How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Business From Scratch (7 Simple Steps)
Would you like to earn a full-time income from the comfort of your home but you just don’t know where to start?
Have you ever wonder what are the steps to start an affiliate marketing business online that generates passive income month after month?
If your answer is YES, then you are in the right place at the right time.
Hi, My name is Casey Gentles and I have been generating a full-time income from my affiliate marketing business for more than a decade.
In today’s post, I want to take you by the hand and show you the EXACT steps that you need to take to get started with your very own affiliate marketing business.
Affiliate Disclosure:
Before I continue, please be advised that some of the links inside of this post are ‘affiliate links.’ What that means is that if you should purchase a product or service via any of these links, you should assume that I get a commission at no extra cost to you. That said, I only recommend products that I personally use and know for sure will help you to grow your online business.
So you wanna make some good money online right?
Who am I kidding, I know you do!
I know because when I first got started online more than a decade ago, I would wonder and ponder and dream day and night about how to really become successful online.
All those so-called gurus made it seem so simple.
Just click a few buttons on a software and wallah the cash will start rolling in. Unfortunately, this is absolutely NOT the case.
So if you are frustrated, I totally understand your pain because I’ve been there.
And if you are just trying to figure out this “internet marketing thing” so that you can start generating a decent income online, in order to give your family the quality of life that they truly deserve, then I’m here for you.
Below I am going to break down the steps that you need to take to create an affiliate marketing business from scratch that will last for years to come.
And you can get started TODAY!
- Without any technical skills
- Without any prior Internet marketing knowledge
- And without investing thousands of dollars
As long as you are dedicated and willing to learn and take action you can become successful.
Now before your B.S detector goes off, just forget all that you think you know and hear me out for the next few minutes.
I promise to make it worth your while.
What You Are About to Learn:
Introducing …
How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Business From Scratch
7 Steps To Get Started Even if You Are A Complete Beginner
In this training, I am going to teach you EXACTLY what you need to know about setting up an online business that will run pretty much on a semi-auto pilot.
Notice I said “Semi” autopilot.
That is because most of the stuff you’ll do can be automated and once your business is up and running, you’ll also have systems in place to keep it going and GROWING.
That means you are not tied to your computer.
Hence – the saying, you’ll make money online even while you are sleeping or traveling the world.
This is what we refer to as PASSIVE INCOME!
So are you ready?
Let’s get started, shall we?
Where Should You Start?
If you are new to Internet marketing, and making money online, this may be a question that you are seeking an answer to. It is a very important question because if you don’t start with the right foundation, you may be setting up yourself for failure.
There are a LOT of ways to make money online and there are a lot of different types of online businesses that you can start.
However, in this training, we will focus on one of the easiest ways to get started to make money online.
This method is known as AFFILIATE MARKETING.
In a nutshell, this simply means that you will be promoting goods and services and will receive a commission whenever your customers or prospects take the desired action.
And The Desired Action Could Be
- Someone buying a product or service
- Someone filling out a form
- Someone simply entering their email address
- Someone entering their zip code
- Or even someone just answering their phone and staying on for a certain about of time.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Really Work?
In general, companies or product owners are always looking to expand their reach to get more customers and sales and thus increase their profits.
As a result, they are willing to give up a percentage of their profits to acquire those new customers.
Depending on the type of products, that percentage can range from as little as 4% all the way up to 75% or more.
Typically you’ll find that physical products will be on the lower end as there are more overhead costs but digital products can go all the way up to 75% or more.
There are cases where some product owners even offer 100% commissions on their front-end offers to get a customer so that they can market to those customers and make money on the backend.
The question you may be asking now is: why would a product owner give away 75% of the sale to an affiliate (you and me) and only keep 25%. That doesn’t seem logical right?
Well Here’s Why:
REASON # 1 – These higher commission products are digital products.
That means once they are created, the cost involved in making them accessible is negligible.
Once a person buys, he or she will be able to download or access the product right away and there are no shipping or production costs involved.
REASON # 2. – Higher profit potential
Let’s say a product owner is able to send 1000 visitors to his website per day and from that he makes 10 sales of a product for which he earns $50.
That means he will earn a total of $500.
