For a long time, I desperately wanted to know how to be a successful affiliate marketer. After all, so many affiliates seemed to be having success. Why not me? I studied various methods of affiliate marketing and all kinds of methods for making money on the internet; from affiliate marketing, to Google Adsense and I even created some of my own products.
Success seemed to elude me for so long though, partly because I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I wondered why affiliate marketing does not work, and almost gave up many times. I eventually found a affiliate marketing mentor and things began to change. Slowly but surely things turned around. It took a lot of failing for me, but success can be reached far more quickly. You don’t need to fail as many times as I did!
How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer – A Scalable Model
Before I was even thinking about how to be a successful affiliate marketer, I started out buying and selling from eBay. I soon realised that I needed to be able to use the global reach of the internet to sell digital products. This was a key moment for me. I had been working away at a business model which, although had tapped into the global nature of the internet, didn’t capitalise on one of the internet’s best features – scalability.
Here’s the strategy I used to sell on eBay. In short it relied on finding bargain items using a misspell search tool, and then re-selling it back on eBay with the correct spelling, more keywords and better listing. It worked almost every time and I made a profit on many items before I looked for something else. I had bought an ebook to teach me this method, and although it worked, the ebook idea seemed better to me.
The items I was selling relied on me buying items and re-listing them. This in itself took quite a lot of time. The ebook could be resold again and again without doing all of this. The automation of the sale was what led me to affiliate marketing. There was nothing to post out either which made the whole process much easier. Anyway, I digress! This post is about how to be a successful affiliate marketer and not about eBay.
How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer – Fail Forwards
So I started looking at selling my own eBooks. This was my first mistake because, even if I had written a masterpiece, I was still unable to sell it because I knew nothing about online marketing. I wrote a couple of ebooks about getting into the film industry. This was something I had done in the past so I thought I’d write about it. I didn’t sell a single ebook but I learned some new skills and discovered my major weakness – marketing.
After joining a couple of online courses, (which promised me infinite riches ;), I went about building multiple websites, hoping to rank them on Google selling other people’s digital products. I must have had over 100 websites at one point. A couple of products did sell too, although the successes I managed to achieved were short lived. A lot of the strategies I used required ranking my website on Google and keeping them there. This is much harder than it used to be – especially for thin, spammy websites which was my specialty ;)!
How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer – Never Quit!
What I learned from this (period of failure) was how not to go about affiliate marketing! I jumped from one topic to another, creating small niche websites on specific topics I knew nothing about! Despite all the failure, or what I like to call ‘feedback’ I kept going.
Although mostly they were failures, some of my websites did actually produce some results and it was this that kept me going. One of my first successes was a review article I wrote and published on the free blog site Hubpages.com. Reviews are good because they are usually the last thing someone reads before making a purchasing decision. The customer is in the last step of the “buying cycle”. Again, it was a short lived success, but it gave me the motivation not to quit! My article was about a piece of website building software which I had used to build a few of my websites. Each new thing I learned gave me a topic to write about.
 How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer – Obsolete Training
Many courses I bought were becoming obsolete, too. I bought a couple of training courses which relied heavily on generating organic traffic through my websites; few of which actually ranked on Google and so produced zero traffic and, (guess what?), zero sales too!
Although the strategies may have worked for the developers when they made the courses, things change quickly in the online world; especially if thousands of affiliates are creating tiny, valueless websites with little or no useful content!
Google changes quickly and relying on organic traffic for your business is a strategy which is incredibly risky. I found this out the hard way. I definitely wouldn’t write about something for the sake of building traffic any more. Writing about something which interests you is much more sustainable over the long term. Plus, if you write about something you love, your content will be far better than if you’re only creating something for the sales!
Trust On The Internet – How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer
Trust on the internet is important. After all, you really don’t know who you’re dealing with most of the time. Â I bought several courses from people who disappeared shortly after. This makes you incredibly sceptical. Why build a business on shifting sands? Each time I got burned, I lost a little more of my enthusiasm. I was a little more sceptical too. When I eventually found a legitimate company to learn marketing from, I brought all this old “baggage” with me!
Finding a company to stick to was one of my biggest hurdles online. I eventually found this company and have stuck with them ever since. That’s because I’ve actually been able to meet them and attend conferences in person. I’ve had a huge amount of value from them too. But that’s not the only reason. I found The SFM on Facebook though an advert and the marketing was spot on! The advert simply read “Struggling with your affiliate marketing business?” How could I doubt such amazing targeting? The internet was speaking to me!
How To Become A Successful Affiliate Marketer – Shiny Object Syndrome
One of the main reasons I was failing was that I didn’t have a clear path. I would wander about jumping from one ‘shiny object’ to another. Once I found a path which I could stick to, things began to fall in place. The SFM focuses on mindset a lot. A lot of their training is based around mindset. There’s good reason for this too and I’m still learning how important it is.
One of the reasons I failed so many times was that my mind wasn’t focused on the right activities. I worked incredibly hard and for a long time but it was on the wrong activities. I was studying continually, without putting my theory into practice – the perpetual student. See also my article on affiliate marketing mistakes newbies should avoid.
Even now, I’m learning to let go of my favourite activities, and focus on more meaningful and powerful actions to make my business move forwards more quickly and easily.
How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer – The Right Business Model
All of the best intentions in the world won’t help you with the wrong business model. I found this out the hard way. I blogged for years without success, not knowing what I was doing wrong. Having the right business model can make a huge difference in your ability to make the internet your sole source of income. Without the right approach and business model, you’ll make hard work of what should be a simple, straight forward business.
