Job security is something we all worry about every single day; not surprising considering un-employment by 2010 in the US was the lowest since 1990 (source).
The good news?
Your average-Joe (or Jo!) has the tools in-front of them to create small business ideas that help them earn money from home, most of which are free. There are quality online affiliate training programs that you can join for free!
There are also a diverse range of available jobs working from home, not to mention that with great online business ideas & a small budget you could become a millionaire!
A few reasons why affiliate marketers start their career include:
- Work flexibility
- Low start-up costs
- No prior experience needed
- High income potential
- Low overheads
- Home based business
First of all, you need to have the right mindset.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.”- Henry Ford
1. Train
Doing a 2 hour video course explaining the different ways to make money online will not make you a successful affiliate marketer.
The world, including the internet marketing sphere, is constantly changing. You need to know what those changes are and how you can adapt your plan to suit. This means dedicating a few hours per week to catch up on your industry niche, as well as any developments that relate to the marketing tactics you are using.
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For affiliate marketers, Affilorama has always been a fantastic resource. There are free accounts available, so simply fill out a quick profile description & picture to get started; you’ll have people helping you from day 1. It’s a great place to start learning how to develop a business.
2. Get Motivated
Jobs working from home, from the outside looking in, look…awesome!
Remember, you don’t have to work. Even when you do, you might not get paid a figure that you were expecting. This can lead to a lack of motivation which can be a real drag!
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This post highlights some techniques to stay motivated.
3. Find a support system
In life, we have family and friends. They guide is through new experiences and pick us up when we are down. Affiliate marketers need that same guidance and support, but from people that are operating in their industry; other affiliate marketers.
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Joining interactive training programs for affiliate marketers will act as a great support system.
4. Developing Weaknesses
A lot of people try, a lot of people fail, and a lot of people are successful.
When a sports team doesn’t come 1st, it’s because they are not the best. Think about it. They leave, they train, they adapt their strategy, and they try again.
One of the biggest challenges in not just affiliate marketing, but life too, is identifying and building on areas of weakness.
Usually it is a few weaknesses that lead to a huge decrease in happiness (in life) and money (in affiliate marketing). It’s the 80/20 rule and it can be applied to anything.
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If you’re make money online due to focusing on your strengths, that’s great!
If something is missing due to your weaknesses, allocate a small amount of time to develop them.
There are resources online for just about anything, whether that is learning HTML and design or even structuring content. Focus on developing one weakness at a time.
5. Choosing Your Niche
Choosing your niche in affiliate marketing is your first step to earning money from home. There are thousands of different niches, some more lucrative than others.
As you become a more seasoned marketer, it is likely you’ll develop multiple sites and campaigns. In the early days, it’s about getting a formula in place that works (which can then be replicated at a later stage).
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Be super-focused when it comes to what you are promoting; choose one product or niche. You can then learn how to gain credibility in that niche and your work will have impact.
Keyword research is not only an incredibly useful skill to have, it can be great to remove brain block when it comes to establishing the ways to make money online.
A good idea is to focus on niches that interest you. This is not a get rich quick scheme and you’re likely to poor hours of time (possibly some cash) into your ideas.
It makes sense that if you like camping; you focus on products and/or services that relate to camping to keep the day-to-day grind interesting!
6. Create A Budget
Approximately 82% of businesses fail, due to poor cash flow. A lot of these are actually turning a profit, but due to manufacturing lead times, late payments and more, they just run out of cash! Of course, people that look to earn money from home have no real overheads which will certainly help with budgeting.
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If your affiliate marketing idea is PPC reliant, creating the first month’s budget is fairly easy, as you’ll have bid estimates; what you can’t estimate is sales.
Ideally you’ll want to use a budget in stages as you creep your way up the learning curve. One bad PPC campaign could see a budget wiped out, so don’t be putting your whole affiliate marketing budget on the line at once!
All you are trying to do is establish a formula that offers positive ROI. You are just trying to produce a set of data which will give you enough information to improve a campaign. Start small, find the formula, and then scale up.
7. Understand Marketing Avenues
There are 100s of marketing avenues that will help you to earn money from home, but without having an understanding of them; it’s going to be hard to make any cash at all. For affiliates, using a quality email platform and building lists is the #1 way to market products.
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Make it your goal to understand the basic principles of marketing via:
8. Choosing Marketing Avenues
If this is your first time making money from home, you’ll be working alone for now! On a low budget and with no help a content marketing strategy for the web is usually the best way to go.
It’s a tall order to try and cover all aspects of marketing from day one; so don’t. In fact, some projects will produce a much better ROI by focusing on just 1 or 2 marketing avenues.
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Choose a marketing avenue that you feel comfortable with. Just remember, the competition is heavy so whatever you do it; make sure you do it better than “well”.
Let’s take content marketing as an example.
Open up the first 10 results for your search term and have a quick read. You need to be confident that you can develop a piece that offers the user more value, insight and pushes them to carry on reading than any of the other 10 results.
If you can’t, then it’s probably time to go back to the drawing board and develop a new content strategy
8. Campaign Planning, Monitoring & Refinement
Campaign planning, monitoring and refinement will help you figure out which campaigns are losing you cash and which ones would be making more with a larger investment.
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Find tools relevant to your marketing campaign. So, for content, you will benefit from these tools.
9. Don’t Oversell
When trying to develop a customer base through email, social media, blog posts and similar avenues, it can be tempting to constantly market products and/or services aggressively.
This doesn’t work. Consumers these days are bombarded with ads, schemes, brands and the brain just can’t cope.
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Nurture your visitors down a sales path that is new and exciting. Engage your user with interesting and relevant content first and sell to them later.
Assumption – You own a web design blog targeted at UK visitors and you want to promote a training course for beginners.
We could do a review of the course, but consumers are wise to the fact most reviews are actually sales pitches. Why try and deceive them anyway?
Take a more creative angle. Why is the individual looking at this course?
A good assumption is that they have an inclination web design could be a more lucrative job prospect than their current one.
So, ditch the review and connect with them; tell them the information that they want to know!
That would be things like they should expect a wage of around £32,000 and they shouldn’t have a problem finding a job, considering there are over 7,200 jobs on Indeed.co.uk in the UK.
Worried about becoming complacent? No problem! They could be the key component in a multi-million £ digital enterprise of the future!
Now that sounds something that is worth investing time into and there is no harm giving the course some exposure on that page!
Putting it all together
Now write a plan. There are 100s of marketers that make cash without a plan. It’s still worth writing. Not only is it something to refer to for a bit of a motivational boost, but it also helps you uncover your weaknesses.
Just because you are making money from home, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be looking at this as a business; it is a business. By mapping out your online business idea, you’ll reduce your chance of failure considerably.
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Make a business plan using the guide here.
Writing a business plan will not only give you a blueprint to follow, it will really uncover how clued up you are about your business. You’ll instantly be able to see where the gaps are in your knowledge.
Jason
I'm an internet Marketer with a love for online business. Get in touch if you need a helping hand with Internet marketing, SEO or Business
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