On the other hand, let’s say he has 10 affiliates, which also generate 10 sales per day for him.
Each affiliate will generate the same $500 in revenue but their cut will be 75% which is $375 and the product owner gets 25% which is $125.
But here’s the thing, while each individual affiliate will get $375, the product owner, on the other hand, will get 25% of the total sales generated by all 10 affiliates.
That is $125 x 10 affiliates, which is $1,250.
Can you see why a product owner would want to give away a higher percentage of the sale to attract more affiliates?
Knowing all this, you may be wondering why not just become a product owner yourself and make more money?
Good question!
The problem is that it is not as simple as it sounds.
Creating products requires a LOT of work, time, research, and money up front and it also requires a lot of testing to make an offer work.
Not to mention customer service and the headache that comes along with it.
When Starting an internet marketing business, you must enter the path of least resistance.
Later on, as you develop your marketing skills and gain more experience, as well as more money to invest, you can become a product owner and you could even outsource the entire process.
With affiliate marketing, however, it is much easier to get started.
You don’t have to worry about creating products or dealing directly with customers.
You will basically be acting as a middleman in an equation.
What Is The Best Way To Create An Affiliate Marketing Business?
Let’s get into it.
When I first started out in affiliate marketing back in 2008, I was told to first find a product and then promote that product with the hope that I’ll make some sales.
I followed that methodology for some time and Surely I did make some sales.
However, I later found out that there was a far better and far more profitable way to create an online business that focuses on affiliate marketing.
Instead of finding a product and then hope to find people and convince them to buy that product, it is much better to find a group of people who are already searching for a solution to a problem and then recommend the right product that solves that problem.
It makes the sale so much easier without you actually doing a lot of selling.
Russel Brunson refers to this group of people as your ‘dream 100‘ in his best-selling book Dotcomsecrets.
It’s like if someone is stranded in the desert for a few days without water and you show up selling water, they wouldn’t need any convincing to buy because they were already looking for what you’ve got.
A 7 Step Approach To Creating An Affiliate Marketing Business
Step #1 – Find A Lucrative Market
Before you start doing any kind of marketing or promotions, it is very important that you decide who you want to be your customers.
The Internet has millions of people browsing at any given second and you have to decide whom you want your offer to reach.
If you try to reach everyone in the hope that you’ll make more money then you’ll FAIL.
You want to find a market that has a group of people with a burning desire or a common problem that needs a solution.
You want to find a market that has a group of people with a burning desire or a common problem that needs a solution.
Read that sentence again and let it sink in!
A perfect example of such a market is the weight loss market. There are tons of people who want to lose weight for various different reasons.
However, the weight loss market is a very broad market and so you need to narrow it down to a specific segment of that market.
An example of this would be men over thirty who want to lose weight or mothers who want to lose weight after giving birth.
Once you find this group of people, you will become the go-to person for these people and they will become your fan base.
It’s important to note that I didn’t say find a product you want to promote and build a list around it.
That’s the HUGE mistake I made when I just started out.
The difference with what I will teach you is that you will get to know the people in your market/niche – thus allowing them to like and trust you.
Plus you will be able to provide them with the right solutions that will help them. These solutions will be affiliate products and later on your own products.
It really doesn’t matter as long as these are ETHICAL products that DO help your fan base to achieve certain results.
That is, getting them one step closer to solving whatever problems or desires they may have.
Step #2 – Niche Down Further
In step one above you would start out with a broad market. As I mentioned earlier, you will have to narrow down that broad market to a specific segment that you can focus on.
This segment is what you’ll build your ‘fan base’ around.
When it comes to an affiliate marketing business or practically any business for that matter, If you go too broad, you will be competing with the gazillion other marketers out there.
You have to stand out from the crowd by doing something different.
It’s the same reason why a dermatologist can charge more for a visit than a general practitioner. They specialize in a specific segment of the medical field while the general practitioner targets everyone.
If we look at the weight loss example again, you’ll notice there are several segments that you could potentially target.
Let’s take a look:
General Market: Weight loss
Smaller Segment: Men who want to lose weight or Women who want to lose weight.
Smaller Segment 2: Men who want fast weight loss (30 days) or men who are looking for long-term weight loss.
