It is possible to completely autopilot affiliate marketing which is a good reason to become an affiliate. With the affiliate marketing business model, third parties refer customers to products online. They don’t need to personally own the products themselves or even deal with customers.
The systems and processes of selling online can be automated completely. Although some affiliate strategies are faster and more effective than others, there’s several ways you can do this as an affiliate:
- Blogging – A digital “asset” can be built which grows in size over time. Ultimately online content can sell your products for you.
- PPC – Pay per click marketing can be used to send customers directly to affiliate products or to a landing page where an email list can be built.
- Email marketing – Email marketing is a very effective way in which affiliates sell their products on autopilot. The bigger the list, the more you can sell.
- Social media – Many automated processes can be used through social media marketing too, both paid and unpaid social media marketing methods.
- SEO – search engine optimisation can be used to generate traffic to affiliate offers.
Autopilot Affiliate Marketing Methods
To become an affiliate marketer you only need to join an affiliate program. You’ll then get access to your unique affiliate link. This link is your referral link which is tracked back to you when a sale is made. The next step is to learn how to promote your affiliate link.
There’s many ways to do this and your strategy will depend on your circumstances and marketing budget. For example, if you’re working in a busy job, you might choose to run paid advertising to build your business. If you aren’t tied to a full time job, you can use your time to build a digital “asset”. You might choose blogging or video blogging, for example.
Your affiliate marketing business model has some say in your marketing methods too. If you are selling low value affiliate products from Amazon, for example, this can limit your ability to run paid advertising. But if you have a high paying program with recurring income, you are much more able to profit with paid ads.
The method you choose to promote your affiliate products will determine the timescale with which you’re likely to create an autopilot affiliate marketing business. Paid marketing is faster, but obviously more expensive. It’s also more scalable than content creation, which can take a lot longer.
Autopilot Affiliate Marketing: Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the best resources you can use as an affiliate marketer to automate your business. Whether you use paid marketing or content creation to build an affiliate business, email marketing can help you. Email marketing is a strategy in which affiliates collect emails from a website or landing page.
By offering some kind of free giveaway to visitors, affiliates can collect emails and build a list of subscribers. On this website for example, I give away a free video series to subscribers. They join my list to access the free videos and I follow up with useful emails which help subscribers with a specific problem: (making money online). I also promote affiliate products which I’ve found helpful to me and earn a commission when someone buys something from my list.
The email list is such a powerful tool for a couple of main reasons:
- It gives you more time to communicate with your subscribers than you could possible do from a website alone.
- You can built trust by offering value, entertainment and insight.
- Statistics show that most online customers will need several touch points before they make a purchase. This is more possible with a list than a website.
- You can control your flow of traffic better when you own the list. Otherwise you rely on SEO, link building and/or paid traffic for potential customers. Either way it costs either time or money, or both. A list puts you in control of your traffic.
Autopilot Affiliate Marketing Fast & Slow
The fastest way to make with affiliate marketing is through using a high ticket sales funnel and running paid advertising. To qualify for the highest levels of commission with a high ticket sales funnel you will usually need to invest in the products yourself. Then there’s an investment in learning marketing, which can take some time. So this method of building an affiliate business might suit someone who wants to escape their 9 to 5 job/career.
This method of building an affiliate business is fast and scalable, but still not without a fair amount of sacrifice. Many affiliates quit because they don’t realise the time and commitment they need to invest upfront, before they can benefit from the commissions! With high ticket products and subscription products you can earn more than average on sales you generate and recurring income from subscriptions.
A slower but cheaper method of building an online income from affiliate marketing is through content creation. Blogging, for example is a much longer term strategy which can take weeks, months or even years of work before you start generating a passive income from it. However, once you have built the content you can continue to earn from it potentially for years afterwards. So depending on your situation and available time, you should choose wisely! Of course you can do a bit of both paid marketing and content creation. See also 22 ways of promoting affiliate products for some other methods.
Summary
Anyone can build an autopilot affiliate marketing income by selling other people’s products and services online. To do so isn’t easy and it will take some serious commitment however.
By choosing the right products and services to promote, and finding a marketing strategy which suits you, you are giving yourself the best chance of success.
Access a training program here to get started with your affiliate business today!
