthermore, all business requires capital. For example, my day job is a steady cash flow stream to fund my business. If you currently have a j.ob., you may want to use it to support your side business. You will need some capital to start.
When I say capital, I am not talking thousands of dollars. Although, there are people out there that will claim to show you “how to become rich overnight.” Be aware they could be telling you what you want to hear to make themselves rich. You can do this with a cell phone, a tablet and an internet connection. There are plenty of tools to assist in your rise to wealth, but you will have to pay.
Cell Phone
So let’s say that you want to put this into perspective—first, a cell phone. You can get one for super cheap on Amazon. All you need is the ability to run google chrome, which is the server of choice for affiliates, simply because of all the extensions. Currently, there is a sale on an excellent Samsung Galaxy S8+ for only $160. Ok, $160, check.
Computer
Second, a computer that can connect to the web. Let’s recheck Amazon. Their best-selling laptop, an Acer Aspire 5, will include a webcam compared to a desktop. This computer is only $363. There are cheaper laptops, like an H.P. Chromebook for around $100, which would get the job done. Ok, $100, check.
Internet
Finally, an essential part of the equation, besides the hard work, is an internet connection. You can get an internet connection for 100% free, maybe, the price of a cup of coffee, if you’re into coffee. Also, most cell phone plans will come with a data plan. If the phone you chose can run an individual hotspot, you can use that as well. The cost will cost what your phone plan costs. Have you ever seen those people that are just sitting in the Starbucks with the laptop, then they get up, get into their super fancy car and drive off? Yup, there is a big possibility they are some sort of digital entrepreneur. There is a big possibility they are reaping the fruits of digital marketing. Ok, Internet, FREE.
Let’s tally it up – a total of all expenses:
- Monetary: Roughly $260 give or take (depends on what you have initially and taste)
- Non-Monetary: Three dedicated hours a day, your mindfulness and your authenticity.
Pro-Tip – The key to success is to solve problems. The better you can help the next person solve their problem and make them happy. The more the universe will make sure your desires are fulfilled and will, in turn, make you happy.
Another Pro Tip – Be real clear of what you want the universe to give you. The better you understand what you want. The better the universe is at making sure it happens. I recommend a 5-year vision board.
High Ticket Affiliate Marketing
Protection
Launching a campaign with a high ticket affiliate marketing offer can be a terrific way to generate high commissions. Furthermore, high ticket affiliate marketing offers a form of security and protection. First, if you were to market an offer with a $1000 commission, there would be an amount of certainty that when you make a sale, that one deal will net you the amount you spent to get it, maybe more. Plus, you will have acquired a list of emails for future marketing, of course. Protection comes in the fact that the people you marketed to are now potential buyers and have become a part of your email list to which you can market in the future.
Clarity
Second, high commission marketing offers another benefit of clarity. Clarity comes from knowing you can earn faster. With high ticket offers, the math is relatively simple. Even with minimal buyers, you can still earn a good amount. Third, to dive even deeper, we know that every click we get from viewers is worth more than what we spent to get it with this type of marketing. We can also break down big monetary goals into small chunks. $10,000 a month becomes 2 – 3 sales a week.
Ideal Offer
Finally, I will let you in on some inside information on the perfect offer from my mentor, Kameron. Kameron breaks down the “economics/anatomy of the ideal offer.”
- First, whatever product/company you are advertising for must have at least a “$1000 commission.”
- Protection
- Clarity
- Earn Faster
- Secondly, the product/company you advertise for already has “high converting marketing material” that you can utilize.
- Sales Funnels
- Marketing Videos
- Finally, the product/company you advertise for has a “world-class sales team.”
- Customer Service
- Customer Experience
So, to sum it up, the best companies to work for are the ones that don’t need your advertising. You’ll want to make sure that you ask yourself, where is the future going? What products or companies are trendy, hot and fresh? A good rule of thumb when choosing a product or company is to ask yourself: would you use the product? Is it something you would sell your mom or dad? I think you get the idea.
Pro-Tip – Look for offers from digital information products and digital education products.
Optimizing your Campaign
But I thought we could just sit around and rake in the dough? On the contrary, if you have not analyzed or optimized your campaign, you could be throwing money down the drain. As if running a campaign wasn’t hard enough already, there is one more piece.
