So let’s say you’re interested enough in the idea of affiliate marketing that you’re ready to try out a top notch training program and see where that takes you. Even if you aren’t ready to sign up for the training yet, there is plenty of information widely available on how to begin with affiliate marketing. That’s what we’ll now cover in the remainder of this post.
1. Train Your Marketable Skills
In order to begin with affiliate marketing, you should at least know how to write essays in clear English with as few spelling and grammatical errors as possible. It also helps if you can practice correcting any mistakes you make as you go so that you won’t have to go back later and revise your words over and over again. That being said, some people write better when they write spontaneously and then revise the document over and over again, but the less time you spend on a single post or essay, the more time you can spend on other posts.
You should also begin with affiliate marketing by learning to practice your self-promotion until you’re comfortable with the idea of sharing your personal thoughts and directing people to your website or social media account. It’s also important to learn how to strike the balance between asking people to look at your content and spamming people with unsolicited links that instead cause them to ignore you. You may also want to learn a few things about public speaking and acting if you decide to create videos.
Fortunately, there’s a good reason to train these skills even if you decide that affiliate marketing isn’t for you: all three can come in handy in a wide variety of industries. Office jobs in particular become easier when you can clearly communicate with your coworkers in writing, and self-promotion is a natural part of the interview process no matter what position you’re looking for. Even public speaking can come in handy since your coworkers will greatly appreciate it if you always volunteer when your department has to provide a presentation.
2. Define Your Marketing Campaign
The point of affiliate marketing is to convince people to click on the links you provide and then buy the products offered. How you go about that is entirely up to you since you get paid on commission, but plenty of others have gone before you and have some wisdom to share regarding what works, what doesn’t, what to emphasize, and what to expect.
For instance, the reason why Wealthy Affiliate offers to help set up websites is because websites are an excellent way to attract visitors and place ads related to the website’s topic. A site that rates pet foods could come with ads to various pet foods sold by different companies, or a site that catalogs ants and other insects could have ads for ant farms, tarantulas for sale, or garden pesticides.
However, designing and setting up a website requires some knowledge of online design, SEO, and the ability to create 1000 words of content or more per week, or else the ability to pay others who can provide these things for you. This can make it very tough and provides a barrier to entry if you wish to begin with affiliate marketing. That’s why many affiliate marketers choose to focus instead on social media campaigns, campaigns that involve more back-and-forth between yourself and the people you’d like to click your links.
Creating content for these other sites can involve using other skills, such as drawing, music composition, vlogs and other videos, and other media for people to enjoy. If you can draw in an audience with your creations, you can be perfectly up-front about your status as an affiliate by saying that your fans can support you by using your links to buy products they would likely buy either way. Fortunately, there are many different ways to begin with affiliate marketing no matter what your own personal style and preferences are.
3. Have Some Patience And A Work Ethic
An affiliate marketing campaign isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It isn’t something you can set and forget and expect to turn you into a millionaire while you spend your days relaxing and having fun. Affiliate marketing is a job. It’s a job you can do at home with just a computer, but it is a job, and you need to keep working at it day after day if you expect to see any results. If you want to begin with affiliate marketing, you need to keep in mind that this is a LONG term strategy and not a get rich quick business.
At Affiliate Marketer Training, our best estimate is that it takes the average committed marketer between 18-24 months at the very least to make an affiliate marketing campaign go from a side project on weekends to a full-time occupation with full-time pay.
If that’s your goal, then you should be ready to see incremental gains each month and keep trying to get the word out even if you don’t see any massive, instant boosts to the numbers. And even if you prefer your affiliate marketing to be a part-time job, you should still spend some time marketing yourself so you can get the best exposure and income you can.
Self-employment can be hard going at first, especially if you don’t know where to begin or what you should be doing. Fortunately, you’re not alone, and there are plenty of other people who have been in your shoes before and can let you know how to begin with affiliate marketing. So with a little knowledge, the right skills, and the determination it takes to see a hard road through to the end, you too can make money through affiliate marketing.