So far we talked about what is affiliate marketing and what are the advantages of affiliate marketing.  Today I want to talk about the pros and cons of affiliate marketing.  There are some of both.

Pros of Affiliate Marketing

1. Very little to no money invested. – This is something that most people are looking for when they start an at-home business.  You do not have to invest money into the business to get started.  That is true if you are starting out by using Squidoo lenses or free blogging platforms such as Blogger or Wordpress.com.  A more professional look is to buy a domain name from Godaddy.com and setting up a self-hosted blog on Wordpress.org.  Godaddy it will cost you about $10 for a domain name.  If you search Google for a Godaddy coupon code you will be able to purchase a domain for as little as $7.  You can get hosting for a penny the first month at Hostgator.  Hostgator packages start out as low as $7.95/mo!  That is all you need to pay to get started!
2. You can choose products that you love. – The products you choose to promote are limitless.  That being said you should stick with one niche or subject until it becomes profitable.  Lynn Terry’s Elite masterminding group with help you there!
3. It is a repeatable business. -  Once you have become successful in one niche all you have to do is go and repeat what you already did with a new niche.  So the business can be as large or small as  you would like it.
4. You can truly work from home. – You do not have to go anywhere to be an affiliate marketer.  All you need is a computer and and internet connection!  You can even have kids running around you while you do this business!
5. Freedom to walk away. – A lot of businesses you are tied to everyday.  Once you have built your business up to be profitable you will be able to go take a vacation and still earn an income.  That is the life, right?

Cons of Affiliate Marketing

1. The time you must put into the business at the beginning. – In the beginning you will need to spend a lot of time working on webpages, link building, testing and tweaking.  This is not a get rich quick scheme!  It takes time.  I like to think of it as the snow ball effect. The first month you may get up twenty product pages.  The second month you get faster and more efficient so you put up thirty pages.  At the end of the second month you now have fifty product pages out there.  If you continue at the pace of thirty a month you will have three hundred and fifty product pages.  This means it will take time for you to create them as well as get traffic to these sites but the more you create the more passive income you will receive in the future!
2. You must learn a lot about internet marketing. – If you don’t know anything about internet marketing, you will soon become an expert in this field.  You will have to master search engine optimization and link building to get all of your web pages found.  This is something that is absolutely necessary.  This may be a pro for you!
3. You must have patience and persistence. – Okay for some of you that have these characteristics it will not be a con.  But for people like me this is a constant struggle!  You will have to be persistent every day for a long while to see results.  You must be patient while you wait for your income to become a full-time income.  It will come if you learn these skills.

These are the pros and cons of affiliate marketing!  I would love to hear your view on what I missed or what you think may be the pros and cons!  No business is easy but I absolutely believe that affiliate marketing can open up a world you never imagined!  You can have financial and time freedoms!  All the work you do up front is always a means to an end!

Best to you!

PS. To help you get started in affiliate marketing the best book I have found it the Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner.

photo credit: USACE Europe District

Continuing in the affiliate marketing series this is a follow up to my post a few days ago – What is Affiliate Marketing? Today we are going to cover some of the advantages of affiliate marketing.  In other words the why?!  I have four kids and every one of them have gone through the “why?” stage.  It always drove me crazy and I often had the desire to say “Just because!”.  Just as with kids it is important to ask and answer Why?!

What are the Advantages of Affiliate Marketing for the companies?

Have you ever wondered about a new Mexican restaurant that you saw a commercial for?  The restaurant looks really good but how much does it cost?  Does the food taste just like Taco Bell or is it good traditional Mexican food? One day you are talking to the neighbor and she mentions that her family went to this restaurant last night.  You are so excited and you ask her all the questions.  It turns out it is a fabulous restaurant and even accommodate children really well!  So the next night you plan to take your family to the restaurant.

In this example the neighbor is not getting paid for her recommendation of the Mexican restaurant but she willingly gives it.  The restaurant benefits from this greatly!  Companies would rather have personal recommendations given they pay the high costs of advertising.  People look at commercials skeptically but when someone you know recommends it you are very likely to use a product or service.  As an encouragement companies will pay people to recommend their stuff! It ends up being a win-win situation. Read more »

If you have followed me in my journey to find a business I love you know that I have decided to focus on affiliate marketing. When I talk about it do you ever wonder, what in the heck is affiliate marketing?  Maybe you don’t but I want to help those that don’t get it.

