When people hear that you can make money by selling other peoples products, they normally get excited. They want to know what is affiliate marketing and how does it work. The first thing I want to talk to you about is whether or not affiliate marketing is still an effective way to earn money. It is also one of the best ways to earn passive income.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is simply the process of selling products and services for the individuals who created them. You get a specific percentage of the sell price of the item and this can sometimes be recurring. This is why it can be so profitable.
Commissions can be from .50 cent to literally thousands. I know many of you are thinking that you can really get ahead by making money from .50 cent leads, but you’d be wrong. Think if you can get 300 people per day to fill out an email submit form and you get 50 cent to $1 from this. You could literally make up to $10, 000 per month from this one affiliate effort.
You’ve probably heard that some states have been banned from becoming affiliates for companies like Amazon.
Amazon is the Biggest Affiliate Company
As of the time of this writing, Amazon is the largest company in the world that you can become an affiliate for. However, some states have banned residents from being Amazon affiliates. The few states that are banned by Amazon are:
Arkansas
Colorado
Illinois
Rhode Island
Vermont
Maine
Missouri
I won’t get into the tax laws because it is just too complicated (and convoluted) but rest assured that there are plenty of other affiliate programs that you can join even if you live in one of the states mentioned above.
The key is that Amazon is a registered business in the states above so that makes them libel for paying sales tax in those states if an affiliate also promotes the products in the same state and they don’t want to. All this is important to learn when you want to know what affiliate marketing is and how does it work.
Affiliate Program Owners
The honest truth is, most people who have affiliate programs aren’t big huge corporations. They are people like you and me who created a product and want other people to promote it.
What’s more, you’re likely to make a lot more money promoting products from folks who are not part of a super large corporation like Amazon, anyway. So, this should not affect you at all.
You can still become an affiliate marketer and probably become even more successful by not wasting your time with low profit margins offered by huge corporations.
Is It a Good Time for Affiliate Marketing?
So the answer to the question is an inequitable yes. Absolutely! It’s a great time to become an affiliate marketer. While in the old days, it was probably a lot simpler to throw up a mini site and promote products you never used, intended to use, or cared about.
Today’s affiliate marketing requires a whole lot more effort and honesty on your part — this makes it an even better time than ever to embark on affiliate marketing as a career.
Starting an Affiliate Marketing Career
You can be proud that you’re an affiliate marketer, a career that requires advanced marketing skills and knowledge of your audience including their needs and desires. Plus a high dose of honesty and integrity.
To be a great affiliate marketer you’ll need to learn the ins and outs of online marketing and that’s what I want to talk to you about in the coming weeks.
If you really want to become an affiliate marketer who makes enough money to quit your day job, you can. But, please, don’t quit your job right now. No, you can start this on a very part time basis and given time, effort and commitment work your way up to earning six figures plus.
That’s right. The amount of money you can make with affiliate marketing is truly staggering, and unlimited. You write your own ticket, give yourself raises when you want to, and you will see a return equal to your efforts.
Affiliate Marketing Mentoring Program
If you want to make money promoting other people’s products and / or services and make a commission on every sale there are so many opportunities that I could never list them all. It wouldn’t matter if I did anyway because you should promote products and / or services that are unique to your target audience.
You’ll need to learn how to develop a traffic generating websites, build content that speaks directly to your target audience while bringing in targeted traffic . You’ll also have to build relationships with your customers enough that they trust and follow your recommendations of what products they should purchase.
I’d get a mentor to start off right. Try John Crestani, he’s one of the best.
You now have a better ideas of what is affiliate marketing and how does it work. Next week we’ll talk about how to understand your audience and their needs.
