I blasted my home door open, slammed my backpack down to the ground, and I speed walked my way into my kitchen where my laptop was sitting on my dinner table as it should on a Saturday afternoon and then it happened.
I can remember flipping open my laptop, typing in google to the URL and staring at the empty canvas where in just seconds a few magical words would appear...
"How To Learn Affiliate Marketing Basics For Free"
Over a million searches appeared, and one scroll later I was inside of a blog post reading how I could start affiliate marketing for free and here's what I saw:
- Buy my course
- Buy my course
- Buy my course
Okay, There were "some" key outlined details on how to actually start for free with a senseless approach but the same message was sprinkled throughout the post...
"Hey YOU who I don't know, buy my course, It'll change your life".
Does that sound familiar to you? And if you've watched those same curated YouTube videos selling you on the same crap, don't even get me started!
I know you have an itch to scratch, and it seems like every where you turn, someone wants you to buy from them, but is it a red flag?
To a degree it is, and at a point you'll have to get the thought out of your head that you shouldn't spend any money as I talk about in my making a living with affiliate marketing post...
But for now, let's talk free!
3 Secret Affiliate Marketing Basics
You heard that right, there are 3 secret affiliate marketing basics that you MUST know and ACT on if you want to get your 2 feet off the ground, and it'll surprise you how I'm about to start this one out.
SECRET #1: Mindset
This is your first lesson, and it'll be the most important of the three, why?
Every person I've met and even when I first started, I had assumed that making money as an affiliate would be quick, just a short-term thing, and if it didn't work in a day, week, months, and even a year, I'd call it quits.
After getting into the right training program for Free to start, I still lacked the one thing every affiliate needs at the core...
A Mindset shift. Yeah, it's important to have the right marketing skills and focus, but if your mind is not in the right place, you WILL fail!
It's like when you go into your class on exam day and you walked in without any preparation for what the material was on, and when you go into it, you might have a previous set of knowledge, but you're likely to fail.
The same goes with affiliate marketing, you need a:
- Rich man/woman thinking
- Defining "Why" You're doing this
- Identifying your personal self-image
I go more in depth on these concepts with videos inside of my Free Affiliate Marketing for Entrepreneurs Academy Mini Course Here.
SECRET #2: Identifying a Niche/Industry
My goodness, I can't tell you how many times I coach someone and I ask them, who is their target market and dream customer who would want your product, I get back:
"Everyone Michael"
STOP! This is the fastest way to disaster and the only way to never make an income online. Instead, you need to take a smaller group called a niche that you can stand out in, speak to them specifically so you can do two things:
- Solve their Pain/Problems
- Get them to their desire
This is called the "bridge". Think of it like a rainbow...
Let's say for this example we're targeting people with back pain(my niche by the way)...
And on the left end of the rainbow theirs a pain/problem this specific group of people has, and on the right end is the pot of gold, otherwise known as the desire your dream customer wants(maybe not always needs), stick with me here.
The bridge is the middle of the rainbow where it can be:
- Your product
- Your message
DAMAGE ALERT: There's a science as much of an art to doing this.
Most people disregard the whole point of "marketing" and instead they try to speak about their products features, and it's all about them, don't do this!
First of all, YOU need to make it about your audience/customer and the way you speak about a product or business opportunity is not all that you think, there's the right way, and then there's the wrong way, and I show you how to do it inside of my Free course.
SECRET #3: Website Vs No Website
This is every affiliate marketers top 3 questions, and let me tell you the shocking truth for you.
Yes, you need a website, it's not optional. Well, it is optional, but you'd be doing yourself a HUGE disservice by not owning own, and here's why:
- Your website is an asset. Unlike social media or things like YouTube,they can go away at any time, and what will you be left with? Nothing. All your content, your audience will be gone and then you'll have to start from scratch or you won't want to again.
- Your audience wants to know you. You mean, I can't just sell a product as a ghost? Well yeah, most people take away the human element, and interaction that makes people like, trust and build a relationship with you long term. Your website will have an about you page where you show people who you are and why they should trust buying from you.
- Blogs make people hunt you. There's this thing about being the hunted vs the hunter where instead of going out there to prospect people, crowd family and friends, even strangers inboxes. why not get people to find you? With a website blog, you will rank your posts on the first page of Google based on what people are already searching for.
I show you these things inside of my free affiliate marketing mini course.
Here's an info-graphic on the overall of the affiliate marketing life cycle:
So should you never use social media then? Not exactly. You should use it as a compliment to your own website, your own virtual real estate asset. And then overtime, you'll learn how to leverage certain social media platforms with things like email marketing.
The Money Is In The List
My old friend once told me: "Michael, everyone is landing on my website, but they are not buying, what's their or my problem?"
I asked him: "You do know it takes the average person about 7 times to see a product before they buy right?"
UH No?
Well, you have to collect emails my friend! Even if you threw up an amazon affiliate website, at some point, if you're not getting a huge volume of people to buy from you, then you should setup an automated email autorepsonder where you can send out a set sequence to people.
The truth is, most of the time, people want to know the other person(YOU). They want to know that they can be:
- entertained
- given value
- stories
- content
- promotions
Notice how I didn't say promotions at the beginning? Yeah, that goes back to understanding how to position your product, and at the right time. Don't worry, you'll get better at this part as the time goes by, no need to worry at the start.
Final Thoughts & Next Steps
You've seen the 3 secrets to basic affiliate marketing, and I've gone as far to show you that having an email list is something you'll want in addition...
And now it's time to put it all together for yourself!
What do you say, are you ready to get started?
When I first started, I built an amazon affiliate niche website business in the health and wellness space, and that's where I believe EVERY starting affiliate should begin, where you'll pick out a passion, hobby or interest and sell your products/services through it.
I teach this inside of my Free Affiliate Marketing Mini Course, but there's also another way to get started:
Have questions? Feel free to leave me a comment down below, and I will get back to you ASAP!
