Avoid Affiliate Marketing!

I hope I got your attention.  I’ve been researching and learning about Affiliate Marketing for about 6 months.  I registered to take a course on the topic and I’ve watched a ton of YouTube videos from several different affiliate marketing entrepreneurs.

Ok, so avoiding affiliate marketing really isn’t my final conclusion.  However, there are many things to look out for when starting your affiliate marketing journey.  You may want to check out my blog, The Biggest Secret To E-Commerce and Making Money Online, for additional information.

So What’s the Issue?

The main reservation I have is the idea you’ll make a ton of money in a short period of time.  It’s widely believed when starting any business to break-even by your first year is considered successful.  Many of the YouTubers offering their advice and claiming or showing you how much money they make per day or week have been doing affiliate marketing for years!  You should expect a learning curve.  If you’re more of a techy, then your curve will be quicker than those who understand just the internet basics.

I thought my internet experience was a little higher than the basics.  However, as I started to learn about the different types of programs and tools necessary to create the proper and legitimate format for affiliate marketing, I realized it was going to take time and patience.

What Program and Tools?

Depending on your available resources to invest in your affiliate marketing efforts will determine how you will proceed.  If you have a good amount of money to invest, then you may decide to use advertising on Google, Facebook, Pinterest, and other platforms to promote your affiliate links.  However, many (if not most) of the individuals who start affiliate marketing do not have a great deal of money they wish to invest to promote their affiliate links.

This means you’ll most likely need to go the route of starting a blog.  The fastest way to do this may be through WordPress.  WordPress is an open-source software you can use to create a beautiful website, blog, or app.  Through your blog, you will need to provide content that you feel is relevant to your target audience.  Sounds easy?  Not exactly, you’ll need to optimize your blog for SEO (search engine optimization) so you can rank on the Google search engines.  This takes time even with an optimized blog.  A great plug-in to do this is Rank Math.  One other method is providing video content on YouTube.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.  Now I know you’re probably thinking you should avoid affiliate marketing.  However, that’s not the message I’m trying to relay.  My goal is for you to enter this field with your eyes open.

Speaking of YouTube…

I mentioned earlier that I follow a few YouTube entrepreneurs in the affiliate marketing field.  One of those is John Crestani.  John has been doing affiliate marketing for about 10 years.  He has a strong knowledge of the industry and provides some very good insight.  However, as you’ll see in his video, he does “hype” affiliate marketing.  There is no doubt affiliate marketing can be very lucrative, but it is important to understand that you most likely won’t be making $100,000 a month like John.  Watch his video to see what I’m referring to…

So What Now?

If you are comfortable working on your business and understand it takes time to develop then affiliate marketing may be a great field to pursue.  If you watched the video then you heard John speak about ClickBank as one of the affiliate networks you can join.  Basically, ClickBank is a marketplace where you can research and look for potential products and services to market using your own affiliate link.  They created a great resource, ClickBank University, to educate future affiliate marketers.  To learn more about ClickBank University click here.

One essential tool you will need to use is an email marketing platform to collect and email prospects and customers.  GetResponse is one of the best and easiest email marketing platforms available. GetResponse is a comprehensive marketing software platform that helps you create content, boost sales, and increase traffic to your website. Integrated email marketing, autoresponders, and landing pages let you automate essential tasks and launch effective marketing campaigns. Advanced analytics make it easy to track conversions, leads, and ROI, and learn what your customers want. Customizable template scenarios do the work for you – no coding necessary.

Finally, if you are interested in learning more about John Crestani’s course, he has a Free Webinar you can view to see if this may be an option you wish to pursue.  For more information on John’s webinar click here.

Just to Summarize…

With patience, hard work, and continuing to learn and understand the business model, affiliate marketing may be a great option for you.  Be careful of those bragging about how easy it is to make money as an affiliate marketer.  Look for reputable sources to follow and avoid impulsive actions.  Any product or service you plan to use or market will take time to learn and understand.