In this “affiliate marketing playbook” I’m going to discuss some of the main strategies the top affiliates use to generate income online. When I first started learning about affiliate marketing, I didn’t know most of what I’m going to share. I believe there’s many affiliate marketing newbies out there too, who are struggling to make any money at all.
I was the same for years; and apart from the odd sale here and there, I was getting nowhere. But I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And unless you get the right help and support, it’s easy to struggle along in the dark, making the same mistakes over and over again.
Affiliate Marketing Playbook – Get Help
Top affiliates don’t get there by themselves. They find help and support and learn to use the right products and marketing strategies. When I started out, I bought a few courses which taught several conflicting marketing strategies. I spent years jumping from one strategy to another.
One of the strategies I learned was building niche websites and attempting to rank them on Google. I’d say about 1 in 10 of my websites got to the first page of Google for their main (or some) of their keywords. That’s not great when you’re on your own and struggling to make money as an affiliate. It’s pretty demoralising.
It wasn’t until I was years into my journey that I found an affiliate marketing mentorship program which helped me learn the key strategies which top affiliates use to earn a full time living from the internet. Still, even with a bunch of mentors at my disposal, I still had to wade through my own scepticism, doubt and fear before I would take the appropriate action steps.
Affiliate Playbook – Business Model
I started out using low cost products from Amazon as an affiliate. However, what I didn’t know was that this wasn’t the best business model to use. I got paid a tiny fraction of what I sold, and I wasn’t great at selling either! Amazon pays its affiliates between 3% and 11% commissions on sales they make. I was selling books valued at less than $10! It was no wonder I was massively failing as an affiliate – looking back.
I moved to Clickbank after learning that digital products paid much more than physical products. Clickbank products pay around 40% commissions to affiliates. Despite this, I found Clickbank products were much harder to sell than physical products from Amazon. People didn’t trust Clickbank products in the same way as they trusted Amazon. Plus, a physical product is easy to understand. Many Clickbank products offered training or something intangible.
I later learned about subscription products which paid recurring commissions. Once I started using recurring commission affiliate programs, and making sales, things really began to change for me with my affiliate journey. Then I discovered high ticket products and multi-tier sales and this opened up a new world of affiliate marketing I didn’t know existed.
Marketing – The Key To Affiliate Success
All of my marketing efforts up to this point had been organic marketing – blogging and other free strategies. I simply couldn’t afford to spend more money on marketing since my products paid so little. But once I discovered high ticket products, multi-tier commissions and recurring commission affiliate products, I was better positioned to use paid marketing and make a profit.
Up to this point, I had created a lot of content online, most of which didn’t bring much in the way of affiliate sales.
This is the “key” which top affiliate marketers know about that I didn’t! They use high paying affiliate programs with recurring commissions and paid marketing strategies to drive traffic. Lifetime commissions affiliate programs offer ongoing support and business tools and products which affiliates use to build lifetime businesses with. Once they are profitable, they will always maintain their memberships and use the products you’ve recommended. So it pays to choose the best possible products and services which help people the most.
Paid Marketing
I was always a little afraid of paid marketing for a number of reasons. Firstly, my income was sporadic as I was working in the film industry for a number of years. See my about me page. I’ve met people who transitioned into an online business much more quickly than I did, simply because they spent a lot of money on marketing their online businesses. But I didn’t have much to risk at first so I stuck to organic marketing for quite a long period of time.
When I did venture into using paid marketing, I was pretty tentative. I spent a little and then backed off. Top affiliates, I learned, spend tens of thousands of dollars each month on paid advertising campaigns.
But they only do so after a lot of testing and measuring with a low, affordable budget which they are prepared to lose. I just didn’t have the money to spend initially, and then, I was afraid of losing it. It was money I needed, not money I could afford to lose, so it inhibited my ability to learn paid marketing strategies for quite some time.
But also my sales funnel didn’t initially allow me to spend money on paid marketing either. It was only when I further invested in the higher ticket items and I could earn the larger levels of commissions that I could afford to spend on paid marketing.
The Six Figure + Business Model
Eventually I invested fully into the SFM Digital Business System and this allowed me to earn 40% commissions on products valued upwards of $10,000.
I still had to make the sales of course, and I was still pretty tentative doing so, despite the earning potential of the sales funnel I now had at my disposal. After a lot of hesitation I eventually took the plunge and started using YouTube’s marketing platform, running paid marketing into my sales funnel. For a while nothing happened, then I started making sales!
When you’re spending money to make money it’s pretty nerve racking at first. What if you don’t make any sales and you’re quickly building a money pit in your marketing? The key is to test and measure using a small, affordable budget you can afford. I learned this through following a number of affiliate marketing mentors and learning from those who had already achieved success online.
Access The SFM Mentorship Program
You can access the SFM and learn more about the mentorship program they offer through this free video series. You’ll see how their online business training and community can help you to build an income online through selling affiliate products.
Click on the image below to access the free video series and learn more.
Summary – “Affiliate Marketing Playbook”
Did I leave anything out of this “affiliate marketing playbook”? Here’s a quick recap of the strategies I’m recommending for affiliate marketing success:
- Get the help of mentors and coaches who have already succeeded online here.
- Use recurring income products, high ticket products and those which offer lifetime commissions.
- Learn how to use paid marketing – it’s far more scalable than organic marketing and much quicker!
- Keep learning and growing and your online business will keep growing too!