It always annoys me when people say any one thing is THE best thing.
Because it is almost always simply not true.
The reason is because we are all different in many ways. Our situation in life, resources, interests, obligations, experience, and our wants and needs vary greatly. Even then it changes continuously over the course of a lifetime.
So what may be the best thing for one person may be the worst thing for another.
That’s why I prefer to say that affiliate marketing MIGHT be the best thing for you to start learning and doing now. Only you can decide and only your actions will tell overtime whether that is the case of not.
Let’s see if we can get enough information together to help you figure that out.
Let’s start out with what affiliate marketing actually is.
Affiliate Marketing Defined
There are different variations of the definition but in general, when most people discuss affiliate marketing this is basically what they mean;
“A business opportunity where you market the products of others in exchange for a commission on the sales you generate.”
What it means in more practical terms is that you will create content that attracts people – some of whom will click on your affiliate links and some of those who do will buy the particular product you are marketing directly from the company selling it.
When they do, that company will pay you – as their affiliate (independent sales rep basically) – a percentage of the sale as your compensation – or your fee.
How much varies by the company and the product. It may be as little as 10% or less or as much as 50% or more. It may be a one time fee which is very common for individual sales of specific products, or it may be a recurring fee every time the customer renews an ongoing service of some kind. Typical examples include memberships and certain other subscription based products that renew monthly or annually in general.
This can be a powerful part of your business over time as you add more and more sales for which you can earn ongoing recurring fees on. For example, one sale earning you say $25 per month is nice but not that impressive, right?
But imagine what can happen if you can add 50 or 100 or more sales with all of them earning you $25 EACH month, month after month – with you continuously adding a few more to the number every month.
You do not own the product or the service – nor do you have to supply it or maintain it. All you have to do is produce content, attract people who may be interested, and from among them drive sales through your links and you get paid.
Another way to think of affiliate marketing and to begin to better wrap your head around it is to think of it like a real estate agent – the agent doesn’t own the house he or she is selling – but they market it to prospective buyers they find through their own efforts.
That may be signs in the yards, advertisements online and in papers, billboard ads, radio ads, signs on their vehicles and other things they do – all that attract people (prospects) to them who they then tell about the products (homes) they have available (listings). When someone buys one of those homes the agent gets a percentage of the sales price as their fee – or commission. In real estate, it’s a little more complex because the fee actually goes to the broker and the broker pays the agents because of regulatory requirements.
Yet from a practical point of view the agent conducted marketing efforts that resulted in a sale and that resulted in the agent receiving a fee based on the sale in the form of a commission. Make sense so far?
Affiliate marketing works something like that – but better!
With affiliate marketing, you can sign up with multiple different companies and choose what products you wish to market. How and when you market them is up to you – and most of it can be automated through using websites, blogs, videos, and other things that can provide the information buyers want 24/7/365 even while you sleep – along with your links.
When they buy you earn.
Unlike real estate – you do NOT need any special license nor do you need any mandatory and expensive classes, or to pass a licensing exam, nor do you have to find and affiliate under a licensed broker before you can even attempt to get your first sale.
Many years ago I got my agent’s license and started selling real estate part-time while I was still in the military. Before I could even try to sell the first home I had to attend principles of real estate class, complete the class pass an exam for the course, and then go take and pass a state licensure exam. All this took a lot of time and cost me several hundred dollars.
As an agent typically state laws require you to be affiliated with (working under their authority and control) a licensed broker – so you have to find a broker that will “hire” you and let you hang your license with their firm. I say hire loosely because you are not an employee in the typical sense at all but an independent sales associate who only gets paid after you produce a sale and then only after the check clears the bank for the broker who then pays you a percentage of that transaction.
There are usually 2 brokers and 2 agents involved in each transaction with each one taking a slice out of the pie so to speak, so what may seem like a huge commission is actually not what the typical agent gets. It’s usually about 1/4 of the total commission amount, and even that may take 30, 45, or 60 days or so before the agent ever sees a penny of it!
The point is not to bang on real estate (quite the opposite really since I actually love real estate and have years of past experience as an investor, an agent, a broker, and property manager), but I just want to illustrate that there are a lot more fees, hoops and hurdles and time requirements to get started as an agent. It is not a bad business either (during normal times anyway) but it is just a very different business with different requirements – in part requiring you to have both significant amounts of money and time to even attempt.
