What is affiliate marketing about – Have you wondered this? Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s – or company’s – products. You locate a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a portion of the profit of each sale that is made.
That is the simplified version. There are many facets to affiliate marketing. It is the way that many people earn their living.
Because of the high earning potential that exists within this business model, you can find a lot of scams online. They mostly promote a get rich quick mindset. If you come across one of these, beware.
Even though the potential for earnings is great, it also requires a lot of dedicated work. The work is not hard and once done you can continue to earn from work you did in the past long into the future. But if someone tries to promise you riches for no work, go the other way.
Is Affiliate Marketing for Beginners?
Yes, it is! Once you have set up a website, which is quite easy and cheap nowadays, and begin to create some quality content, you will start bringing traffic to your site. Targeted traffic is the key to affiliate marketing.
There are some basic principles you will need to follow but there is no reason that a beginner cannot learn them quickly. We have seen people start from scratch, follow some lessons that teach those principles and start seeing some earnings in just a few months.
Yet, everyone is different with the skills that they possess when they start into online marketing. Some people progress very rapidly but others require a lot more time to develop their skills.
Affiliate marketing is a rather trouble-free way to make money with almost no required capital investment. The company that the affiliate marketer is promoting for handles all the logistics involved in selling the products, from the order, to the shipping of the order, to the customer service afterwards. Thus, the affiliate can simply relax and collect the commission!
You have done your work in creating the website where you bring together the products you are promoting with the people who need them.
Affiliate Marketing Opportunities
There are affiliate marketing opportunities everywhere. There are many affiliate programs for just about every kind of product or service.
As mentioned above, after you establish an associate program with a particular company, that company pays the affiliate a commission, according to their arrangement. Examples of such arrangements are:
- Pay-per-click, when you can earn a commission by sending traffic to the company.
- Pay-per-lead, when you earn a commission when someone who is visiting your site fills out a form or does some other action that the company has agreed to pay you for.
- The most common form of affiliate marketing is simply where a customer purchases a product or service through a link on your website or your email.
This can be a win-win strategy for both the company and the affiliate since they both win from this type of partnership.
There is another very important party in this process, the consumer, who will purchase the company’s product advertised on the affiliate’s website.
In order to help the consumer know whether this product or service is right for them, it is your job to give them relevant information. This is why you find review sites that show both pros and cons. By having the right information to make a buying decision, you have a happy customer. A happy customer will come back to see what else you recommend and why.
This Internet marketing strategy was first made popular by CEO and founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, in 1996, which now has over 500,000 affiliate Websites (affiliate marketers) worldwide. We would definitely say that the affiliate marketing program is an absolute success!
It is important for someone who is just starting out as a new affiliate marketer to partner with a solid and reputable company. This decision can dictate the success or the failure of such a beginner individual.
Although they do not work the same, some of the top most popular and reputable companies with affiliate programs, according to 2012 Blue Book of Top 20 Affiliate Networks, include:
- LinkShare… (#1, with over 10 million affiliate partnerships)
- Commission Junction
- ShareASale
- Amazon Associates
- ClixGalore
- PeerFly.com
- ClickBank
- MaxBounty
- Neverblue.com
How to Make Money Online from What?
The next thing a beginner affiliate marketer wants to know is what he or she can promote to make money. This is known as a niche. A niche is a segment of a market where there are people looking for things to solve a problem. When you help them to find what they need and they make a purchase, you make money.
[yellowbox]Here’s a very helpful class about choosing a niche.[/yellowbox]
Promoting your own hobby or passion on your website is a great way to get started. You can share with your readers about your interest and the reasons why you like a certain related product or service. You can tell them how it has positively impacted your life.
It is also good to tell your readers if you have found any drawbacks. That way you also have the opportunity to let them know whether there are ways to get around the drawbacks. Your reader will trust you more if you give them the information they need to make informed decisions.
Get Started in Affiliate Marketing Step By step
Now that you know what affiliate marketing is, what doors of opportunity can be opened for you, and what promoting a niche is all about… how do you actually get started?
We have to admit that just getting started is the easiest part of affiliate marketing, because anyone who can simply pick up a computer and an internet connection is capable of doing it. The integral part of the whole concept of affiliate marketing, however, is how can it be done successfully?
A Lesson from My Father (As told by Jay)
I remember way back when I was just a young lad, my father used to get my attention and show me why I should learn to do things properly by using very simple illustrations. He once told me about the time my Grandfather had given him a small bicycle on his fifth birthday.
My Grandfather had wanted to teach him how to ride the bicycle, but my very confident young father had replied that he had seen many other boys ride and it seemed like an easy thing to do.
Well! As you might have guessed, my young father had gotten on the bicycle and after going a few feet had fallen right off the bicycle. Luckily, for my father, the only thing that got hurt was his young pride, since he was riding the bicycle on soft grass! My father told me that he never forgot that lesson and thereafter always learned how to do something correctly before trying it.
The same principle in the illustration applies to affiliate marketing. Unless you obtain the right and proper training on how to do it, disenchantment and failure would be waiting just around the corner! So, be kind to yourself and get the best affiliate marketing program for yourself – a proud and enthusiastic beginner, like I once was.
Best Affiliate Marketing Programs for Beginners
It seems that now the only question that remains is ‘Where can you get the best training to become a successful affiliate marketer?’
We wish we had known the answer to that question when we first started out to become an affiliate marketer. Not knowing this answer did cost us a lot of time and money, not to mention the embarrassing and terrible feeling of being scammed! We finally came across an online marketing training program that actually worked.
We have actually found a few programs that will work if you follow them. There is one that we feel is the best value for a beginner. We highlight that one in the post where we tell how To Get Started In Affiliate Marketing. Or if you are in a hurry and want to see it now then click here.
How About Your Feedback?
Before we leave you, we would like to ask if you would please leave us your thoughts below about affiliate marketing or this site.
Your comments and thoughts on any related experiences you may have had are appreciated.
Your friends who dare to care,
Jay and Glenda