The final piece of the million-dollar puzzle is to analyze and optimize your campaign. There are many components of a direct marketing campaign that could and should be optimized. First is your copy. You should try running split tests where you only change one word to see how they both perform. The power of that one word can make a $100,000 campaign into a $1,000,000 campaign. Secondly, you can try changing colors. Some people react to colors differently than others. Here is a breakdown sample from “Social Media Marketing” a book by Charles Edwards:
- Red = bold and exciting
- Orange = warmth and clarity
- Blue = strength and durability
- Green = vitality, money and growth
- Purple = imagination and creativity
- White = calm and neutral
Just remember the rule of one when optimizing your systems (funnels and websites).
Finally, automated systems will be worth their weight in gold if you could weigh systems. Having the ability to set up email campaigns and newsletter campaigns will benefit your business dramatically. It will free up time and, in turn, free up capital. Imagine having to email 100,000 people by yourself? It would take forever. My advice would be to run tests and optimize your assets regularly. Your goal should be to get your cost per click down to pennies per click prices.
Hit that easy button ==> EASY BUTTON ==> Learn how to do this from Kameron himself.
Conclusion
Congratulations, we made it to the end! I hope I have given you at least a little insight into what affiliate marketing or direct response marketing is all about. Believe me when I say we have barely scratched the service of affiliate marketing. I hope we understand that affiliate marketing is only about two things, traffic and conversions. Or to distill it a little more, your audience and your offer. I would like you to look at direct response marketing as problem-solving. In short, take your target audience and try to solve their problems.
Look for Solutions
When beginning with digital marketing, you’ll want to start simple. First, use the same products you would typically use, but this time use them mindfully. Mentally file all the information you can about how to use it, what it is supposed to do or accomplish, how it makes you feel, etc. Then, just to reiterate, do your research on your product and similar products. Pro Tip: If you choose to, you could use the research you get from similar products as comparison material later on in your blog or vlog.
Next, get your mind right. A strong mentality will be necessary to accomplish your new goals. I just recently learned, and it may sound cold and heartless, but f@&% your feelings. Let me tell you why, no matter how you feel on any given day, you must have the mental strength and courage to act. Whatever goal you may be trying to reach, do not stop moving forward towards that goal just because you don’t feel like it. Some feelings can be detrimental to your success. Be cautious of who you let “should” on you, especially yourself.
Finally, pick your poison. Many different offers will net you a profit. Amazon and Clickbank are probably the most beginner-friendly offers right now. The most rapidly rising offers and most lucrative are educational/learning.
Digital Assets
First on the list is to create your assets. It’s important to realize, the funnels, websites and especially your email lists are your assets. You can and will profit from these assets passively if you take the time and thoughtfulness to build them right. Take your time and be authentic. Just don’t get stuck in the building phase. Remember, success loves speed. Also, remember that these assets will have to evolve with your audience. If you want your assets to produce a passive income, they will have to grab the attention of your target audience continually.
SEO Can Make or Break You
Want to pop up in the search results? Seo will have to be on the top of your optimization list, and it will have to stay there. You’ll want the crawlers to find and share your metadata keyword phrases. Stay congruent to keep your potential buyers from information overload. You’ll want to make it easy for your followers to remember you. Finally, structure your SEO like a spider web, intertwined but beautiful. It all should connect.
How much does it cost?
Depending on what you are currently working with, you may need very little capital to start. That is to say, based on the tools you currently have at your disposal; For example, a computer, laptop, or tablet, a phone with the ability to connect to the internet, and the internet. So, to sum it up you should need roughly $300 based on the current Amazon prices. The biggest investment is going to be the time and effort you put into helping the next person succeed by creating unique and useful content others can use.
Patience Is A Virtue.
The biggest struggle I think beginner affiliate marketers encounter when starting out is not having enough patience to trust the process. Please understand it can be a longer process than we think it should be. Affiliate marketing is easy, gaining the trust of your followers is the hard part. It can be easy to get distracted and lose consistency. Stop making content. Stop checking and responding to emails. But if it were easy, everybody would be doing it. So have the patience to know it may take a few weeks, or months to get your first commissions, or likes, or whatever you’re after. So be patient, stay consistent, be genuine and you’ll be rolling in the dough in no time, if that’s what you’re after.
Me personally, I’m after freedom. Take your pick, freedom from fear, from worry, from money…I don’t discriminate.
What are you after? Leave a comment below.
Have a wonderful day and thank you for taking your precious time to read my blog. I really do appreciate it. I think you will too. Peace.