Affiliate marketing is much cheaper to get started in, there are no mandatory state exams, no licenses, and no broker affiliation requirements. Anyone anywhere can become an affiliate marketer if they truly want to.
The main things you need are a computer, an internet connection, and some serious drive and determination.
In fact, you can even get started as an affiliate marketer for FREE! Sound interesting?
In a minute or two I will tell you how you can do that, but first, let me tell you a little more about affiliate marketing and why it might be the right online business opportunity for you.
Almost all major companies and even most smaller companies that have products or services to offer now use affiliate programs to help them produce more sales – they do so because affiliate marketing works!
When it does they get more sales they would not have gotten otherwise and which do not cost them anything until a sale is made as the result of an affiliate marketer’s efforts.
Think about that.
With in-house salespeople, they have to be paid no matter what if they are hourly or salaried. Even if they are commission-only (like most real estate agents and others) they still have to provide resources to them which costs the company money and time whether or not they are productive salespeople.
When they want to run ads themselves and do other marketing efforts those things take money, they take time and they take up other resources – all with no guarantee of any payoff.
With affiliates, they have no such additional costs or liabilities. The affiliate manages his or her self and drives the traffic that leads to the purchases. The company only has any cost AFTER results are achieved and after a sale has been made!
That makes it a huge win for the company and a huge win for the affiliate too!
But what about the customer?
Its a win for the customer too, and now we will look at why it is.
Affiliate Marketing Benefits to the Customer
The key benefit is specialized information that helps them make their own decision to buy or not.
Let’s take Bob Wells from Cheap RV Living as one example.
I will pick on Bob because he is one of the earliest affiliate marketers I found that made an impact on me, and as a result lead me to start researching and looking into affiliate marketing myself – so Thanks Bob!
Anyway, back to the story.
If you read Bob’s blog (www.cheaprvliving.com) or watch his videos on YouTube you will see he has affiliate links in his posts and in the description of his videos for the products he showed or discussed in his content.
So let’s say for example he was doing a tour of a van conversion in a video. The van has a very nice solar system installed which the van’s owner explains and shows in the video. Somewhere along the way, Bob mentions that you can find the solar panels, charge controller, and the batteries (and other components, etc.) in the links below.
Assuming you are seriously interested and maybe doing your own build – you go click the link – that takes you to Amazon (or where ever the thing is for sale at) where you can buy your own. If you buy it (or in some cases anything else) then Bob will receive a fee based on that sale.
Keep in mind it won’t cost you any more at all – and even if you had gone to the item on Amazon directly on your own you would pay the same price – or more. Some sellers even allow discounts for the buyers who use an affiliates link, so they get it even cheaper – and the affiliate makes a small fee all in the same transaction. So by clicking Bob’s link, he makes a little bit of money without it costing you anything extra, and in some cases, you may even save a few bucks too.
If Bob did a good tour and provided good information as part of his content – even if that information came from the van owner in the video – Bob’s video/content is what made you aware of it at that time, and why you clicked the link. So his affiliate marketing efforts are successful in that case.
You received useful information from Bob that helped you make that buying decision – and let you know where to get the thing.
That makes it a win for you too as the customer!
This is another key point – only market and recommend things you know are a good deal for your buyers and that will add value to their lives in exchange for a fair price. In other words, do not just go out and start promoting all kinds of scammy junk that is of no value and which you know nothing at all about but are just promoting because it offers a big fee/commission.
So when affiliate marketing is done right it is a WIN-WIN-WIN deal for the seller, the affiliate, and the customer. Pretty good huh?
That is basically how affiliate marketing works.
Of course, there are many different methods, tactics, and various ways to approach it – but that should at least begin to give you a better idea of what affiliate marketing is really all about.
What You Need to Know Before You Start Your Own Affiliate Marketing Business
The first thing I want you to know is that while it is a great Income Production Opportunity and one I think you should seriously consider – it is not a get rich quick scheme.
It does take time and it takes effort – meaning plenty of hard work.
People are not just going to flock to your links and start buying stuff you are marketing simply because you did a 500-word blog post or made a video or two – or at least they won’t do so consistently and at enough of a scale to make more than just a little money now and again.
You have to produce content and drive traffic to that content at enough scale to begin to produce sales consistently and predictably. That usually takes some work and time – and therein lies the problem for a great many people.
