Affiliate Marketing 2021 Guide

 

  

Affiliate Marketing is a fascinating field. It is a profession in which the marketer is not creating or supporting said product, nor is one dealing with customer service. The whole profession and way to make money is to have the would-be consumer click on your special link and buy the product. As a reward for driving the customer to the product, the affiliate marketer receives a certain percentage of the purchase price. The percentages vary greatly, even as much as 100%. Not bad for a day’s work! The marketer should understand the terms of payment before getting involved.


The beauty of Affiliate Marketing is that it is done remotely. One can use their home, library, coffee shop, etc wherever the internet is available. One can be in pajamas, shorts, or tie and jacket, if that is the way one is comfortable. Start up costs are minimal and the business is run according to one’s schedule. The more one wants to work and study from the “masters” the better one can operate the business, as one would not have to make the “rookie” mistakes.

Studying from the masters does not take money, just time. Go to YouTube and search for affiliate marketing. The plethora of masters is unbelievable. They all present step-by-step procedures to make money, promising that if you follow their directions, you will make money. They will always offer 2 disclaimers:


1) Not all results will be the same. The examples used are from people who worked very hard. 2) Most people will not even try what they are saying and therefore will never achieve anything.


Many times the methods that are proposed do not seem ethical to me, but I leave that decision up to you. For example, one person explained how to copy somebody else’s work, who was very successful, and then change a few words here and there, so as not to be a plagiarist. While technically, this may be accurate, I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it.


I would suggest reading the articles and see how the top sellers are enticing the customer to click their links. Are they offering value? (Most marketers will tell you that this is the most important part of the campaign. Giving value to your customer.) Do you trust their recommendations or do you feel like you're being sold? (Most marketers will argue that people don’t want to be sold, yet will continue to try to sell you.) Do you like their presentation and do they get to the point? Do you want to click their link immediately? (If you do feel that way, then they have a chance at making a sale. Once one leaves the website, blog, article, or ad, the odds of them returning and finding the article again are not good.)


(As a side point, there have been times that I was watching a video on YouTube and liked what the person was saying. But I didn’t subscribe to the channel, figuring, “If I want to listen again, I’ll just search again. The problem is that unless it is a small niche, the odds of finding that person again are small. That’s why, these days, if I like the speaker or think that I may want to reference him/her, I just subscribe. I can always cancel later and it doesn’t cost any money. If I like a website, I put it in my favorites.)


After reading the articles, take notes on what you found positive and felt working on you. Synthesize the articles and come up with your own style. While imitation is the highest form of flattery, seeing the same types of sales pitches becomes monotonous and lost in the “crowd.” (This is solely my opinion and one that goes against most of the gurus.)


Once you’ve done the groundwork, it becomes time to find an affiliate site such as clickbank or digistore 24, etc and see which products you would like to sell. There are top categories of items and niches which convert well. Some of the top categories to date are health & Fitness, Money, and Food. Of course, courses on affiliate marketing are in high demand, or so they claim, because everyone wants to make passive income.


While there are multiple ways to get traffic to your offer, you will have to decide how much you are willing to spend, both in terms of time and money. Most will advise you to make a funnel and have a way to collect emails for future offers. The reason for collecting email addresses is to build an asset for later. If you do not capture the address, and the client goes directly to the sales page, even if one buys the item and you get paid the commission, the business will have the new customer and not you.


I hope you found this somewhat helpful. If this sounds like something you’d like to pursue, I wish you much success.

The Greatest Gift-A Job

When most people hear the word “charity” they envision donating some money to the individual or group and the good feeling that they will have from their act of altruism. It is a “feel good” moment. When you are driving and you see a person on the side of the road, holding a sign asking for your loose change, if you decide to dig into your pocket and give the person a quarter, well, you can feel good for helping that poor soul. After all, if everyone passing gave that person a quarter, he would certainly have enough for the day. The problem is that he would have to be there the next day and start all over again. While what you did was certainly an act of charity,, was it the best way to give?

Maimonides (1135-1204) taught that the highest level of charity is to help somebody become self-reliant. Charity is not about giving a handout and making one depend on another, rather, the greatest thing one can do is to either give a person a job or put that person into business. (Of course, the by-product of this new wage earner means that he will now be able to help others in need.) In more recent times, the saying is, “Give the person a fish to eat, he eats for the day. Teach him how to fish, he eats for a lifetime.”

Recently, I read an interesting article which stated that, in order to be self-reliant, we should all have multiple sources of income. The reason being that if the job or business doesn’t work out, one need not end up at square one and have to begin anew. Rather, it would just be a bump in the road.

The problem is that if one has a full-time job, it is not so easy to juggle another profession, or side-gig as it is called today, in addition to one’s familial responsibilities. And more than that, if one’s side-gig interferes with one’s main job, by taking away from one’s productivity, one is cheating the boss, which is not proper. So what does one do to ensure that all parties are treated properly and one doesn’t burn out?

The first thing to figure out is how much more do you need? What would you want to do with this extra income? How much time do you have to work on this project? What would you like to do? Now, after all that, one can either scour the want-ads online, via ZipRecruiter, or the like, or one can decide to work at home, in one’s “spare time.”

The work-at-home option allows one to be with one’s family for dinner, help with homework, etc. It also allows one the time needed to get other stuff done without guilt. There are a lot of side-gigs one can do at home.

An easy way to earn some money is to take surveys online. While surveys will not make you rich and they take time, one can earn some extra money while potentially influencing companies about their product(s). One becomes the test audience for products that are presently on the market and those that are about to hit the market. It can also influence politics in this country. The fun of the surveys is that one can take them anywhere. It can be while commuting to work (as long as you’re not driving:)) waiting for breakfast, drinking coffee, etc.

Survey Junkie is a great place to start. It costs nothing to join up and pays you for your opinion! If you finish all of their surveys, they will present other companies that will also pay for your opinion. Just be careful and make sure that you can either have the money sent to your paypal account of the gift cards offered are stores at which you shop.

Have fun!