Online stores are businesses that run themselves. Online businesses use websites, email marketing, sales funnels and other people’s products so that they can run completely on autopilot.
Anyone can build businesses which run themselves by pointing online traffic to affiliate products. This can be done through the building of websites or landing pages and/or the use of paid marketing or content marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a clever business model where referral sales earn commissions. Anyone can become an affiliate and sell other people’s products online.
There’s various strategies which affiliate marketers can use to build businesses that run themselves. The key principle though is driving customers to products online. Learning how to automate this can take some time, though.
Businesses That Run Themselves – Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketers use several strategies to drive online traffic to affiliate products:
- Email marketing – can be automated and used to build thousands of subscribers
- Building websites and blogging – websites run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- Using paid marketing – which can be scaled up and run automatically
- Finding traffic from social media platforms
- Building back links to content, driving traffic to affiliate products
Once affiliates start generating sales from any given strategy, they “zone” on that particular strategy and do more of it. Over time, any strategy can give you automation in your online business. Some strategies however, can offer faster automation than others.
Businesses That Run Themselves – Fastest Strategy
Some affiliates use slow strategies such as blogging, or organic marketing methods. This can take months or even years before these strategies start bearing fruit. A much faster strategy to build an automated business is through the use of a good business model, list building and paid marketing.
Physical affiliate products tend to pay much lower commissions than digital ones. With a physical product you have product storage, handling and delivery costs attached. But with digital products, items can be delivered automatically over the internet.
Savings are passed to affiliates who can earn 40% of a product’s sale value. Compared to the commission of 3-11% commission on a physical product, that’s a massive difference.
If you also choose to sell affiliate products which offer recurring commissions, high value, have a built in sales team and offer multi-tier commissions, your return on investment is much higher. So you can therefore more easily use paid marketing which is much more scalable than cheaper methods using content creation. See SFM Digital Business System for more on this business model.
Affiliate Marketing Other Methods
There’s literally millions of products you can use as an affiliate marketer to build a largely automated business. Even a website offers the opportunity to build an automated business using the affiliate marketing model. The fastest method is to use a high ticket program and invest in paid marketing. But it’s not the only way to build an online business.
You can also build a profitable business online through blogging. Blogging is a slower strategy than using paid marketing. It’s also less scalable. But not everyone needs a massive income from their online business. Some people want a cheaper method to make money online.
Blogging satisfies this need.
You should expect to create a lot of content, and actively share it, for a good few months or years. If you’re consistent, and manage to make it work, your blog can be a source of free traffic, and sales for years to come. Initially though, not much happens. This is the hardest part of being a blogger, overcoming the “valley of disappointment”.
The “valley of disappointment” is the difference between what you expect to happen and what actually happens. With blogging, if you choose a topic you love, you’ll be able to keep going. If your only reason for blogging is the outcome, it’s much more difficult to overcome this barrier.
Summary
Affiliate marketing is a great way to build businesses that run themselves. If you choose the right path for you, and use a good business model, you can earn commissions from recurring commissions, high ticket products, multi-tier sales and through using a built in sales team – closing sales on your behalf. Once you’ve made a few sales, you’ll be earning a recurring income from them.
If you automate the lead generation strategy, and use email marketing, you’ve got a means to earn an income which is completely automated and scalable.
Admittedly, it takes time and effort to get everything up and running. You need to test and measure your marketing strategies. Depending on your marketing strategy, it can take months or years to generate traction. But once you do, you can generate ongoing income from work you’re already done.
It’s much better than working a job, trading your time for money for the rest of your life!
If you want to get started with your own online business, checkout this online business package and get started. It comes with a full money back guarantee for 30 days. Click on the image below to learn more.