Smaller Segment 3: men who want to lose weight fast by dieting (no time to exercise due to a busy schedule) or men who want to lose weight by dieting and exercising
You get the idea right?
I came up with the above data because I have some knowledge of the weight loss market.
However, if you are just starting out you have to follow a specific process to get all this information about your market. Remember, if you get this part wrong you will be setting up yourself for failure!
Step #3 – Provide A Simple Solution
This step requires a little bit of skill. Here you’ll create a valuable teaser product that answers or give a solution to the common problem that you have found.
Don’t let this step scare you.
This product can be a simple 5-page ebook, a video, mini-course, an article, or a blog post.
For example, this blog post that you are reading now… Wink Wink.
The IMPORTANT point to note is that it MUST help your prospect to either solve their problem or take them one step closer to their desired end result.
By the way, you will be giving away this product/information for free BUT since this product will be your first point of contact with your target audience, you want to make a great first impression.
You want to knock them off their feet with an incredible amount of value.
This means that if they follow the steps outlined in this product they should be at least one step closer to overcoming whatever problems they were having.
Step #4 – Give Away Your Solution For Free
You may be wondering why would you want to give away all your hard work for free. But stop and think about this for a second.
Remember, your main objective in all of this is to GENUINELY help your prospects get over whatever problems they may have.
By giving a ton of value upfront BEFORE you ask for anything in return you are EARNING your prospects’ trust which is very important to the longevity of your business.
Keep in mind that people will only buy from persons they like and trust.
Think about where you go grocery shopping for example. I bet you have a favorite supermarket that you go shopping in all the time. You practically know where to find everything without reading the labels on the aisle.
This is because over time you get to know and like that supermarket and now you have a special bond.
…. And unless something serious happens, you don’t see yourself shopping anywhere else.
Am I right?
Well I think am close.
So How Do You Give Away Your Product For Free?
The most common way to do this is via an affiliate sales funnel. The objective of this ‘funnel‘ is to take your visitors from just ‘meeting you‘ to becoming a raving fan.
You do this by collecting their info such as name and email address and then following up with them to build a relationship.
This affiliate sales funnel can be a simple two page funnel.
Page #1 – A squeeze page/lead capture page that makes an offer and in order for your prospects to get that offer, they have to enter their details on a form on this one-page website.
Usually, all they have to enter are their name and email address or even just their email address alone and your product will be delivered to them automatically.
Page #2 – A thank you page that delivers whatever you promised on the previous page. You can also use this page to recommend an affiliate product and make a few sales from your new subscribers.
For this affiliate sales funnel to run effectively, you are going to need two very important things.
They are A funnel Builder And an Autoresponder.
The funnel builder software is what you’ll use to create your web pages that your visitors will land on.
An Autoresponder such as ConvertKit, on the other hand, is the software that you’ll use to send emails to your subscribers to build that relationship.
This software will store your subscribers’ info and you can have pre-written emails that go out to them at intervals that you choose.
This is how your business will run on semi-auto pilot generating sales even while you sleep! Again don’t worry about this aspect right now; we’ll get into this later
What Should You Put On Your Lead Capture Page?
Since you’ve already done your research and know what problems your niche is having, you would craft a headline on your squeeze page to match one of the problems of your targeted audience and tell them you have the solution.
Below is a sample squeeze page I use to give away a free report to persons who were having problems getting started with their online business.
Part 1
Part 2
As you can see, that page is a short-form squeeze page that serves only one purpose. That is to make an offer to my prospects in return for their mail address.
Step #5 – Build A Relationship With Your Subscribers
Getting your prospects onto your list is a great first step to creating an online business but unless you learn to build a good relationship with them it is useless.
If you treat them like crap then they’ll hit unsubscribe or the spam button faster than they got onto your list in the first place.
On the other hand, if you treat them well and provide them with tremendous value, they will stay on your list, like and trust you, and buy products that you sell and recommend for months and years to come.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
But how do you provide value and build a long-term relationship with your subscribers?
If the free report/product you gave is top-notch/of high quality then that is a great start. The fact that you are providing superb content for free will mean a lot to your subscribers.
It shows that you care about them and want to help solve their problems.
The second step to building a good and long-term relationship with your subscribers has to do with the Autoresponder messages you send them.