People are looking for ways to get rich quick and easy. Not for things that make them do work and that take time. That’s why most people who try affiliate marketing WILL FAIL.
The truth is that you will almost always have to put in a ton of time and effort – real work – all upfront for weeks and even months, all before you begin to make even your first dollar from it. When you do it will more likely be just that – a dollar or two, and not much more. It will start as a trickle and then increase gradually over time as you produce more and more content (and better content) and have more and more links in various places over time.
So if you are looking to build yourself a real business with affiliate marketing you can do it – but only if you are willing to do the work and put in the time needed to make it happen. In other words – it is much like any other real business, it requires real work.
The beauty is that unlike most other businesses affiliate marketing can be started for very little money at all – and even for FREE!
That’s what I suggest you do, to begin with, and try it for free. Start learning affiliate marketing, start producing FREE content, and see how you like it before you start investing any money into it.
Now to be sure there are plenty of courses and sources of information, training, coaching and other things that will charge you hundreds or even thousands of dollars upfront for access to what they offer all before you even have any idea whether you really want to be in affiliate marketing or not.
In my opinion – that is a serious mistake.
Having said that – it is your money and your time – so do as you choose.
My number one recommendation and what I recommend you do instead is to join Wealthy Affiliate for FREE and start taking the classes, getting to know the community – and getting to know me better too, and then decide if you want to keep at it.
Once you know the basics you can begin signing up with companies who have products you want to market and promote. Then you can start creating content for free.
How?
Pinterest, Instagram, YourTube, Kindle, and Udemy – that’s how. Thre are other ways too, but that is more than enough to get the point across.
Of course, you need to know how to do it and that you can begin learning inside Wealthy Affiliate for free, and then if you decide to join as a paying member and become a Premium Member of WA you can do so on either a monthly basis or annual membership.
Currently, the monthly membership (at the time I am writing this – so check it now!) is only $49 and for that, you get an incredible amount of training through online courses at your own schedule and pace, live training through webinars which you can view live and participate in – or watch the recorded version of it later, website hosting, website templates, pictures for your posts, a huge community that is very active, supportive and friendly and so much more too.
Like I said – you can try it FREE before you pay a single dollar – and you do NOT need a credit/debit card or any payment info to get a FREE membership. Even with the free membership for the first few days, you have complete access to ALL the features. You get to test drive it all and try it out so you can decide if it’s worth the cost to you to go Premium or not.
Even if you don’t you can still stay a member for Free – but you will lose many of the key benefits like being able to communicate with the community, ask questions, get help, advice, and feedback. But you will still have access to all kinds of information and training all free – and that makes it a huge benefit with nothing at all to risk or lose, so why not at least give it a try?
Affiliate Marketing Learning Options
You have some choices to consider when thinking about how you want to learn and start your own affiliate marketing business.
Affiliate Marketing Training Option 1 ;
You could try to learn and do it all on your own, by yourself and alone – though I do not recommend it – it is an option.
To do that you would need to watch countless YouYube videos, some good, some terrible, and most in the middle. You might also want to read several eBooks and books from Amazon and or your local book store.
There are thousands of blogs, millions of posts, and countless podcasts and other sources of information for you to find and sift through too. It is a massive amount of information – and often contradictory.
One person will tell you you should be doing this or that and that it is a critical secret to your affiliate marketing success – then the next video you watch will tell you NOT to do those very same things or you will certainly fail!
So who do you believe?
What works and what doesn’t and how in the world are you supposed to figure out which things to lean and implement and which other things you should avoid like the plague (or coronavirus)?
Without a guide, a mentor, a coach, and without a community, it is almost impossible. Some do though, and over time they do eventually figure out enough to make progress – usually after many years of struggling and thousands of lost dollars. If you choose that route I do wish you the best of luck.
Affiliate Marketing Training Option 2;
Buy a high ticket course from an affiliate marketing guru for several hundred dollars upfront, or join a membership that runs the same way, with a bunch of courses that are going to teach you all of the “SECRETS” to affiliate marketing and which will only set you back somewhere between $900 to about $3000 – or even more.
While most of these things are junk and just basic information packaged as mastery level stuff and marketed to desperate people looking for get rich quick opportunities – there are a FEW such programs that are actually decent information. But there are problems even then.
The first is that when you don’t know much if anything at all about Affiliate Marketing and online businesses it is almost impossible for you to tell a legitimate opportunity from a complete scam.
