Is it possible to earn a significant amount of income from affiliate marketing without a large email list, a well-known blog, or a large social media following?
Yes! If you’re willing to learn a few simple tactics.
First of all, just in case you’re new to the whole concept of affiliate marketing, here’s my quick explanation…
Affiliate marketing is simply being paid commissions for referring people to products or programs.
That’s the simple way to understand it, but there are several ways people approach affiliate marketing.
- Some affiliate marketers purchase pay-per-click advertising and send it to affiliate links, which is why many of the ads for products you see on Google and other places aren’t actually placed by the company, but by a middle-man hoping to earn commissions.
- Others build niche websites about things like espresso machines or the best Christian books to buy and then use search engine optimization to draw traffic from people searching for products. It takes longer, but it’s a viable approach.
- And still others build a brand, a platform, that allows them not only to influence the culture themselves but also to recommend the products other leaders might be sharing.
I do almost none of the first kind, some of the second, and a lot of the third.
KEEP READING BELOW…
You probably participate in affiliate marketing all the time without realizing it. If you book travel through any number of popular travel websites, or if you use coupon websites, or if you read reviews of things before buying from Amazon or Walmart or some other online retailer, you’ve no doubt clicked affiliate links, made purchases, and someone was paid a commission for that referral.
So affiliate marketing is the art and science of learning how to attract people to offers for products and programs created by other people so that, when they make purchases, you get paid.
I’ve dabbled in affiliate marketing for a decade, but really didn’t take it seriously until the fall of 2016. That year, I learned a few tricks and earned several hundred dollars.
With my initial affiliate marketing efforts, I had two goals…
- Pay the expenses I incurred from web hosting, email list software, etc. And back then, that was less than a hundred dollars per month.
- Pay the cable bill.
I felt that if I could reach a level where I saw a tangible kind of benefit to the work I was putting in (like paying a particular utility bill), I’d be motivated to keep going.
To my amazement, those goals were met in way less time than I’d anticipated. So I came up with a bigger goal. I decided I’d keep working on my affiliate marketing skills until I could pay our mortgage payment each month with affiliate marketing income.
Somewhere in the middle of 2017, I surpassed that goal.
Yes. It’s a little mind-blowing the kind of income you can begin to generate as you get better in internet marketing.
Let me be ultra-clear… I do NOT believe in “set-it-and-forget-it” “push-button” systems that “force buyers to put cash in your bank account.” Yes, those phrases are used on various sales pages. If you run across them, click away.
You won’t get rich quick. It won’t be easy. It doesn’t happen overnight.
It takes time. You have to learn the ropes, increase your knowledge, get over your fear, set up systems, spend money on software, advertising, and training. And after all of that – as with any legitimate business – you can indeed earn a significant amount of income from affiliate marketing.
There are no guarantees, but the probability of earning increases dramatically when you get the right education from the right sources and take the right next steps.
It builds. It snowballs. And it can start long before you have a large email list or a ton of fans on your social media accounts.
When it comes to building niche websites, I’ve learned a ton from an online learning community called Wealthy Affiliate.
And when it comes to recommending helpful products as a leader, writer, blogger, influencer, or whatever, I’ve learned a ton from one guy in particular – Matt McWilliams.
Matt runs a podcast called The Affiliate Guy, so that might give you a hint as to what he’s into.
Matt’s a genius when it comes to marketing, but what I really love about Matt is that he’s genuinely nice and helpful, has high standards of integrity, and believes strongly that serving people and adding value to their lives is the foundational basis of marketing.
Right now, Matt is doing something you might be interested in taking advantage of. He’s teaching some free online workshops and giving away a special report.
Sign Up For Matt’s Free Downloads and Videos
And yes, as you can probably guess, the links in this post are affiliate links. I recommend things I believe in, and I believe you’d be greatly helped by Matt’s course if you want to dive into the right kind of affiliate marketing.
Oh, and…
