Are you looking to start an online business but somehow you are not very sure what kind of online business you should start with? And assume you know the kind of online business to start with, then the next question is how to do you get started? This article will explain in detail how you can start an online business in affiliate marketing with 3 simple steps and with very little capital in the next 3 to 6 months.
You are about to discover in today’s world, the economy has already started to shift as a result of the internet and globalization. Regardless you like it or not, this change is inevitable and the internet has created major shakeups as the social media-dominated “Web 2.0” has replaced the original static World Wide Web.
Those who are aware of this movement can take advantage of the benefits to become rich and benefit from it.
And there will always be a need for affiliate marketers and this business model is not going away any time soon. In fact, as new marketing channels are created (every day), the amount of potential money that can be made in the affiliate marketing industry is going up.
This post is created to help people, especially newbies and beginners, how to start and build an online business with affiliate marketing using a 3-step process and create unforgettable experiences with their family and loved ones.
The main purpose of starting this website is to help ordinary people to get more time for themselves to be able to create more meaningful and memorable experiences with their loved ones so that they will not regret in life later on (because life is really very short).
So before I share with you the 3 simple steps to how you can get started to build your own online business with affiliate marketing, I would like to explain why I think affiliate marketing is the best online business you should seriously consider about.
Why Choose Affiliate Marketing?
According to July 2012 US Forrester’s Report, US Affiliate Marketing spending (network fees and paid commissions) will reach $4.6 billion in 2016.
First of all, what is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
Affiliate Marketing is the ultimate business model of all time. The cost of fulfillment is outrageously low and the only bulk of the costs is buying and driving traffic but still it is an insignificant amount compared to running a traditional brick and mortar business.
There is no other business that you can almost immediately start on with so little capital and with such minimal risk and prior knowledge.
You can be rest assured that even if you fail it will not lead you to bankruptcy. And if you succeed, it is almost limitless to what you can achieve and live a life without limits!
Today we all know that the Internet has affected us in so many ways, from how we communicate (using skype, facebook, instagram), how we shop and purchase things online, how we move from one location to another location, and how we do business. It has also drastically changed everything and totally revolutionized the way how we make money.
Therefore, there are many good reasons why you should start an online business in affiliates marketing today:
We don’t need a physical store anymore. With the internet, all we need is a website just like Amazon being the largest online retailer in the world, without a single physical store open to the public. And there is no rental problem to take care of.
We don’t need any physical products. Google generates billions of dollars without any physical products. We don’t need to create any products too. And there is no inventory problem to take care of.
We don’t need employees. All you need is a laptop to connect to the Internet and get the required Basic Internet Tools, systems and software. And there is no people problem to take care of.
We don’t need to wait to get paid. Products can get delivered or downloaded instantly (for digital products) and you get paid almost immediately after fulfillment. And there is no account receivables problem to take care of.
We don’t need to work in one location. With a laptop and wi-fi connection, you can now work anywhere in the world. And there is no restriction or movement problem to take care of.
And there will always be a need for affiliate marketers and this business model is not going away any time soon. In fact, as new marketing channels are created (every day), the amount of potential money that can be made in the affiliate marketing industry is going up.
Millions of business owners who have products to sell online need people like us as affiliate marketers to promote for them so that they can focus on their core business since they simply cannot reach out to the entire world. So they are perfectly fine and willing to pay a generous percentage of any sales you bring them.
How To Start An Online Business With 3 Simple Steps?
When I first started affiliate marketing about back in 2013, there were so many elements I needed to learn and most people would give up because it was simply just too overwhelming.
Fortunately, I did not give up and the only reason I kept on learning was because I love learning new things and I have a desire to build my skills set which I personally believe would create value for ourselves and for others in the long run.
Like i said, although I was struggling during the first initial years, I did not give up probably because I just love learning new things. It took me about almost five years before I started to see some results.
And slowly I began to realize in order to become good, you just have to put in the time and effort, which we call it the learning period (or learning curve) to master these basic skills at the very least. And sometimes, all we need is just the basic skills (which could be translated to high-impact skills for others).
