5 years ago I started my Affiliate Marketing journey. At the time my husband and I knew life didn’t have to be as difficult as it was. We have always been drawn to entrepreneurship, but it wasn’t until parenthood, difficulties and a need to make the most of life that we pursued affiliate marketing.
At the beginning I told myself I didn’t have the time, the technical skills to set up a campaign or the ability to sell on video, I didn’t want to be plastered all over social media or annoy people I knew by selling to them. Now I know this isn’t affiliate marketing. I was drawn to the freedom and lifestyle that affiliate marketing can offer. As well as the opportunity to be myself and help others. The key to success for me was doing it my way.
I’ve found my way and now enjoy the freedom of living the life I choose and working the way I want. In this article, you’ll learn from the mistakes we made and can access some free intro training to make this work for you.
- Step 1: Know Yourself
- Step 2: Understand What Affiliate Marketing is
- Step 3: Learn How To Market Online
- Step 4: Decide Where You Want To Market
- Step 5: Make Sure Affiliate Marketing Is Right For You
- Step 6: Why People Fail-Prepare To Overcome
- Step 7: Take Action The Modern Way To Affiliate Market
Here are 7 Steps To Become A Successful Affiliate Marketer (Your Way)
Step 1: Know Yourself
Affiliate marketing isn’t about being an expert in something, it’s about knowing what people like you want and need.
Who am I? I’m Keri.
I wanted to have a life of adventures. I’d had years of jobs that worked around travelling and spending as much time outdoors as possible. Here’s how I turned that desire into a business multiple times.
Long story, short, my husband (Nick) and I ran an outdoor centre, a log cabin-style building in the middle of a country park. We had the freedom to run the business how we chose, we had land, animals, and adventurous activities and helped numerous people of all ages gain confidence and life skills. At the time it was everything we wanted. The work was rewarding, the location idyllic and the earnings top for the outdoor industry. We were happy but tired. We worked long hours, managed a staff team and challenged ourselves physically and mentally. Even in our 20’s we knew this wasn’t sustainable.
We moved away from our centre as I went on maternity leave. Nick pursued a new consultant role. I was now alone in a new area with a small baby, whilst Nick worked in a job that caused high stress and little reward. We made it work because that’s what I thought we had to do!
You keep going because during the day you are too busy to explore other options, and during the evening too tired. Then at the weekend, you have to fit what little life you have left in.
After maternity leave, I returned to a job that took me away from my son, which didn’t feel right. When I was home I was answering emails and taking calls, whilst trying to make the most of the little time I had with my son. Whilst juggling these balls we decided to have another child. When our daughter was born Nick faced redundancy. He quickly found another job, because again we thought this was the only way!
This resulted in more stress and long hours.
It was the day our 8-week-old daughter was rushed into hospital and it was easier to get my parents who lived over 150 miles away to come and look after our son than for Nick to get time off work. We knew something wasn’t right. My sister sat with me for 10 days. I didn’t know if our daughter would survive. With all the will in the world, Nick only made it to us around 9 pm each evening. Our hearts were breaking, we were stressed, missing each other and our family unit was all going in different directions. On top of this, we had no financial security.
Eventually, our daughter’s health improved and finally, we were sent home. The day we got home. I saw Nick pull up in the car. Excited that he’d finally been able to leave work early I opened the door and saw his face. He was devastated. He’d been let go from his job with no explanation. He’d given everything he had, he put their needs before his family and yet still they threw him out the door. This was the moment we decided to take control of our own lives. Moments when you are at your lowest either break or make you. Nick and I chose that it would see this as our opportunity for change. A lot has happened since that day, but only months later we were back in charge of our lives.
Now we have time and financial freedom. Now when stressful life events happen we can be present for each other and our children. Day to day we can choose what we want our lives to be and have the time and money to explore new interests, travel, and be the people we want to be. We no longer live in a high-stress environment. We wake up every day and make choices based on what makes us happy.
Affiliate marketing has allowed us to pursue our love of adventure and the outdoors with like-minded people and share what we learn along the way. We earn a living by exploring our goals.
In conclusion, had we not pursued affiliate marketing we’d have ended up in traditional roles. Dad works out of the home and Mum is the main carer for the children. Dad was stressed, missing out on the special family moments and just about making enough to survive month to month. I would have been putting my energy into the children and losing my identity possibly taking a job that fits around my family but would’ve been unfulfilled and had to take a pay cut. This can work for families, but we knew it wasn’t the life we wanted.
