This answer you will cover what is affiliate marketing, advantages of affiliate marketing plus how to choose a winning affiliate marketing product so you can start making money.
In almost any niche imaginable it’s likely you will be able to find a product that has an affiliate program. These days the majority of businesses out there have some sort of affiliate program and for many businesses it’s their main source of new revenue.
From the businesses point of view it’s like having thousands of sales people all over the world introducing them new customers, only these sales people don’t demand a pay check each week they are rewarded solely based on performance.
HINT: Businesses love their affiliates
Our role as affiliate marketers is to learn the skills and strategies to best introduce customers to established products and businesses.
How To Start Affiliate Marketing (3 simple steps)
In simple terms affiliate marketing can be broken down into 3 simple steps;
Step 1: Choose a product
Step 2: Obtain your affiliate links
Step 3: Share your link
Whats The Best Criteria To Choose An Winning Affiliate Marketing Product?
Due to the number of affiliate products out there, choosing which product to promote or build a campaign around can be overwhelming.
To make the selection process easier I recommend using a combination of criteria.
- Commission level
- Interest or enjoyment
- Include up-sell or high ticket
- Recurring income model
- Trending products
I’ve found this criteria extremely helpful and to this day continually bring in passive income following these guidelines.
Commission Level
First is commission level, I like to focus on affiliate products that pay commissions of over 25%.
Programs can range from 2% to 100% on various purchase levels so 25% I’ve found a good level of effort vs reward.
Interest Or Enjoyment
Second is promote what you have an interest in or enjoy. This is especially helpful for new affiliate marketers.
It’s said time and time again follow your passion.
The reason this is preached everywhere is because people lack motivation, we give up on things…
If we’re being honest, both you and I are equally guilty of this at some point in our lives. To be fair, it’s not easy to wake up and grind every day, especially if you don’t see instant rewards.
Just remember when starting, out each success will inspire you to the next, so celebrate the little wins.
Every achievement begins with one small win
Up-sell Or High Ticket Item
What is a high ticket item or up-sell? A high ticket product is usually a (higher value $) product where every sale you make a significant commission.
As you can see from the image below.
Even though commission payouts are higher on the lower prices items, you stand to earn significantly more promoting a high ticket offer or up-sell.
A common myth in affiliate marketing is it’s harder to sell high value items, this is simply not true.
It takes the same amount of effort selling a $10 product as it does a $1000.
The product only needs to solve a problem and be presented to a person who needs this problem solved.
Often a high ticket item will also carry across a lot of value – It may be worth $10,000 to the purchaser and $1000 is just a small investment to solve this problem.
HINT: Some affiliate products will have pre-built websites with up-sells including high ticket items.
Recurring Income Model
Another criteria to think about is products that have a recurring revenue model for example software, services or subscriptions. (Here’s a list of some quality recurring affiliate programs).
Recurring income programs are great as they allow you to actually build a business with regular income coming in.
HINT: Until you have recurring income you don’t have a business
The true beauty of recurring income is; once you’ve put in the initial effort you can continue to receive monthly commissions regardless of where you are. It doesn’t matter if your at work, on holidays or sleeping the money keeps rolling in.
Let’s conjure up an example of how this might look;
Client = Established retail only business , cafe or entrepreneur with a product to sell.
Problem = The problem is they don’t have the tools or support to sell their product online.
Solution = Software or service to sell and follow up with clients online
Your role as the affiliate is to seek out the software and place in front of the people most likely to buy.
In this scenario in order for the client to sell their product they would need a website or funnel builder such as Systeme io, Clickfunnels or Builderall.
Plus an email autoresponder such as Get Response or Aweber to follow up with their leads. (Both of which have a recurring affiliate program).
As an affiliate marketer if you can locate these clients and present them with a solution.
For every person you help set up their online sales system you can receive up to $44.5/ month
Are you starting to see the power of recurring income?
Trending Products
The final criteria to keep an eye out for isTrending products. There are certain times in the year when a product or service may trend and you will have a much better chance of making sales.
Think about;
Valentines day – Gift boxes or personalized gifts
Back to school – Shoes, backpacks, stationary packs
Halloween – Halloween costumes, masks, props
You may also use a free tool – called Exploding Topics which will show you current searches of exploding and trending topics.
If you foresee a trend beginning, complete a search for potential affiliate programs to take advantage of the trend.
Advantages Of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has a number of advantages unique to this type of marketing.
- One of the best ways to make money online
- Don’t need your own product or idea – (Product creation is a serious roadblock for many beginners)
- Fast to get started – Save time since your latching on to already established businesses. In many cases businesses can spend years coming up with an idea, making investments, inventing, testing and creating products. Affiliate marketing instantly skips this whole process.
- Low barrier entry – No experience or expertise needed
- Consistently Earn over 25% commission sometimes up to 100% commission
- Start with little or no investment
- Freedom – Do it from anywhere in the world, You can run a successful business with only internet and a laptop
- Lucrative and huge industry – Over $4 Billion/ Year
- Simple tracking – No need to learn technical tracking software
- Flexible work life balance
- Promotes Independence and sense of achievement
- Save a butt load of time -No need to come up with your own marketing kit. Most good affiliate marketing programs have pre-made marketing material with pictures, videos, articles etc. Done for you promotional tools so you can get started instantly.
- Good source of supplementary income – Its not uncommon for busy parents, full time workers or students to have successful affiliate marketing campaigns set up attracting supplementary income.
- You can build a whole brand and business around affiliate marketing
- Convenience
Affiliate marketing is an extremely convenient method for creating and generating a new source of income.
Whether your looking help your family, build a brand, start a business, earn a little extra each month, there’s little in your way. The advantages of affiliate marketing, low barrier entry and instant start time makes it perfect for any experience level to investigate. It starts to become clear why affiliate marketing is a popular avenue to success.
Hope this answer helps!
Enjoy