How does the idea of earning a passive income sound like? It will seem lucrative to anyone who is fed up being a part of the mundane rat race to earn a living.
With affiliate marketing, you can earn anytime and from anywhere making it all the more intriguing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
In simple terms, affiliate marketing is a rather old form of digital marketing. You refer an online product of a merchant to a person and if that individual purchases the product recommended by you, you are liable to earn a commission from the merchant.
How to get started?
Online merchants offer affiliate programs and you can sign up for them. You will be provided a special affiliate link. It can be used to recommend the products of the merchant’s site.
And as per the definition of affiliate marketing, if consumers buy any product through your affiliate link, you can earn a commission from the online merchant.
There are plenty of ways to start affiliate marketing and some of them are mentioned below:
- Create a blog of your own and use it as a medium to promote products.
- Start a YouTube channel, create content related to a product and promote it.
- Buy Facebook traffic and make it land on intended pages.
Out of the three ways, using your blog to start your affiliate marketing journey is the best. It requires the least amount of investment and you can learn stuff really fast.
You can write about a product and add the affiliate links there. However, to grow your affiliate business you may have to put in a lot of hard work to actually start earning.
For example, see this review website itself. If you notice, the website has solely been created to promote a product named “No Product No Problem“.
There are posts that talk about the product with affiliate links added wherever possible.
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The Benefits
1. Helps you earn a passive income
When you are into a full-time job, you need to work in order to earn money. However, that is not the case with affiliate marketing.
It will let you earn even when you are doing nothing.
It is just the initial amount of time you spend that matters. There will be continuous returns as and when consumers purchase products by clicking on your affiliate link.
The best thing to note here is that you can keep earning money for something that you have finished working on a while back.
I remember a review I wrote a few months back. Though it did nothing when I published it, now it makes me recurring commissions unexpectedly.
So, there will be a steady flow of income even when you are not sitting on the desktop all the while. It is all based on your marketing skills.
2. You don’t need to worry about customer support
With affiliate marketing, you will not have to deal with consumers and their issues with the products they purchase from your affiliate link.
Customer support will be none of your concern because your work is only to link the consumer with the merchant. The merchant will handle all consumer complaints.
However, if you are familiar with the topic or product, you can give them assistance. Likewise, I normally offer free guidance on products related to affiliate marketing, SEO or email marketing.
3. Low startup cost
Businesses usually need a lump sum to get started apart from constant cash flow. With affiliate marketing, there is no heavy investment which means that you can easily get started and without any worry.
To join an affiliate program you will not have to pay any upfront amount. The beginning is relatively easy!
4. You can choose to work from home
Those who don’t like to go to the office every day will find affiliate marketing convenient. You can choose to work from home or anywhere you want.
You can work on campaigns and earn from them right from home.
Just imagine! No hassles of getting ready and traveling to your workplace in the heavy traffic.
5. Provides you with flexibility
Working as an affiliate, you have all the freedom to decide the number of hours of the day you want to work. Moreover, you are free to choose the products you like to promote.
You can choose to widen the range of products or stick to what you have been working with so far. There is no pressure from any direction which you should worry about.
6. Rewards are based on your performance
In the world of affiliate marketing, your rewards are entirely based on your performance. You will get an income that is directly proportional to the efforts you have put in.
If you run a blog, you can improve your earnings by sharpening your skill of writing about products and reviewing them.
If your work is mind blowing, you will obviously be paid accordingly.
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The Disadvantages
Though the benefits of affiliate marketing seem to be enticing, you must also know that with inadequate knowledge about it, you may not be able to achieve what you really want.
Here are certain pitfalls of affiliate marketing that you should know,
1. Promotion of irrelevant products
If you start promoting products that have no connection with your website, you will lose page rank as well as your customer base.
Just because a particular affiliate program is paying you well it does not mean that you get unsystematic with your website/blog content.
For example, if your website promotes gadgets, it would irrelevant to write about products related to business opportunities.
2. Being unaware of the credibility of products
The most difficult part is choosing the right product for selling. Once you decide on a merchant’s affiliate program, you need to ensure that the credibility is maintained.
In short, don’t redirect consumers to sites that have been penalized or are unavailable.
3. Making unrealistic claims in the name of the advertising
You should know what you are writing about a product and the way in which you are promoting it. You can’t make unrealistic claims in the name of advertising.
In case a customer is unhappy with the product purchased from your link, it will not just tarnish the image of the online merchant but yours too.
4. Not developing a budget
Since most of the affiliate programs are free of cost, it is assumed that a budget need not be set aside. This can be a big mistake as you would need resources for your campaigns and that would cost you money.
5. Having a high expectation of returns
Most often blog owners abandon the affiliate program because they don’t seem to be getting what they had expected. The truth is that all this takes time.
Also, there is plenty of competition in the world of affiliate marketing. You need to decide for yourself how you are going to proceed with it.
I hope you found the post helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or email me directly at nisha.coach @gmail.com (remove the space).
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