In the last few months I have been talking to people that I know, but don’t know what I do.  When I tell them I work at home doing affiliate marketing I always, back that statement up by asking them if they know what that is.  Most of the time they say “No”.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

By definition from Websters Online Dictionary and affiliate is: “A subordinate or subsidiary associate; a person who is affiliated with another or with an organization.”  This is absolutely true an affiliate is someone who has associated with a retail company or someone selling a product.  Now affiliate marketing is marketing for that company or person.

You become an affiliate by applying to an affiliate program.  You can go to affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Click bank or Pepper Jam Network. These networks have many companies and products that you can become affiliates for. In other words sell their products and get paid for it.  Each company and program will offer a different percentage of commission for products that are sold through your link. You can also find a company or product you want to be an affiliate for and contact them to see if they have an affiliate program. The Super Affiliate Handbook goes into great detail about this.

How do you market a product or program?

Okay, so you have picked out one product or service and are now their affiliate.  What do you do now? You can market a product or program in many, many different ways.  The key is to have someone to talk to that would be interested in what you have to offer.  A few ways you can promote a product is with a blog, a mailing (e-mail) list, forums, an e-book, all of these things and others!

How in the world do I get paid for affiliate marketing?

When you sign up for an affiliate program you are given your own unique URL or website link.  When you are promoting this product or service to your market you use that link in your blog post, Facebook message, Twitter message, etc.  For example say my niche is Barbie dolls.  I sign up for Mattel as an affiliate.  I have a link that looks like this: http://mattel.com/aid=12349.  Now that number at the end is my member identification or affiliate number.  When I am talking about Barbie dolls on my blog, the Barbie Doll Collector, I would hyper link an image and/or the word Barbie dolls to the my affiliate link: http://mattel.com/aid=12349.

So far, so good right? Now if someone clicks on that link and buys something from Mattel you will get the 4% commission on whatever they buy.  So if they buy a collectors doll for $100 you will get paid $4.

Get the idea?  Now if you have a list of moms who want to work at home or maybe want to have their own blog you can offer them a start up guide that is free and include links to GoDaddy for the domain, Hostgator for hosting, maybe Aweber for a list management system and maybe a mom mastermind forum like Mom Masterminds.

How do you make a lot of money doing this?

Great question!  You create multiple product pages or posts on your blog, reports, e-books, articles, Squidoo lenses.  Cover all of the social media sites with great content free and paid when you do, include your affiliate links.  Make sure you follow the rules on forums and other social media sites when you do this but there are so many things you can do with affiliate links!  At NAMS we talked about strategies for social marketing.  This is a great way to get yourself out there and also an opportunity to share your affiliate links.

I hope this answers the question: what is affiliate marketing. If you have any other questions let me know!  If you want to see someone who has been very successful in affiliate marketing check out this interview of Lynn Terry. This is a PDF transcript of an interview Nicole Dean did of Lynn Terry.  This was my very first introduction to Lynn and as you know I am a huge fan!

Best,

PS. If you are going to take a serious look at doing affiliate marketing as a business make sure you get the Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner.  She gives you a clear picture as to what it is affiliate marketing is and how to be successful!

photo credit: ElizabethHudy

I am at Niche Article Marketing System workshop.  I have been having such a good time and surprisingly I am not in information overload.  I am close but not there yet.  I have been really looking forward to today because the topic is traffic!  How to drive traffic. If you recall from my last blog post with my NAMS goals, one of my goals is: I need to learn how to bring in more traffic.

This morning five incredible marketer sat down and shared great strategies for social media marketing.  I have learned so much and I am excited to implement it today!  You can learn the same things that I did from these fabulous marketers: Willie Crawford, Joey Smith, Jeff Herring, Kevin Riley and Maritza Parra! There presentation was recorded and is now available to listen to on audio!

Check it out at Strategies 4 Social Marketing.  This is going to help me get really use to using social media marketing.  This is something I have not been great at and it will bring in traffic to my websites and blogs.  It will do the same for you.  I have found the I have a hard time justifying my time on Twitter or Facebook. I just feel like I am wasting my time but I have learned today that I am absolutely not.

One more thing that is shared on the audio is… the experts secret weapons for social marketing!  These are things they use to save time and not sit in front of the computer all day.  So I invite you to use this social media marketing training.  It is so worth it!