It is now possible to create an income automation system which works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is not even a new thing either. For years people have been trying to automate systems which enable them to work less and enjoy life more. The internet has allowed this to become a reality with a simple strategy known as affiliate marketing.
Income Automation System
So what is affiliate marketing and how does this relate to an income automation system? Affiliate marketing is a business model which pays you to refer customers to other people’s products around the internet. Let’s say you go to a restaurant and recommend it to a friend. If your friend goes to the restaurant the following week, you don’t earn any income from it. However, with affiliate marketing you can refer people to products and services online. By recommending other people’s goods over the internet you can earn income based on the sales you refer.
With many products you can also earn 40% commissions based on your sales too. Digital products tend to offer larger commissions than physical products. However, you can choose anything you like to promote. This article, for example, links to certain products and services. If I make a sale from this, I earn a commission.
The ‘automation’ of the income automation system, is the internet. By creating content, like this article, you can benefit from sales which come from work you have done previously. Once this article is published, it can generate website traffic and lead to sales, all on autopilot.
Generating Website Traffic
An ‘income automation system’ which uses the affiliate business model must generate traffic. Without people to purchase products, there is no income. So without traffic to your content, there can be no sales. Generating website traffic is therefore one of the most important factors in building an income automating system. There are several ways to do this including both paid for traffic and ‘free’ traffic.
Paid for website traffic is the quickest way to get started with an online business. Paid traffic can simply be ‘turned on’ like a tap. You can learn how to do this in my ebook The Ultimate Guide To Online Marketing. Paid traffic can be built up over time using several different online advertising platforms:
- Google Adwords
- Bing
- Yahoo
- Linkedin, etc
There are various online advertising platforms which anyone can use using direct response marketing. Direct response marketing can allow you to target specific search queries or demographics of your most likely customers.
Then there is content creation. This article is an example of content creation. You can also create videos and run seminars, podcasts and so on. Generation value is the best way to attract new customers. However, let’s go back and look at the how of an income automation system. Paid advertising is a part, but what are we going to advertise which will generate an income automation system?
E-commerce – Selling Products On The Internet
There’s thousands being spent at this very moment on transactions which are happening on the internet. You can be a part of it too with a clever business known as affiliate marketing. Affiliates place themselves in between the customer and the product, by either recommending, reviewing or directly linking to products around the internet. You can choose any products you like just as long as there is an affiliate program.
Amazon offers an affiliate program anyone can join. Once you have joined an affiliate program you can promote any products you like. Simply log in to your account and you will be given a personalised affiliate code which will ‘track’ any sales which you have made.
However, before you get started selling physical products, it’s important to know what you are doing. Unless you get the right training from the get-go, you can find yourself lost down the many ‘rabbit holes’ which affiliate marketing can lead you.
Digital Products Vs. Physical Products
Digital products offer another benefit to affiliate marketers too. Digital products carry less costs. They require no storage other than digital storage and don’t need to be physically sent to customers. As such they carry less inherent costs. They can be delivered over the internet for free and this means the affiliate (you) can get a larger chunk of the profits.
Digital products tend to offer up to and even above 40% commissions. This means for a products selling for $100 you can earn $40. That’s for a product you don’t even own. The added benefit from affiliate products is that you don’t need to deliver the products personally or even speak to any customers.
This is done by the product owner. You are simply referring people to products, which are then delivered by the product owner. This is how affiliate marketing fits into the income automation system criteria. Once everything is set up and you can direct people to products online, you can simply concentrate on promotion, or advertising.
A Digital Business System
The automation of sales of online products is simple. You simply build a website and point people to products. But what are the best products to promote and what is the best way to promote them?
When I first thought about an income automation system, it was after I had bought a simple ebook from eBay. This idea, of a digital download product led me to discover a much better business model. I wasn’t until I had failed miserably over and over again did I realise the main problems associated with generating an income automation system:
- Products
- Education/training
These were the main problems. I tried to create my own products at first – thinking I could make my own ebook based around what I knew about eBay. Previously I had bought a similar book myself which taught me a simple eBay strategy: how to start a profitable eBay business. I also made a couple of other ebooks which never sold. My problem wasn’t the ebooks themselves – it was marketing. I didn’t know how to market online.
Even when I did start generating sales online they were short lived. I didn’t make nearly enough from the small value items I was promoting. What I didn’t know could have filled several football fields! I was struggling in the dark with no-one to help! I couldn’t get enough traffic to my websites and the products I was promoting were flawed.
Products And Training
With the right products and the right training everything is much simpler and much faster. I was promoting products which would only make me $40 on a sale. It took a huge amount of work before I even made my first sale online. What I later discovered is to choose products which offer multiple streams of income. For example, just by choosing products with subscriptions you can earn regular amounts from previous sales. No-one had explained this to me. I was wasting a lot of time and energy promoting the wrong products in the wrong way!
The right products could carry on earning money even after a single sale because of:
- Subscriptions
- Up-sells
- A built in sales team
- Multiple products in a ready made sales funnel
The training speaks for itself too. Knowing your course online is a massive benefit. Without proper direction and training it’s very difficult to succeed with an online business.
Access a ready built sales funnel, tools, software and training for your success online here.