Are you looking for an affiliate marketing side hustle? Affiliate marketing makes the perfect side hustle for a number of reasons:
- You can build it around existing work, working in a flexible way
- It’s a scalable business model which can replace any income over time
- You don’t need your own products or services
- Anyone can start no matter their age or experience
- You can work in a way which suits your own personal circumstances
Affiliate marketing isn’t a magic pill which will make you riches over night, of course, unlike many “guru’s” proclaim. But it can make you a sustainable income if you stick at it long enough and take the right steps. See how long does affiliate marketing take.
Depending on how you build your affiliate business, it can take between several months and several years to replace an existing income. But not everyone is looking to escape their corporate job. Some just want an “affiliate marketing side hustle“.
Affiliate Marketing Side Hustle – Marketing Strategies
Before delving into the different business models within affiliate marketing, it’s worth looking at some of the ways you can promote affiliate products. Not everyone has the time to create content on a daily basis. Likewise, not everyone will have the financial incentive to make tens of thousands every month either! But, there’s many people looking to make affiliate marketing their side hustle. This can be done in two main ways:
- By creating content – content can be grown over time and can be seen as a “digital asset”. As your back catalogue of content grows, your ability to make money does too. Over time your income will compound as old content continues to generate traction in your affiliate business, and new content does the same.
- By running paid advertising campaigns – if you’re looking for a faster way to build an affiliate business, paid marketing is it. But you’ll need a good business model to do it. See affiliate marketing business models. (more on this later).
Types Of Products To Consider
If you’re time rich, content marketing might be the way to go. If you can monetise your content with recurring commission affiliate programs and high ticket affiliate products, so much the better. Since content marketing is a pretty slow tactic, you’ll gain faster traction by using products which pay the most.
You don’t of course have to pay to promote affiliate products. Most affiliate programs are free to join. But it’s worth noting than many physical products only pay tiny commissions. Amazon, for example, pays from 3% to 12% commissions to its affiliates. Compare this to digital products which pay from 40% and above, and you can see there’s a big difference. See affiliate marketing commission rates.
Paid affiliate programs often pay larger amounts in commissions and you’ll struggle to earn high ticket commissions on digital products without investing in a program. See best affiliate commissions. So, if you’re considering investing in an affiliate marketing course anyway, it’s worth choosing one which offers high ticket commissions and recurring commission products. Access free videos here to learn more.
Affiliate Marketing Side Hustle – My Story
I started affiliate marketing around 2010 and only intended for it to support a career as a stuntman. At the time I was juggling multiple jobs and waiting for the stunt phone call. Then I was off down to Pinewood studios, or somewhere to work on a film or TV show. So I only really wanted an affiliate marketing side hustle – not a full time affiliate business.
At first I jumped from course to course looking for the quick way to make money online, which of course eluded me because I believed it! Only after finding a good course and spending considerable time and effort in one direction did things start to come together.
In 2020 of course there was the pandemic and the stunt industry pretty much closed down. I had a kung fu school too which also closed down. Fortunately I had been working on and off with the affiliate business too, which meant I had something to fall back on. Initially though, my affiliate business grew very slowly because I stuck mostly to content marketing. I blogged and created videos which I uploaded to YouTube.
I had an email list of subscribers numbering into the thousands which at the start of the pandemic I was able to use to generate income from through selling affiliate products. Anyone can do this and I highly recommend building an email list, whatever products or marketing strategies you decide to use. In fact, I would say that list building is key to creating a sustainable income from affiliate marketing. Combined with subscription products and high ticket products and it’s incredibly powerful.
Making Affiliate Marketing Your Side Hustle
Affiliate marketing does take time though. When I became an affiliate, I thought I would be suddenly making hundreds of sales almost immediately. This can happen but it’s more likely with paid marketing and a large marketing budget. With content marketing, you’ll need your content to go viral to see this kind of dramatic increase in sales.
No, at first it’s slow. But if you stick at it, you start to see sales coming in. If these are recurring income sales, you’ll be able to build a much more sustainable business more quickly. With low value products like physical products, you’ll need to work much harder for less.
If you’re serious about building an affiliate marketing side hustle, invest in your knowledge and it’ll pay off later. I didn’t do this and rushed in. I wasted a lot of time on the wrong activities and used the wrong products. When I made a sale, the commission was inconsequential! Only later did I get the right knowledge and make it count! If you’re going down this route and are determined to succeed, make it a priority to get the right knowledge and use the right marketing and products from the get-go!
Access a free video series and learn more about creating an affiliate marketing side hustle which works!