I overheard a conversation recently and I couldn’t help but be simultaneously amused and impressed with it. There was this one guy complaining to his bud that he was working himself to the bone for peanuts, barely enough for rent, food, and everything he needed.
His friend agreed with his sentiment and was wondering where they could find “work where you made money but didn’t need to do much work”.
They sounded so despondent about it that I wanted to approach them and talk to them about affiliate marketing, which is probably the closest thing to what they wanted.
Right about now, some of you are probably going, “huh? Is it really that easy?” Well, the answer is yes and no. There are some aspects of affiliate marketing that do require quite a bit of thought, but hey, it’s significantly less stressful than working yourself to the bone.
Maybe the better question to ask is: What is affiliate marketing and what do I stand to get from it if I do it?
Glad you asked, cuz.
Affiliate marketing is the term used when online merchants or business people do a bit of business sharing. The sharing of profits here is primarily based on either website registrations, traffic, or actual sales. The term is basically derived from the affiliation of the merchants or sales people. Hence the term, affiliate marketing.
As for what you stand to get from it, here are a few of the common gains:
Get a business for free
Ok, before you go nuts and rush to find the first affiliate program you can, hear me out. The “free” part here is this: You help market someone else’s product and you earn from doing that. In this manner, you don’t have to create or purchase a product that you need to sell or market since you’re already marketing someone else’s products. The compensation is commission-based and that means you’ll make money with each converting lead that you send to the merchant’s site.
Fees are almost nonexistent
The great thing about affiliate programs is that they are mostly free to join. How great is that? Think about it: no fees and no investments mean no risks. You get to potentially earn a lot without having to take the chance of losing money if things go south. I bet this is what those two guys I overheard were looking for.
Earn money even while you sleep
The affiliate marketing program practically runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since the Internet doesn’t sleep. For as long as the affiliate program is up, you stand a chance to earn. This means you can sleep, go out on a date, play your favorite games, engage in hobbies, or spend quality time with the family while your affiliate marketing program runs.
Have a business that responds quickly to trends
By trends here, I mean business trends. Affiliate marketing programs come with the option to react accordingly with what’s happening on the business scene of today. A lot of the programs allow marketers to capitalize on what is popular in the current market, since there will always be an affiliate program that is in line with whatever is trending and you can very well get on that train as soon as you want to. Affiliate merchants know these trends and they make sure that it is an offered option.
Get promoted on the most popular sites
Affiliate marketing programs largely get featured on the most popular social media sites and other sites that allow users to share articles, music files, or videos. The advertisement for these programs is prominently displayed, allowing for a good amount of media mileage, so to speak. Anyone who has ever used social media knows how powerful a marketing tool it can be and this happens to be in the affiliate marketing program’s arsenal.
Man, if those two guys could read this, I bet they’d be going “Dude, it’s the answer to our problems! Sweet!” I’m sure you all see how simple it really is. Basically, all that you need to consider is the type of affiliate program you would want to get into. Look at the market, or at least your target market, see what they’re interested in, and find out if there are any affiliate programs that could work.
And get on that boat.
Later.
Andy “Mister Affiliate” Jenkins
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