Affiliate Marketing – Is It For you?
Wanting to start a side gig or side business is probably a real personal decision. Assessing your situation is key in the decision making. Will your wants, needs and dreams be fulfilled by starting a part time business? If so, how much, time, money & sweat equity are you willing to put into it? Does your present job or career provide you with satisfaction you are looking for, personally and professionally? Will you start a brick and mortar business or an internet based business. Do you have your own product (manufactured or digital) or would you rather promote other people’s product (Affiliate Marketing).
Ever since Tim Ferriss published “The 4-hour Workweek”, there has been a push to attain the
elusive plateau of PASSIVE INCOME STREAMS. This is where it’s thought that you just sit back and watch the money roll in. At least that’s the dream.
Affiliate marketing is by far the most chosen method to get started in that direction. The simple definition for affiliate marketing is selling someone’s product through your marketing efforts and you collect a commission. You can start by promoting other people’s products through an affiliate’s network, such as Shopify, Amazon, Click Funnels, or a thousand others. Most online companies today have some sort of affiliate program that you can sign up for. Popular today is the education niche for personal and business improvement. They can get very specific. There are companies that will teach you anything you need to know on how to market, i.e. create ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, which products are best, how to write copy, what pictures to use, how much to spend on ads, what foods to eat, exercise and diets. It goes on and on.
There are companies that may offer affiliates a system to market the very product you bought. Thereby perpetuating the company’s products through your marketing efforts. The thing to remember here is you find a product or niche and system to sell you like and are comfortable with.
Here are a few pointers to consider when choosing an affiliate program.
1. Do they have a recurring commissions or fixed (one time) commissions? Recurring commissions such as subscriptions to a newsletter, club memberships, upsells on a product, or online affiliate group. This is the passive income opportunity I was talking about earlier. A fixed commission is when you get paid only for the original sale, nothing more.
2. Speaking of recurring commissions, cookie duration or customer retention is also important. Some companies offer limited cookie duration of 30 days +/- or none at all. The best companies offer lifetime customer retention. This is a big plus because if you have a customer that buys a product, you keep them for life when they buy again or upgrades to new products with no effort on your part.
3. Does the company you chose have a proven method of marketing?
Be careful, there are a lot of tricksters out there with promises of fast and easy money. Legit Affiliate Marketing companies won’t lure you in with promises of big and easy money. Remember, this is a real business you’re starting and as you know there are no shortcuts in business.
4. Do they provide training? If you’re a newbie affiliate partner it is critical that you are provided with substantial education and support within the company.
5. Do they offer top of the line marketing materials, such as images, banners, affiliate link generator, videos?
6. Do they provide a Marketing Campaign Building tools? You will need a website, a campaign builder such as Click Funnels, they have a Free Trial and FREE BOOK that will show you how to use sales funnels to grow your network marketing, an autoresponder, 
Aweber is excellent, and they have a minimal subscription of $19/mo. and offer a FREE “What to Write” PDF. This PDF includes their fill-in-the-blank email templates to make getting started even easier.
As you begin your research into which company to be affiliated with, let me suggest a company I have been affiliated with for some time now. I was introduced to Dean Holland, CEO of Internet Profits Affiliate Partners program. With all the internet noise about crappy online business opps that are totally garbage and a waste of time, Dean has been consistently rated as one of the “Highest Earning and Highest Converting Affiliate by the World’s Top Digital Marketers. He has discovered a better way by giving you a simple and quick way to jumpstart your business. All the training is provided, in written and in video form.
I was real skeptical at first. I’ve been burnt before.
But Dean has developed a certified partner’s course that will get you up and running within 30 days. He is also offering a FREE BOOK, “The Affiliates Marketer’s Playbook”. This will give an insider’s look at what it takes to be a successful Affiliate Marketer. He’ll show the new way to build your business online. He’s has been so successful with this system, he wants to pass it on to those that want more for themselves and family.
So, is internet affiliate marketing for you? I can only say, for me? Yes. If you’re willing to work hard and consistently and master some basic skills. One thing I do know, if you never try, you’ll never win.
Why not turn someday into today.
Thanks For Stopping By,
TTYL, Lenny
Please leave a comment, Yea or Nay.
OH! If your wondering about all those links I provided above. Yes, I do get paid for some and not for others. These links are here to help you in the process of choosing the right business model and the tools you may need. These are some of the tools I used to get me started and hope you will find them helpful.