Who can do affiliate marketing? Pretty much anyone with a laptop and internet connection can become an affiliate marketer. Affiliates refer people to products and services online. All you need to do to become an affiliate is to join a partner/affiliate program and learn how to promote your affiliate link. People from all walks of life become affiliates to either earn a secondary income, or completely replace their existing income.
Not every affiliate succeeds in doing this though, and many affiliate marketers will quit. In fact something like 95% of affiliates will quit which means only 5% succeed in making affiliate marketing an income source. However, this statistic also shows how easy it is to join an affiliate program and start. Becoming successful as an affiliate is a different thing entirely.
If you have a laptop and an internet connection, you can easily join one of the many affiliate programs available. Amazon is a popular program which allows pretty much anyone to join. Have a look at some of the requirements to join Amazon’s affiliate program here.
Some affiliate programs require to you to already have a good number of followers or website traffic. Others may only require you to be a website owner. Some don’t require anything other than filling out a form. To earn from affiliate marketing you need to promote your affiliate link successfully and get people to purchase products through your link.
Who Can Do Affiliate Marketing – Cost
There is a cost involved in affiliate marketing but you can get started for next to nothing if you’re on a tight budget. You can join many affiliate programs for free. You can even promote your affiliate link for free through various online strategies. See 22 ways to promote affiliate products and promote my affiliate link free.
However the free strategies you can use will often take more time and effort than the more expensive options. As a basic starter kit for affiliate marketing you will really require:
- A laptop or home computer
- An internet connection
- An email marketing service – (see free autoresponder for affiliate marketing)
- A website of your own (you can also use free blog websites and/or YouTube), but a website you own yourself is recommended.
With these tools you can build a blog or start creating videos for YouTube if you have a smart phone to record from. You can also invest in lighting equipment, a microphone and other online software which might help you create more professional content – such as editing software. But you can get by without them.
It’s also worth investing in your education as an affiliate marketer. Everything you do will be based on your knowledge. If that knowledge is flawed, so too will your results! Access a free video series here to learn more about training and mentorship.
Who Can Do Affiliate Marketing – Location
Affiliate marketing isn’t limited by location. So wherever you are in the world, providing you have access to an affiliate program and the internet, you can promote your affiliate link in any number of ways.
You will need a method to take payment and so you should have a bank account or a Paypal account. Some affiliate programs will pay directly into your bank account and some will pay by bankers cheque or through an online payment portal such as Paypal or similar.
If you don’t have access to any of these, you’ll struggle to get paid as an affiliate.
Who Can Do Affiliate Marketing – Age
Some affiliate programs do have an age limit of 18 years as a minimum. However, not all do. Amazon doesn’t have an age limit although you’ll need a method of payment. Some junior affiliates will get help setting up payment processing from an adult, or find some other way which they can make work for them.
Most social media platforms have an age restriction of 13 years old. So if you’re planning on using social media as your advertising tool, it’s pretty open for younger affiliates.
Some paid marketing platforms (such as Adwords) have an age restriction of 18 years and require a credit card, or debit card to access them. So this can limit your ability to market in certain ways. However there’s many younger affiliates who find a way to make it work for them.
See also how old do you have to be for affiliate marketing.
Time
While some people use the excuse to not do affiliate marketing as not having the time, affiliate marketing is certainly a way to escape the rat race. Ultimately it can give you more time because you can earn passively from it. See passive income and affiliate marketing.
However, you still need to spend time working on your affiliate business in order to make it profitable. There’s many ways to do affiliate marketing, and according to your lifestyle and working patterns, you can fit it in accordingly.
If you have the space in your day, you can use it to create a lot of content, for example. But if you don’t have much available time, you can make automation work harder for you through using paid marketing and email marketing. See also the fastest legit way to make money online.
Content marketing is a cheaper method of doing affiliate marketing but it will take longer than using paid marketing and a high ticket sales funnel, which requires greater investment.
You can speed up the process and make it more efficient by using subscription affiliate programs (which pay recurring income) and high ticket affiliate products, which pay larger commissions. If you are short on time, and work long hours, this is definitely the better route. But if you have less capital to spend, content marketing may be more suitable for those circumstances.
Mindset
The affiliate marketing failure rate is high with 95% of affiliate marketers quitting. See affiliate marketing failure rate. The ability for anyone to “give it a go” means there’s going to be a high drop out rate. Affiliate marketing is a business and therefore not like a job. You get paid by your performance, not for the hours you work.
So it’s up to you to make affiliate marketing work for you. Many of course don’t manage it, but this can be for several reasons, such as lack of experience in business, wrong mindset and from previous experiences and expectations as an employee, for example. Bringing an employee mindset to a business will typically not bring a good result. See mindset shift from employee to entrepreneur.
Having the ability to learn and grow is therefore pretty important if you want to become successful as an affiliate. A growth mindset is the belief and ability to develop and grow yourself, and not limit yourself to what has happened in your past. Often affiliates will bring the wrong mindset to their affiliate business, look for an easy win, get disappointed and leave. Those who stick it out and learn from the challenges are the 5% who succeed and make it work for them.
Summary
Affiliate marketing is definitely not for everyone. If you’re serious and committed to learning it for the longer term, it might be a good fit for you. But if you expect it to give you a return without much input from you, you’re probably going to be disappointed.
To learn more and get started access a free video series here.