Five Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is discovering a new boom as more and more people struggle with the economy and are looking for different ways to supplement their income. I have recently seen a substantial upswing in the number of new affiliates needing services for their affiliate marketing business.
I began to think about what it is I’d wish someone had told me when I first began my own affiliate marketing. Of course, what was working back in 1997, isn’t the norm for today’s affiliate marketer. Today, the internet advertising world has a much different outlook that it did 10 years ago. And even 2 years ago. I finished thinking about what I wish I had known and then began to put it into today’s context.
My original list looked something like this;
1. Don’t expect big money your first week. Man, that was a big letdown.
2. Make your email list a priority. Yeah, there was a lot of marketing done by email back in the day.
3. Learn Pay Per Click Marketing. I really lost a lot of money with PPC marketing when I first started. I should have taken the time to learn PPC first before jumping in.
4. Work with affiliate products you are passionate about. I made a huge mistake for signing up for every single affiliate program out there thinking that the profits would be astronomical. Not so much.
5. Don’t buy everything that comes your way! This is where I wasted a lot of money. I thought that you positively had to buy every single product focused towards affiliate marketing. I wanted to like the big boys and figured the only way to do that was to buy their stuff. Again… not so much.
That’s what I would have loved to have been told before starting my affiliate marketing journey 13 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of time, money, and grief. Today, though I wonder if any of that would have changed. As I stated, after thinking about then I changed my focus to now.
What is it that affiliates might wish they were told when they started out in the 2009 era of affiliate marketing?
1. Don’t expect big money your first week out… or even first few months. This is a timeless principle. So many people get started with the false impression that they’re going to make tens of thousands of dollars their week online. It just doesn’t happen. It might take months, and even longer, to see some type of profit coming in from your marketing. At least “get rid of job” income. These people then get discouraged and quite before they even get started.
2. Prioritize your list… but make it your RSS list. Times have changed. While having an email list is still a viable advertising tool for your website, things are shifting towards ease of use. RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a great way to view content from a website as they are updated. Yes, you need to have special reader, but most people are using services like Google Reader so it is becoming more and more mainstream. Build an email list, but start putting your efforts into building your RSS list.
3. Be active in social media. Here’s something that didn’t exist 13 years ago. Or even 3 years ago. Social media marketing has really made its presence known in the internet marketing world. Affiliates who are in specific niches, should make it a big priority to become involved in online groups that cater to these niches. Facebook and Twitter are great ways to find people involved in your niche.
But, finding them isn’t just the key. You need to be active in them. Make a voice for yourself and be someone who others will look to for advice and help.
4. Be a content creating fool. Content in the form of article marketing wasn’t real big back 13 years ago. But, in the last 7 to 8 years it has been a staple of affiliate marketing. Search engines pretty much rule the world and if you want your site to have any kind of authority it must be ranked high on the major ones. The only way to do that is to be a content creating fool. Articles and ebooks are a great way to add to the content of your site. Videos, however, are quickly becoming the choice of content for many affiliate marketers.
5. Work with products you are passionate about. Just as in my previous list, I really believe affiliates today must be told to do get involved with niches, or affiliate products, you are passionate about. This will help you for two major reasons.
First… you will feel like putting your efforts into something that you actually like.
Second… you have a headstart in creating content because you already know something about the topic.
Just by clearing those two hurdles right off the bat you have greatly reduced your learning curve!
Affiliate marketing can be a lot of fun when the stress level, discouragements, and frustrations can be kept to a minimum. If you’re getting into affiliate marketing, or have been for awhile, are these things that you wish you were told? What would you add to the list?