Today, if you were to ask me what are some of these elements I would consider to be the most important in order for one to start an online business, I would list the following 3 simple steps as the key process of learning which eventually would become your most important basic skills.
So what is this 3 simple steps process?
Step 1: Find A Good Affiliate Program To Learn and Promote
3 Factors To Consider To Start An Online Business in Affiliate Marketing
I have listed 3 important factors you should consider to choose a good affiliate program to learn and promote:
1) Choosing The Right Niche
The right niche must have a certain level of wealth and they are ready and willing to spend. The wealth level of these prospects will determine what kind of products they can afford to buy or spend. So the best ultimate niche would be to sell and market product solutions to small business owners (less than 500 employees).
So why this niche?
According to the report by Forbes, online learning spending was $105 Billion in 2015 and it is expected to reach $248 Billion by 2020. We are targeting small business owners where self-paced E-learning was $35 Billion in 2011 and $51 Billion in 2016. So even if you could capture a very tiny fraction, say 0.01%, that a hefty $5 Million deal, is that huge enough for you?
There are 3 very good reasons why we also want to focus on this market:
They are willing to spend – they can afford to spend since they already have a certain level of wealth.
They are desperately looking for help – they will pay for the right kind of training and solutions to their problems if they can see the ROI.
They are motivated prospects – they are looking for a cure (some kind of fix) and not prevention.
If we can offer these small business owners the right kind of training and solutions, we can make a very big impact to their lives and society.
2) Choosing The Right Product
The right products are the ones already in demand which means there is a need in the market. They should provide a solution for an existing problem. The best kind products you want to sell or promote would be digital products.
Digital information products offer the highest level of profit margins since they do not have to carry any inventory costs and they do not wear or degrade over time as compared to most physical products that could get easily damaged during transportation.
Digital products also give the highest sense of gratification due to its instant fulfillment as they can be downloaded almost right away once the sale is made.
High commission affiliates stresses another important aspect when choosing the right kind of products is that the affiliate program should offer a series of different products at different price points, not just a single product, catered for different types of customers. For example, if you offer more expensive products with more value, then you will get higher profit margins.
3) Choosing The Right Business Model
To maximize your profit, the right business model you want to choose should be high-ticket affiliate marketing because it offers you the fastest way of making money online.
Instead of spending time to create your own products, why not focus all your energy and leverage on other people’s efforts and proven systems to promote products that are already in the market that is making money.
This is definitely the easiest and fastest path to take.
The important question is to ask yourself are you going to spend all your time to create back end products or leverage? To leverage on a proven system means that you have proper training to do it, clear manuals and procedures to operate it, proven products that sell, and proven brand that people believe.
It is also important to choose the right affiliate marketing program that offers you earnings on commissions not only from the frontend products but also includes on the backend products where these could worth thousands of dollars. And the only money you can make is from the backend.
For example, the HTAM Method (High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing) is a very profitable high commission affiliates program which we will discuss in more detail below.
Traditional affiliate marketing is flawed because it is offers only low-priced items and so you get very low commissions only on the frontend and therefore low profits. In the long run, you will not be able to sustain because the little profits you get will not be able to cover your rising advertising costs and the tools for your internet business.
This kind of top-tier business model (selling high-ticket products) are premium products which offer the highest level of quality, and therefore they can be charged at a higher price.
What is High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing (HTAM)?
So what exactly is “High-Affiliate Marketing Program” or HTAM (pronounced H-TAM).
What is the difference between Low-Ticket Affiliate Marketing and High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing?
Most companies or affiliate programs offer relatively low commissions for their products, because they are lower priced, most under a couple hundred bucks. Typically, commissions range between 50% and 90%. So for example, if you promote and a book for $50, you will get just $25 for a 50% commission or $45 for a 90% commission.
And rarely will they pay you on the back end commissions, which normally could be priced as high as a few thousand dollars. This is where big money is made by these companies and this is also the reason why most people who promote such affiliate programs will fail or give up because without those back end commissions, they can’t make decent money to cover their costs of advertising.