This could have easily been our story and we would have made it work, but life doesn’t have to be so difficult. You can have the time to do the things you want, both parents can be present in their children’s lives, you can have time to prioritise yourself, and you can have money for the things you want, not just the things you need to live and the time to make a positive change in the world. The beauty of affiliate marketing is that it is possible for absolutely everyone.
What did you want from life? When did you compromise? What would you like to do now?
Step 2: Understand What Affiliate Marketing Is
Don’t disregard something until you’ve taken the time to understand it.
Affiliate Marketing is simply sharing the products and services you love with people who share your goals and values. As we pursue the life we want we share the resources, lessons and information that we’ve found beneficial along the way. By creating content like this, and sharing what you believe in (making the world a better place) you gain the freedom to work how, where and when you want.
Affiliate Marketing doesn’t require you to give up the day job to start making money. Affiliate marketing is performance-based so you only make money when you sell a product or service, which means it’s limitless.
When we started our content was only seen by a handful of people so we only made a handful of sales. As we’ve grown more confident in our message and who wants to see it we’ve been able to use paid marketing to reach thousands of people. Affiliate marketing is a massive industry worth around $17 billion this year with an estimated growth of $27 billion by 2027.
Most people don’t even explore this potential, because they don’t understand how it’s possible for them.
Step 3: Learn How To Market Online
It’s surprisingly simple if you haven’t learnt you’ve probably missed out on income already.
If you’ve ever recommended a restaurant, a destination or a film you’ve essentially affiliate marketed. You just needed to send them a link.
In a nutshell:
1) Find a product or service you love.
2) Sign up for their affiliate programme on their website.
3) Use your unique link on various marketing channels (more info on this below)
4) If someone clicks your link and purchases you will earn a commission.
Commissions vary with earning potential anywhere from 3% to 50% depending on the product or service. With multiple products and services and a few high-ticket items, there is no limit to your earning potential.
Step 4: Decide Where You Want To Market
There are many ways to build an audience. The trick is building an audience you naturally resonate with using a medium you enjoy.
The modern way is to build a platform that will work automatically. Rather than pestering friends and family, build a platform online where people who want the information you share can come and find it.
How do you prefer to communicate?
You can write blogs or emails, create photo pictorial content on social media, shorts or long video. You can be funny, serious, artistic or change depending on your mood. Just be you.
Think about why your audience will engage with your content and provide value. Be helpful, solve problems and be honest. Promote products that are in line with with why they engaged with you in the first place.
Be honest about commissions that you earn. Build your brand on trust and with people that resonate with you.
Step 5: Make sure Affiliate Marketing is right for you
Are you willing to make the effort or will you give up if you don’t succeed straight away?
Affiliate marketing is possible for every single person. All you need is access to the internet and a device you can create content on. That said, you also need motivation and integrity.
People often try and fail due to inadequate research and learning, on how to make this successful or because they want a system or formula to do all the work for them. Affiliate marketing only works when you manage to reach and help someone. As with any business, affiliate marketing requires commitment of both time and money:
- Time to learn new skills to create content that engages and helps people.
- Money put into paid marketing, tools and education.
After 2 years with varying levels of success. We paid for some coaching to help with areas we struggled with. It paid for itself within 3 months. Budget time and money each month that you can sustain until you succeed and invest it well.
No matter how you invest your time and money, it’s not something that will happen overnight. You will make mistakes, you will want to give up, God knows we did a few times. The strategy you choose is a personal decision depending on your circumstances. Building something that allows you time and financial freedom requires effort.
Are you willing to put in effort to create the life you want?
Pros and Cons: It’s not all Rainbows and Butterflies
Pros:
- High earning potential
- Freedom in every area of your life
- Ability to stay true to your values
- Huge number of opportunities
- Never boring as you make it what you want
- Possible for everyone
Cons:
- Overwhelm
- Not every product/service will make you money and being reliant on the products and service
- Deciding on a strategy: time commitment/money commitment
- Naysayers
- Self-belief and motivation
Step 6: Why People Fail: Prepare To Overcome
The things I wish I knew before I started.
Overwhelm
There are so many opportunities and different marketing strategies that it can feel overwhelming. Lots of people promise the “ultimate system”, but what works for one person won’t work for another.
What’s great about affiliate marketing is also what’s hard. There’s no correct way of doing things so you get to be creative and unique. For me, this meant the first few weeks were full of excitement and energy but when I had to make decisions about how best to progress or solve a problem I craved a definitive answer. It’s easy to put it off and wait for “a sign” rather than invest time, energy and money into proactive steps. To experiment and find the way that works for you.