I am pretty sure you want your online business to be around for a very long time and you want it to be as automated as possible.
Thus it’s your Autoresponder that will do all the work of building that long-term relationship.
This means that you will preload messages in your Autoresponder sequence to be delivered to your fans at specific intervals.
These messages will also provide value in helping to solve specific problems while being entertaining and engaging. At the same time you will be promoting products and earning commissions but not in a way that is intusive or spammy.
Just remember, you have to treat your subscribers the same way you would want to be treated.
They are real people just like you with real emotions. So keep that in mind and you will have a successful fan base and thus a successful business.
If you want to learn how to get the most out of email marketing, I highly recommend you read Russel Brunson’s book Dotcom Secrets.
It is one of the best training on email marketing that you can study as a beginer looking to grow a profitable online business. Check it out here!
Step #6 – Provide Solutions To Other Problems
This Is Where You Cash In $$$
As mentioned above, you’ll provide solutions via your Autoresponder messages. You will also be sending out broadcast messages to your entire list if you have something really important to share.
Overall though, you want to be providing expert advice and solutions to problems your fans are having.
What you need to understand is that for every market there will be a ton of problems that will prevent people from getting to their desired end result.
Let’s use the weight loss market again.
If we go back to the audience we chose of men who want to lose weight fast in 30 days, some of the problems that they may have could be:
- Don’t know what kind of workouts to do
- Don’t know what kind of foods to eat
- Don’t know how to prepare certain types of food
- Don’t know how many calories to consume daily
- Don’t have the motivation to do the workouts
- Don’t have access to a gym
- And the list goes on…
These are problems that you would have found from doing proper market research. This you’ll learn how to do when you follow the instructions inside my Market Research Made Simple Guide.
Here’s the good part:
For each of the above problems, you can promote/recommend an ethical product that will help your prospect get over that problem. Thus allowing you to make money in the process and still being cool and loved by your subscribers.
Step #7 – Drive Traffic And Scale
Once you have a system (high converting affiliate sales funnel) in place that is working, the next step is to drive a ton of traffic to that sales funnel.
This will allow you to test and see exactly what’s working and what’s not. From the data you collect over a period of time, you’ll be able to make changes to increase the conversion rate of your funnel.
There are many ways to drive traffic to your affiliate sales funnel but one of my favorite ways is to use videos. For example, you can create high-converting and engaging videos with a software like Vidnami and then rank those videos on YouTube and Google for targeted traffic.
Once You Know What’s Working, The Next Step Is To Scale…
This is what the ‘gurus’ do to take their businesses to the elite level.
If you are making $100 per day, then all you have to do is replicate what is working to double your profits.
How do you do this?
<strong>Here Are A Few Things To Consider:</strong>
- You can tweak your squeeze page to boots the conversion rate to increase the number of leads going into your sales funnel
- You can increase the traffic going to your squeeze page
- You can promote higher-priced products (one of my favorite ways)
- You can reinvest your profits to create your own products to maximize your revenue per sale
- You can recruit affiliates to drive sales for you
- You can do all of the above!
- Repeat the process in a new market/niche
This is the same system that I am applying and it is working pretty well for me.
The most important part of the system is finding that hungry niche that will buy from you over and over to suit their needs.
Once you have that niche and you set up your sales funnel, your business can pretty much run on autopilot once you have a mechanism to drive targeted traffic to your squeeze page.
Again it’s very important that I stress the point about getting into the right market and eventually the right niche. If you get into a market that doesn’t spend money, you will more than likely FAIL.
Conclusion
Starting an online business can be a bit scary if you don’t know what to do or which path to take. However, you have to take things one step at a time. At first you may be very excited and overwhelmed and can’t wait to for your business to take off.
However, once you start to get familiar with what goes into running a business and making it profitable, your excitement may decrease and you feel like giving up. But I hope this post will give you some encouragement and lead you in the right direction.
If you have any questions whatsoever, don’t be afraid to reach out. I am here to help you!
Before I go, I want to leave one of my favorite quotes with you:
You don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great. ~ Zig Ziglar.
Thanks for reading and I wish you all the success in your online business.
PS. If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your family and friends – They’ll thank you for it!