The next problem is that a good course – among the few that exist in the high dollar brackets – is often not geared to complete beginners and much of what they teach (even though it is accurate and true) will not make any sense to you and will be very hard for you to actually use because you do not yet have the basic foundational knowledge and skills that you need to be able to build upon.
Problem number three – if this is all new to you – then the truth is that you do not know whether you will like this business or whether you will hate it.
There are lots of little tasks that have to be done such as researching keywords, writing and creating content consistently, researching and gathering information for that content, finding and optimizing images for your posts, creating videos (if you choose) making thumbnails, adding tags and writing descriptions, and on and on it goes. Not to mention sourcing, choosing, and linking specific products to market in the first place (you do want to eventually get paid don’t you?) all of which you need to know enough about to intelligently describe and market in the first place. That means research.
Sometimes it means actually using the thing and testing its features and documenting it all.
I could write a book about this topic alone – but the point is, and the fact is that you do not know whether you will even like this business or not if you have never tried it!
Do you want to spend several hundred – or several thousand dollars to find out it isn’t the right business for you and that you don’t want to pursue it further?
In my book that is a bad way to do it – but it is your choice and it is an option, albeit an expensive one!
Affiliate marketing Training Option 3 – My Number One Recommendation for You
Get started today completely for FREE!
Start your free training with Wealthy Affiliate.
Try out the training, take a look around, and talk to as many current members of a huge community as you wish before you spend a single dollar or wast a ton of your valuable time.
You can see all of the courses, even start taking some of them and you can test out all of the resources available to you. You will even have a chance to build your own websites from the ground up – for FREE too – though I do recommend that you do so as just a test until you know you want to pursue it further. Never the less the experience can be invaluable to you.
Think of it another way – when its totally and completely free – and you do not have to provide any credit or debit card or payment information at all to sign up for the free access – what have you possibly got to lose?
The answer is NOTHING!
You have nothing at all to lose – and potentially everything to gain from taking a look. That way you can make an informed decision on whether you think affiliate marketing is the best opportunity for you right now or not.
If it is then you will know exactly what to do and what steps to take to take next to begin seriously building your own affiliate marketing business. And if it isn’t right for you – at least it will not have cost you any money to find that out, and you can move on and find something else that is more fitting for you right now.
Either way, you win.
I will take it a step further and tell you that I know this is such a good opportunity for you that I think you should at least give it a try and find out whether you like it or not – even if you choose to sign up under someone else other than me!
How many affiliates or salespeople have you ever found that tell you that1
You need to try Wealthy Affiliate even if you don’t use my links!
I mean it – it is the best opportunity I have ever found anywhere for getting started with your own online passive income-generating business – a real business of your own – and that can be life-changing for you and your family IN SO MANY WAYS. The things you can learn inside WA will help you build ANY OTHER BUSINESS that you can imagine too. Think about it. You are going to learn about marketing, about how to build and maintain a website (or multiple sites), and how to use multiple other platforms to attract and drive traffic. All skills that will serve you well in any business.
Of course, I would rather you sign up using my links – and I do have some additional incentives and rewards for you if you do – but as I said it is such a great opportunity for you I just want you to try it no matter how you get it!
You really do need to at least get in and give it a try. It might change your life.
OK, enough of that for now.
Your move.
The ball is in your court and it is time for you to make some decisions.
The first is will you join Wealthy Affiliate today or not?
The next is do you want my personal help and support from day one and from now on so long as you remain a member of WA or not?
Inside WA I comment on blog posts and I answer some questions as I have time, as well as write articles and posts routinely fro the community there that anyone can access where they are free or premium members – whether part of my personal network or whether they were referrals from other members, etc. So, everyone there has access to that.
What You Get By Joining L.D. Sewell’s Personal SDS WA Network
Beyond that, you can get much more help by joining through my links and becoming a member of my network. Even when you do so just trying the FREE membership – you are still part of my personal WA network.
So you get all kinds of benefits immediately.
First of all, you get all the benefits of WA itself which is a great membership and an excellent training platform with countless resources available to you immediately.
So you get all that.
But it is far better with a personal guide and mentor. When you use my links to join I will personally help you within WA. Even as a free member.
If you decide Affiliate Marketing is the path you want to pursue and if you decide to join as a Premium member then you will automatically become a member of my own Success Driven (SD) WA Network, and you get access to far more than what WA offers too!