And if your conversion rate is low for this kind of low-priced products, you’ll be unable to afford even the most modest paid traffic. Your profit margin on successful transactions needs to absorb the cost of acquiring not only the customer, but also from the visitors who didn’t buy from you.
This is the reason why most affiliate marketers fail because they’re earning only a small commission on every completed order which can hardly cover the cost of their advertisements. Even if they do, they cannot sustain long due to the increasing costs and competition over time.
Here’s the quick question: If you have a goal to make $10,000 per month, would you rather sell 1,000 products which paid out a $10 commission each, or would you rather sell 10 products that paid out a $1,000 commission each? Both will get you $10,000 each month, but one method is definitely much easier than the other.
So, if you can understand this concept, that is why I never like the idea of low-ticket affiliate marketing which seem like too much effort with so little returns.
So my advice is strongly to avoid promoting low-priced products.
And the best part of this method is that it is scalable which means you can quickly expand and start doubling, tripling, quadrupling your income just by “turning it up”.
The HTAM Method is not one of those MLM or pyramid selling programs.
The HTAM Method has helped and transformed the lives of many affiliates like you and me. These are real people with just ordinary lives before they joined this program.
Step 2: Create and Build Your Own Website
Why You Want To Create a Website?
The next step is to learn how to create your own business website.
Every good business nowadays requires a website which is good and necessary for the long run.
Be prepared as this step will take up quite an amount of your time, especially if you are new with completely no experience in creating websites.
Of course, the alternative way is that if you have the money to spend, you can outsource to a professional to create and design your website.
But I personally feel it is a good if you can acquire this important skill which you will come very handy. Firstly, you do not need to depend and pay these people every time you want to make any changes to your website. Secondly, you can also build additional websites whenever you want. Thirdly, you will be in full control of your business which is something you really want to have.
It is critical to think this is a long-term business as you accumulate this very important skill and I can guarantee you for sure if you can master this skill, it is totally worth all your time and effort it at the end of the day.
Do not go for the easy way out and then be distracted by other easy and quick push button money-making schemes out there. That is the reason why I want you to set your expectations right from the start so that whatever obstacles you face, you will be able to overcome them.
Again, this is the step most people will give up (because they’re just plain lazy or weak or they expect instant gratification).
So, I want you to remember this:
Success is not built overnight but a progression of every day actions taken consistently.
If you believe in this, I promise you will achieve whatever you desire in life.
Briefly, there are many advantages to own a website where you can create a blog, write posts and promote valuable offers to your leads in future with your affiliate links.
Most importantly, you can drive traffic both directly to your website and organically through SEO (for example, people entering keywords on Google to find you). People who visit your website can opt-in so that you can build an email list over time.
Once you have a big email list, you can send them emails on an automated basis to promote them more offers. It is a very powerful way to sustain and grow your business.
But if you are totally new, and you are serious about starting your own online business, then I suggest you spend some time to learn how to create a website. BE PATIENT!
You may take a while to learn how to build a website and that’s totally fine. To acquire a useful skill takes time, but you can then use it for all the years to come, isn’t it amazing?
I can assure you once you have learnt and acquired this skill, you will be able to start any online businesses creating websites in no time and do a lot of things to promote your offers to the entire world. Again, isn’t that amazing?
I am telling you this because I never regretted learning this skill. It is really a powerful asset worth developing how to build a website if you want to be a serious affiliate marketer. So, take the time and effort to acquire this important basic skill. AGAIN, BE PATIENT!
Tools You Need To Start An Online Business
All internet marketers will have to invest in some marketing tools which are necessary to do their online business. To get started, you’ll need only 2 tools to get started with your online business.
Tool #1: AWeber
You will need an email autoresponder to automate sending out emails to your list. AWeber is very popular and widely used in the online industry and I have used them for all my online businesses. It is a great tool and very simple to use.