Having a range of products within your sales system is key. For a long time I promoted products with only a single commission. If I had only got the right information years ago, things would be so different now! I sold products which only gave me a single commission. Now, I sell products which offer a lifetime value to customers. This is one way to work smart. A product ‘suite’ can allow you to continue to make sales month after month, even after you’ve made your initial referral. Using the strategies below, you can make much more of your affiliate business that by only selling single point of sale products:
- Choose to promote subscription products
- Promote a range of products which have up-sells – Products sold later to existing customers
- Promote subscription products and earn continually from each customer
- Use high ticket products to increase profits and offset advertising costs – this makes paid advertising more viable too.
- Having a built in sales team closing sales on your behalf.
You can benefit from all of these features with this program.
How To Become A Successful Affiliate Marketer – The Right Approach
The right approach to affiliate marketing is also massively important. Decide it’s going to be a ‘hobby’ business and you can make a ‘hobby’ wage. Choose to really go for it, and the internet can exceed all your expectations. Is this a business for you or a hobby?
Your circumstances do determine what you can do with an online business. I took the long route of blogging before I changed gears and speeded the process up with paid advertising. With a business model like the one described above, this is much more do-able. Smaller, low priced products don’t allow this option. You can’t use paid advertising with low priced items. or, at least, it will be much more difficult.
But for many people affiliate marketing is an option because they don’t have the money they need. That produces a bit of a dilemma. How can you pay for advertising with an online business when money is your biggest problem? The answer is to start very small a learn your ‘craft’. Top affiliate marketers who pay out tens of thousands a month for advertising didn’t start there. They started with a few small adverts at a budget they could afford to lose. They learned what worked and what didn’t work first. Checkout my book on paid advertising below.
How To Become A Successful Affiliate Marketer – Blogging
Finding a niche in the market is another alternative to going down the paid route. Although I struggled for years with this strategy, many make it work if they find a niche topic which isn’t too competitive. This is much harder than you might think though. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve got a topic you know about and are passionate about. Here’s a strategy which I picked up from doing niche websites years ago. I write my blog topics with the keywords in mind. You can check it out in my ebook Niche Blogging For Profit below. If you’re reading this article, it might because this strategy has actually worked – especially if you’ve found this article through the organic search engines.
How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer – Develop The Owner, Not The Business
For far too long, I spent time on my business, not on myself. Little did I know the source of many of my failures was what was lurking in front of the monitor – me! Again, this comes down to mindset to an extent. But it’s far bigger than that too. Unless you’re actively working on yourself, you’re probably going to suffer in your business because of a few internal battles:
- Your business is limited by you – Your thinking in particular; It simply can’t grow beyond your self image
- Who you spend time with – your well meaning friends and relatives might be sabotaging your vision and passion for a life of time and financial freedom see why your friends and family don’t want you to succeed.
- Your limited knowledge and awareness will hold you back and allow you make bad decisions
Surround yourself with people who are better at this business than you. Develop your self image (read Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho-cybernetics). Develop your understanding of affiliate marketing too, and whatever model you are choosing to use.
How To Become A Successful Affiliate Marketer – What Is Success To You?
Digital technology has already allowed many people to live lives of complete financial and time freedom. Does this sound possible to you? Perhaps not. We have been conditioned to think in a certain way, even if we think we are free. What would your friends and family say if you became financially free?
Would they be happy for you? Why do many lottery winners lose their money in only a short time? Often they find that the money ruins their friendships and relationships. They lose interest in life because suddenly they lose their purpose. Partly though it is because their self image is not capable of seeing themselves as having money, or deserving money.
Work gives us purpose. How would your life be different if you didn’t need to work? The industrial age created a working ethic which had people competing for the ‘hardest worker’ award! Working gives people a sense of who they are. Do you think you should struggle, and if so for how long? Your answers to these questions can give you an awareness of how you see yourself and how you relate yourself to work, what you deserve and money.
How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer – Summary
Still wondering how to be a successful affiliate marketer? Being successful is different for everyone. Some see only money, but others need something more to see themselves as a success. Knowing what success means to you is a huge asset if you’re trying to achieve it.
For affiliate marketers the goal is usually monetary success. But to attain this, you also need to become the person you need to be. How to be a successful affiliate marketer will be different for everyone. In short I would suggest finding a good mentor, using a ready made sales funnel and learning strategies which can be scaled up.
Even if it takes you a few years to learn, scalable strategies will serve you far better in the long run. Content can’t be scaled up as quickly and easily as paid strategies. However, it does depend on your current circumstances too. I started with lots of time and no money. So I used my time to learn many online skills. Developing yourself is a great use of your time, of course. “If you put your wallet into your mind, no one can take it away from you.”
If you do nothing else, get this book and study it. In Stuart Lichtman’s How To Get Lots Of Money For Anything Fast is probably the best book I have read on goal setting and unconscious mind programming. What’s key to your success is aligning your values with your goals. If you succeed in anything, make sure it’s the right kind of success for you! Otherwise, you might find yourself in a situation you don’t like, because you chased the money without considering the many other knock on effects of your actions. Also, the path to your success is unique to you. This book will help you remove many of your unconscious mind ‘blockers’, which hold you in an old paradigm or pattern of belief and behaviour.
Access a digital business system and online business community here and meet my personal mentors. Good luck on your affiliate journey and please leave a comment if this article has been helpful! Best wishes, Tim.