So what makes a successful affiliate marketer? Well, success of course! But before an affiliate marketer can create any kind of success, they will have to fail! Failing has a bad rep, but it’s not so bad. If a child gave up when it first fell over, it would never learn to walk. But that’s what affiliate marketers do all the time – give up too easily!
Success with affiliate marketing hasn’t come easy to me. I don’t even consider myself successful really! I’ve made a few sales as an affiliate and continue to do so, but it’s not my full time living just yet! So what qualifies me to write this article then? A good question! Mostly it’s just a dogged determination to never quit no matter what! Perhaps that’s more stupidity than resolve though? Well, only if you keep repeating the actions which don’t bring about results.
Success as an affiliate marketer comes from trying lots of things, and failing at lots of things. Eventually, some tactics will work and then you can repeat those actions. When you are spending all your time on those right activities, and you are able to automate and scale them, things begin to change rapidly.
Pareto’s Principle 80/20
Pareto’s principle is worth a mention here, because it relates directly to this idea of failing many times. Pareto’s principle can be basically described as the principle than 80% of outcomes come from only 20% of causes. In affiliate marketing, there’s a lot of actions which can come to nothing. That’s why so many people quit!
The affiliates who keep going even though much of their activity is clearly not working, are the ones who find the 20%. Once they do, they can continue working on those specific actions which create the biggest outcomes. How quickly you find those activities will depend on what you start out doing in your marketing efforts.
It’s often because they see the bigger picture of what affiliate marketing can do for them. With a short sighted view of affiliate marketing, most people will drop out because there’s no results in terms of monetary gain. If you look at every action you take as a stepping stone to financial freedom, there’s a bigger incentive in mind. In the face of multiple failures, this is what keeps people going!
So What Actually Makes Affiliates Successful?
There’s a few strategies and tactics which can make affiliate marketers successful quite quickly. For starters, if you choose to use subscription affiliate programs, you can earn ongoing income from previous sales. That’s a huge benefit to generating a stable income from the start. You can also use high commission affiliate programs too. This can help you get profitable more quickly and offset marketing costs to enable use of the more expensive platforms. Even with a few aces up your sleeves like these, you can still fail if you quit too easily!
Most affiliates give up before they even reach 1000 subscribers in their email list. Those who continue and never quit are eventually the ones who will make a living online, providing they are smart and learn from their mistakes and omissions. Affiliate marketers need a good balance between ambition and patience! As an affiliate, you’ll experience a lot of frustration. It helps to get a mentor too because you’ll have someone to ask questions of and support when you need it.
What Affiliate Strategies Are Right For You?
There’s many affiliate marketing strategies which you can use:
- Blogging – a favourite of mine because it’s low cost and I like writing
- V’logging – Video blogging is a great strategy too to get your message across and build a following
- Creating online courses – Some affiliates build course of their own
- Pod Casts – Podcasts are popular among affiliates too
- Article Marketing – Using article marketing sites such as Ezinearticles, bloggers can link back to their blogs by writing more content and sharing
- Back linking – Bloggers build back links to their content to generate more views
- Paid marketing strategies – this can be a lot of things including video marketing, article marketing or simple text adverts. This is the fastest method of generating traffic.
Even though paid marketing is the fastest method of building a email list, it’s not right for everyone. If you’re working non-stop in a job and are looking to build an online business to escape work, it’s probably a good idea to use paid marketing. But if you’re out of work or have a small income, it might not be the best idea. So depending on your particular situation, you might choose any of the above strategies according to your personal situation.
I started blogging several years ago because I had large gaps in between contract work but sporadic income. So it worked for me. Over time, as my internet business started creating an income, I could use some of it for paid marketing. I had also learned by this time which of my blog posts were producing the most sales; so I could use paid marketing for them, knowing it was more likely to have a positive effect. Throwing money at marketing with little knowledge of the outcome should be done with caution – especially if you can’t afford it!
So, What Makes A Successful Affiliate Marketer?
Success of course is a relative thing. One person’s success is different to another’s. With an online business, your success can mean you can quit your job. That’s the goal for many affiliates. Working on something you love is success too, in many ways. So, even a modest income, doing something you love, can be considered a greater success than a huge income doing something you despise – according to your point of view!
To become successful as an affiliate marketer does mean earning an income from it though. Ideally a full time income which can be scaled and automated. Ultimately an affiliate marketing business can give you total financial and geographical freedom. But initially, finding a strategy which works and which you can repeat is a worthy goal.
If you’re interested in building an online business yourself, join an online business community who can help you, and get the training, resources and instruction you need. Access a FREE 7 day video series, to learn more, which has been created by my personal mentors Jay Kubassek and Stuart Ross here.