Tool #2: Leadpages
You will need this page builder tool to create your landing page, opt-in page, sales page, thank you page, etc. Personally, I can recommend Leadpages which I find to be very simple and user-friendly and they have hundreds of beautifully pre-designed templates for you to choose from.
Step 3: Drive Traffic To Your Website and Make Sales
When Do You Focus On Traffic?
Only after you have completed the above steps 1 and 2, you can then start to focus on traffic. Most people would think the other way round, focusing on traffic first instead of getting all your fundamentals in place.
Let me explain when I say getting your fundamentals in place, I mean learning how to find a good product to promote, how to create a compelling offer, how to write a great presell content to offer valuable information to your potential customers, how to build your website, how to create and integrate your sales funnel and follow up with them through your automated emails after they have opted in via your landing page.
It is important that you understand and execute these 3 steps in the right sequence. For steps 1 and 2, you only have to do it once for these two processes. In step 1, you will learn what are the basic key elements needed to be in place. In step 2, you start applying to put all these elements together. Finally, in step 3 you will learn how to drive traffic to your website.
Therefore, the last step is the never ending process which you will always keep on learning using various traffic generation methods. This is the final step where you will focus all your energy to employ all the various social media tools available out there to bring your visitors to your website.
Yes, traffic is indeed very important but it comes in only after you have properly set up all the elements and building blocks in place (step 1 and step 2). If you don’t setup your building block properly in the first place, you will be wasting a lot of money driving traffic to your website.
So do you get the idea now as to when do you start to focus on traffic?
How To Drive Traffic To Your Website?
There are various traffic methods and strategies you can implement to get people to visit your website. These traffic generation methods are usually classified under 2 categories: The Free Method and Paid Method.
Examples of Free and Paid Methods:
- Free Method: SEO, blog posts, forums, articles, Instagram, etc.
- Paid Method: Solo Ads, Bing Pay Per Click (PPC), Banner Ads, Facebook Ads, YouTube Video Ads, etc.
I do not suggest you apply them all because you will take too long to learn all of them and time is money. Do not try to learn everything all at one go.
What I suggest is that you choose one of the traffic methods that resonate with you most and focus your energy to master it for a period of time until you become very very good at it.
Once you start seeing some good results, you can then move on to learn the next traffic method.
Always Start Small To Test
So which method would you go first? The free method or paid method?
I would strongly recommend you to start with the Paid method because you will be able to see the results very fast usually within hours or within the same day. However, you have to start small first, otherwise you may blow your budget very fast.
This way you will know very quickly if your ads that you have created are working. The goal here is to test with a small budget in order to get the quickest possible result whether things are working fine.
The key benefit of doing this is simple: If the response is poor, you need to go back and find out where and what is the missing link. However, if the response is good, BOOM! You can start to scale your business.
On the other hand, the Free Traffic, for example such as blogging, is very slow which might take weeks or months before you see any results because it depends on the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to rank your post on the first page. And by the time you realize that something is not working, you would have wasted both the time and effort.
In closing, if you can follow and implement the above 3 steps with the right expectations right from the start, then I can say with great confidence you will acquire these very high-impact skills which will definitely make you a very good affiliate marketer.
It is just a matter of time, focus and dedication.
Of course, I may have simplified the 3 major steps to start an online business but they are the very basic foundations which most beginners do not know in reality. And sometimes it is very hard for them to accept they needed to put in the work before they can expect to see results.
Finally, if you are looking for a good online affiliate training program to learn everything about the above 3 steps, look no further.
I would really like to recommend you to check this amazing affiliate online training program designed to help newbies and beginners to start an online business in affiliate marketing, and also for small business owners and entrepreneurs improve to get better results.
In this very comprehensive training, you will be able to learn all the above 3 steps in details, STEP-BY-STEP, CLICK-BY-CLICK, LEVEL-BY-LEVEL.
You will also get all the system, tools, and education you need to start an online business in affiliate marketing in the next 3 to 6 months.
If I can make it, you also can.
There was a saying the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, but the second best time is right now!
Wilfred
Create Unforgettable Experiences!
