How Do I Get Started In Affiliate Marketing

If you are STILL struggling to get started in affiliate marketing even after all the ‘get-rich-quick’ products you’ve bought and shiny magic push button cash machines you’ve been chasing then this might just be one of the most important blog posts that you read this year.

I hate to break it to you but you’ve been chasing an illusion. Anyone who tells you that you can make money by clicking a few buttons or surfing some websites is straight up lying to you.

If you have been duped by these marketing hyenas then don’t feel bad. I think everybody who wants to be successful online has, at some point, been ripped off. I know I have.

But there is hope. There are ways to genuinely make a sustainable,scalable, regular income as an affiliate marketer and I’m going to reveal the quickest and easiest way to do it in this blog post.

Step 1- Choose A Niche Market

First things first. If you are going to be promoting products and services then there needs to be people who want what you are selling. This is done in two stages.

1. Make a list of potential niche ideas
2. Determine whether or not the niche you want to enter is profitable

How To Generate Niche Ideas

Make a list of ALL your hobbies and interests. Not only your current ones but hobbies and interests that you would be interested in learning about. Do the same for all your friends, family and neighbours.

For example. One of my hobbies is martial arts, my partner does pole fitness ( not to be confused with pole dancing, she hates that) and pilates, my mum is a keen bike rider, my daughter is starting gymnastics and street dancing……. and the list goes on.

Make a list of potential problems that you may have had in the past. Chances are someone else has also had the same problem. Have you ever suffered with acne, anxiety or depression, needed to lose weight, struggled with money problems. All these are potential problems that other people may have that require a solution.

Also list all your previous jobs that you have done in the past and do the same for your friends and family. You will find some skill sets or job roles that would make good niche markets.

Now you have an exhaustive list of niche ideas you need to find out whether or not that niche will make you any money.

You need to ascertain whether or not there are products already being sold in your niche. Don’t be afraid of too much competition if there are lots of people selling in a particular market it’s because there’s money to be made. If you enter a niche where no-one is selling anything there’s probably a good reason for that- There’s no money in that market.

Go to Clickbank.com and check out the ‘marketplace’ tab. On the left hand side you will have a list of categories which list all the digital products listed on Clickbank’s database.

Not only will this give you more niche ideas but you can also see what products are already selling. This is hugely important as it tells you what your marketplace are already buying. List the product results by ‘Gravity’ this is how Clickbank measures how many products are being sold. The higher the gravity the more the product is selling.

Next go to JVzoo.com and check out the top sellers listings. You can check out what products have sold the most copies today, yesterday, the past 7 days and the past 30 days. If you see a product consistently showing up then it is making a lot of sales therefore people are spending money on it.

I would use JVzoo.com for the digital/internet marketing space and Clickbank for all the other niches. It seems to work best that way round.

Go to magazines.com and check out the homepage. This is where they put the magazines that they think will sell the best due to previous sales. Also check out the best sellers section, these are the magazines that are consistently selling month after month so there is a demand for the content. This will tell you what topics people are already spending money on.

Go down to your local store and check out the magazines on the shelves. They have everything from boating to running to guns to knitting, not only will it give you more niche ideas but again it will reveal what is already selling. If someone is managing to print a magazine every month then there has to be profit there.

Ok, so now you have your profitable niche, let’s move on to step 2

Step 2- Build a List of Subscribers

We’ve established a niche market, we know it’s profitable, now we need a list of prospects to sell to.

Don’t worry it’s not as daunting as it sounds, but there are a few things you need.

1. A Lead Magnet

This is your free giveaway or ‘ethical bribe’ which you use to get people to give you their name and email address. No-one is going to join your list just for the hell of it, you need to give them a reason. I typically use PDF reports but you can use videos, audios, software downloads, anything of value that your market will use and benefit from.

Now I must stress. It NEEDS to be something of value. Just because you’re giving it away for free doesn’t mean you can put up a crap product and get away with it. Your prospect needs to be blown away with the content you’re giving away for free. This way they are more likely to trust you and buy your recommendations.

If you use a PDF try and keep it short (under 20 pages) they should be able to consume all the content in under 15 mins.

2. A Squeeze Page (lead capture page)

This is you one-page website that you use to collect your prospect’s names and email addresses. If you only ever have ONE website this is the one you want. It has ONE purpose, ONE objective and that is to get the name and email address of the visitor.

You don’t want pages and pages of content or any other distracting links for them to click on. There should be only TWO things they can do from your squeeze page. Close it down or opt-in.No links to articles, blogs or videos these will decrease your conversions drastically.

3. An Autoresponder Tool

This is a database where you will store all the names and email addresses of your subscribers. You can set up emails to go out automatically this is called an auto-responder sequence or you can send bulk emails to your list as a broadcast. You need to have a mix of both to maximise your sales but that’s a whole other blog post.(watch this space)

Step 3- Drive Traffic To Your Squeeze Page

The final ingredient to make this work is traffic.

Without traffic nothing happens , this is the fuel for your affiliate marketing business. But not all traffic is created equal it needs to be highly targeted traffic (i.e people interested in your niche).

Two quick ways you can start to drive targeted traffic is blog commenting and forums.

Blog commenting

Find high authority blogs in your niche and read through the posts. Make sure they are recent, you don’t want to comment on a ‘tumbleweed’ blog that no-one ever goes to and hasn’t been updated since 2006. Find a post that you can ‘add value’ to and leave a comment at the bottom with a link back to your website. DO NOT just write ‘great post, here’s a link to my site’ that probably won’t even get approved and if by some miracle it did, you won’t be seen as an authority in your niche, just a spammer looking to post links everywhere.

You need to write something of interest, something that is like an extension of the post. Really add value and the traffic will come naturally.

Forums

Where’s the best place to interact with your market? At their favourite hangouts, right?

Search for all the forums and discussion groups in your market and sign up. Browse through all the threads, read all the questions that are being asked and see if there are any you can answer or a discussion that you can add value to.

You need to approach a forum with NO ULTERIOR MOTIVE. You need to introduce yourself, participate and genuinely try and help the members.  Not push your website links.

You will be allowed to add a link into your signature file and if you add value to the group the traffic will come naturally.

So that is a overview of the strategy I use to make money as an affiliate and there’s NO reason why you can’t do the same. The beauty of this system is how repeatable it is. you can have numerous lists in numerous niches promoting numerous products getting paid numerous commissions every day. You can scale as big as you want. But it’s up to you to take action and put the work in.

If you would like to discover this system in more detail then check out my Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook

For a short time only you can grab the Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook for just $7.

But this is only a test price. Once the test is over the price will be going up.

Make sure you secure your copy today at this amazingly low price before it’s too late

Catch you soon

See the original blog over on Dan Craig’s website >> here <<