Affiliate marketing is a good way of creating a passive income through your website, blog, forum or email list. Affiliate marketing began as a side hustle for people connecting their websites to the sites of others. It was very quickly made clear that if you built up a trusted following and you suggested an item to them then people were much more likely to buy that product. Therefore retailers have now employed people to advertise on their own personal or business websites to bring in more customers.

Affiliate marketing hence is a true and tested method both of advertising and of creating an income depending on which side of the affiliate program you are on. Nowadays many large companies, like Amazon for example, have a program that rewards bloggers and similar people for forwarding people to their sites.

Why should I be thinking about this?

If you run a site, a blog or even have a strong social media following then you have access to a huge potential market of people looking to buy goods and services digitally. By utilizing that market you can begin to earn cash from your website/blog despite the fact that it is only a personal blog or website. There is no good reason you should not be making money from all of the time and effort you spend working in your chosen media.

What do I get from it?

For every product an affiliate refers a buyer, to the affiliate earns a percentage of the sale price. Different companies offer different percentages ranging from a few percent to a surprisingly large cut. Usually large companies offer a flat percentage across all of their products whilst individuals or small businesses often offer a greater percentage on digital or downloadable products.

What’s in it for the companies?

For businesses affiliate marketing is an extremely efficient way of marketing. After all, there is no initial cost for this way of marketing, they simply pay you when someone makes a purchase. That means a company may use lots of affiliates who are in contact with hundreds of potential consumers and can therefore get in touch with a huge market of customers with absolutely no initial layout.

How can I get involved?

Before you start counting your money there are a few things you will need to do to start with. Obviously if you have no followers yet then you won’t have anyone to sell ideas and products to. So the first thing you will need is a website, blog, email list, or other method of getting people’s interest online.

As soon as you have managed to get viewers coming to your site or whatever other places you have got their attention from, then you can begin thinking about joining an affiliate program. The simplest method of starting as an Amazon affiliate beginner is by going directly to the company or website that you wish to market for and ask about an ongoing affiliate program, which you can then join, or if they would be interested in starting one.

What do I sell?

When looking at marketing opportunities for affiliate marketing, there are two key issues to remember;

1. Ensure your marketing is pertinent. If you write about motorcycles as an example but are selling knitting patterns, then the chances are you’ll get very little interest from your followers. The most useful products are products that you have reviewed personally or that integrate well with whatever you have talked about.

2. Only sell items you personally use. If you start recommending poor quality products to your followers, then they will begin to lose interest in paying attention to what you are saying. Think about having a good friend who often gives you bad advice, you will probably keep him as a friend, but would you continue listening to his/her advice?

The affiliate marketing product we recommend is our video course called, “3 Day Product Promoter“

As you watch each of the three course videos and learn the fundamentals, you’ll earn badges: Scout, Pathfinder and finally Product Promoter.

Click on this link to get started today >> 3 Day Product Promoter.