Affiliate marketing is like dating, there are no magic words you can say to make someone fall in love with you. It’s a case of being clear on your goals and values and communicating them well so you can authentically connect with likeminded people so you can be the best you.
Be clear on who you are and what you are about. This will help you stay focused and objectively overcome problems by looking for solutions that suit you.
When learning a new skill it’s always a good idea to have someone with experience on hand. They won’t tell you one way to do it but be able to use their knowledge to help you confidently explore a solution that works for you.
Dealing with failure
8 out of 10 things we try with our business don’t work. This is a hard, but incredibly valuable lesson. The best way to learn is by doing. You can have all the right ideas and intentions, but that doesn’t mean it will be a success. With failure, you will learn lessons that will help you grow. The amazing thing about affiliate marketing is if a piece of content works once it can carry on working thousands and thousands of times.
This blog has been rewritten and refined many times. I can track the success of each blog, by looking at clicks/leads/conversions and keep each blog profitable. Once we create a piece of content we can put £100 into marketing and make £200 back, we can often scale to £10,000 in and £20,000 back with very little extra work. That can happen every month on autopilot while we continue to pursue our goals and as a byproduct discover new things to share.
Use lessons from failure to encourage not defeat you. You can get help along the way like we did. Help will accelerate your progress and avoid costly mistakes, get something working so you have more time money and confidence to try new things.
Deciding on a strategy
It’s important to find a realistic strategy for you:
- How much free time can you sustainably give your business each week?
- How much money can you invest in your business each month?
- How could you increase these resources?
Working with other people who have done this before will help you get realistic about expectations and goals.
Naysayers and believing in your value
Not everyone will be supportive. Most people will steer you away from something they don’t understand. Usually out of love, sometimes out of ignorance. It’s important not to rely on external validation of your ideas and dreams.
Find the people that share your goals and values. Take responsibility for your success and lead by example. Show people and pursue what really matters to you. This is how you’ll find the value you have to offer other people. You may think you are the only person who feels x, y and z, but there are lots of other people resonating with you and your personal message. Your weird and wonderful way of solving a problem might be exactly what someone else needs.
Here is an example, you are reading this and have resonated with something that kept you reading. There are 100’s of other people out there reading this message at the same time. People who want to make the most of life, the people who want to spend as much time doing what they want, with who they want and help other people along the way.
Self Belief and Motivation
This is a personal one for me. It’s easy to say:
“Well, I’m not tech savvy so I can’t do it,”
“I can’t write”
“I don’t have a social media following”
“I don’t want to be on camera”
“I don’t have time”
Whatever your self-limiting beliefs tell you, the truth is affiliate marketing requires you to be you. Concentrate on the stuff that excites you. For the tech stuff, you can either learn through videos or coaching or if you want to pay people to do things that feel impossible, you can.
When it comes to motivation, I get it, it’s tough. If I’d prioritised money and time on affiliate marketing sooner I could’ve had more success earlier on, but whilst juggling all other life stuff we simply don’t make time for something new.
The catch is the fact that you don’t have time and you have to work so hard is the exact reason you should do it! Otherwise, how does your life look a year from now or even 5 years from now?
So, you have to make a choice:
Option 1) You do nothing and keep grinding till something external happens.
or
Option 2) You start exploring alternatives and follow your own path.
Continue to ask yourself every day “Is this what I choose?”
Step 7: Take action: The Modern Way To Affiliate Market
What can you do today to change your course of direction?
Taking consistent action is vital. Having a plan will help with consistency.
Here is a programme I’ve used to set up multiple income streams, that has enabled me to generate leads and sales to earn 24/7, whilst I’m spending quality time with my family. I spent time learning about myself, my avatar (the audience I want to engage with), what I want, and what they want and need.
I’ve thought about how I want to help people and despite being a technophobe, I’ve learnt the tech stuff that makes it possible.
Could I have done it on my own? Possibly there’s loads of information out there and I could’ve spent hours and hours sieving through what works for me and it might have worked. But I chose to get support as I knew I couldn’t do another year in survival mode sacrificing my life. This programme came to me at a time when I needed it most. When my husband and I were burnt out, but had to keep going. We found the time by prioritising the future we wanted when we didn’t think we had any and completed the training.
Yes, we do affiliate this service alongside many others such as Amazon, outdoor equipment, software, and travel-related products and services, we even affiliate our products. This is the service that got us started on our journey. This is the service that transformed us from being in survival mode to living the life we chose. Of course, I also put in the hard work, but it was worth it. Your life is your opportunity to forge your own path. I chose more family time, more travel and less stress. What would you choose?
How will you choose to spend the rest of your life?