Next, you get access to additional training, courses and content that is created by me and is exclusively for my own SD WA network, my students and my group members only – including resources and training that is NOT available to anyone else inside or outside Wealthy Affiliate unless they are members of my personal SD WA network.
You also have opportunities to consult with me personally – both one on one and in small groups with other network members and students via Skype or Zoom periodically to help you keep making progress and doing better systematically from the beginning and for as long as you wish to remain a Premium member of WA.
You will also have direct access to me via email, so whenever you have an issue or a concern shoot me a personal email and I will respond within 24 hours usually. You can also message me inside WA – whichever you prefer.
How it works;
My programs work the same way WA does in that you can try it for free – including a personal one on one or small group consultation via skype or zoom during your first 14 days as a FREE Wealthy Affiliate member.
Then once you decide to upgrade to Premium if you decide to do so (and relax, there is no pressure at all to do so and it is totally up to you) you will continue to have access to me as your personal instructor, coach, and mentor for as long as you remain a Premium Wealthy Affiliate Member and a member of my SD WA network.
I currently teach multiple courses online as an instructor on Udemy – and you have access to ALL of my Udemy courses too at no charge so long as you are a premium member and a member of my own SD WA network. Just let me know which courses you want to take and I will provide you with a free coupon to give you access to each course you choose. This includes both my current courses on Udemy – and all future courses as I add them too!
That alone is a benefit worth THOUSANDS of dollars to you.
As a member of my SD WA Network, you will learn how to systematically and sequentially begin to Build Your Own Business Empire – right along beside me as I continue to do the same. You will learn affiliate marketing and far more than that too.
You will also learn how to create and launch your own online courses on Udemy and other platforms too! If you wish of course, and while it is optional it can dramatically increase your overall income in multiple ways.
My personal SD WA Network members will also learn about other businesses they can build and how to interconnect and interlink them all to each other too. But the foundational skills and the principles you will learn in WA and as part of affiliate marketing training are necessary for and applicable to all the other business strategies I teach. So begin at the beginning and learn the fundamentals – then proceed sequentially from there in accordance with your own goals – if you wish.
That’s another beautiful thing about owning an online business – you decide how far you want to take it. For some, it may be just to earn some additional income in addition to a primary job and as a side business or side hustle. Nothing wrong with that – and that’s fine.
Others will want to focus only on Affiliate Marketing and that will be their primary business objective – just to build their own affiliate marketing business, and even there their ideas of how far to pursue it will vary greatly from person to person. There is no right or wrong answer – it’s just whatever you choose to go after and that works for you.
Some have other primary business interests and use affiliate marketing as an addition to and as support for those business interests.
That’s me. My primary business is focused on creating and providing publications and training (courses, books, planners, and other publications along with coaching and mentoring) and building multiple streams of income from multiple sources over time.
Beyond that, I am the founder and creator of Success Driven Systems and the Success Driven Systems Planner. If you want to learn more about both you can do so here www.successdrivensystems.com.
Do keep in mind that I have just begun making the Success Driven Systems Planner available for sale in digital format only at the moment – but it will soon be available for sale as a complete ready to use planner too.
This system is something I developed over the past several decades and it is the very same system that I continue to use each and every day to track manage and control all the things I am doing so I can achieve more in less time than otherwise possible – and so can you.
When you join my network as an SD WA Premium member I will give you a free digital copy of my Success Driven Systems Planner – and I will teach you how to use it to do better in your own life daily.
Well that brings us to the end of this article my friend – and time for you to decide what to do next.
Make your choice below;
A. Join L.D. Sewell’s personal SD Wealthy Affiliate Network
B. Join Wealthy Affiliate Independently at www.wealthyaffiliate.com
C. Keep looking for some other solution
IMPORTANT NOTICE – You only get ONE CHANCE to join my personal SD Wealthy Affiliate network and that is HERE and now! If you join WA INDEPENDENTLY you will NOT have access to all the other things that I offer exclusively to my own SD Network Members, including personal coaching and mentoring, free access to my Udemy courses, a free Success Driven Systems planner and much more.
Either way is fine – just be sure you are choosing the right choice for you!
I hope to see you on the inside and regardless f what you choose I wish you all the best in all you do in business and in life!
Best regards,
L.D. Sewell