I'm going to share with you my top 10 rules for affiliate marketing success.
By following and living by these rules in my business, I've been able to make millions of dollars as an affiliate marketer.
You can make as much money as you want as an affiliate marketer, but only if you embody these rules. If you can do that, success will be yours for the taking.
Ready to discover what these 10 rules are? Keep reading!
Watch the video below:
(Click here to watch on YouTube)
[smart_track_player url=http://www.buzzsprout.com/9299/1775815-plm-716-10-rules-for-affiliate-marketing-success.mp3″ background=”default” ]
Do you want to know how to make money with affiliate marketing from scratch? CLICK HERE to join my FREE Affiliate Marketing masterclass!
I've been an affiliate marketer for over ten years.
I've learned a lot along my journey. I've discovered, through trial and error, that there are core rules that you need to follow if you want to be successful. If you don't, you end up getting yourself into trouble. I don't want you to fall into this trap, so here are my top 10 rules for affiliate marketing success. If you follow these, you're setting yourself up to win.
1. Be laser-focused
A big challenge that I see a lot of affiliate marketers face is that they are really scattered. They try to promote too many products at one time which only ends up diluting their focus. Instead, they should be focusing on one stream of traffic and build their business around one highly commissionable product.
That is the fastest path towards success as an affiliate marketer. I encourage you to create bonuses for people in order to incentivize them to buy an affiliate product through you. Furthermore, create a lot of content around your affiliate product. Once you've been successful with one core product, then you can branch-off and create another affiliate marketing funnel.
2. Be passionate about your niche and products
A lot of people get into affiliate marketing as a means of making money. I get it. I've been there before. The problem with this approach is that it's not sustainable. Money alone won't inspire you to keep going when you hit roadblocks.
However, if you build an affiliate marketing business around your passion, and promote products that you truly believe in, you will be successful. It is possible to profit from your passion and find a niche that you really want to get behind. At the end of the day, you want your products to add value and help others.
3. Carefully research and select affiliate products
You can't just promote any random product. Instead, make sure that your product is a high-quality one. Do research on the product and make sure that you've benefitted from it first. Also, make sure that you thoroughly understand the affiliate program you've chosen.
I suggest that you reach out to the affiliate manager of the program you choose and ensure that his/her communication is strong. Not only that, make sure that they've got great customer support. Don't forget that you are staking your reputation on the line for any product that you promote.
I also recommend researching what other affiliates are doing to promote the product you've chosen. Find pieces of content that they have created. Doing so will help you get ideas with your own promotional efforts.
4. Make sure that you put your followers and subscribers first
A lot of people that get into affiliate marketing do it to only make money. Their secondary goal is to add value to people. If you adopt this mindset, you will get into trouble. I always make sure that I put other people's needs above mine.
Always make sure that you are promoting products that truly serve people. If you can make money from the product, great! However, it should be your secondary goal, not your first.
Don't risk compromising the trust and relationships that you have already built with your audience. If you promote a product that people don't end up liking, this will negatively impact your credibility over the long-term.
5. Always be learning and improving
The Internet is always changing and evolving. If you don't adapt with it, you're going to get left behind. In order to be successful as an affiliate marketer, you always have to learn and improve your funnels, blog, content, ads… everything! The smartest way to learn is by learning from other people.
Find other successful affiliate marketers who are doing better than you are. Invest in their courses and training programs, hire coaches, or join a Mastermind group. Do anything that allows you to be in close proximity with successful people. This is what will save you time and accelerate your business success.
Don't waste your time and money learning from your own experiences. Rather, learn from others' failures. I don't know anyone that has ever been successful on their own.
Even if you're making big money in your affiliate marketing business, continue to remain humble. As a business owner and an affiliate marketer, I'm obsessed with learning. When I learn, I can share more and help others grow.
6. Commit fully to your affiliate marketing business
Affiliate marketing isn't a hobby or a side hustle. Hence, it's not something that you can dabble with. If you dabble, you will fail. The way that you achieve success as an affiliate marketer is by going all in and making it a high priority. You've got to fully commit and treat affiliate marketing as a business, because it is!
If you have a 9 to 5 job and you're doing affiliate marketing on the side, maybe you need to work on your business before you go to work. You may have to wake up at 5 am, but if you want it bad enough, you will do it. Similarly, you may need to work on your business on the weekend when everyone else is having fun.
If you're serious about making money from an online business, you've got to make sacrifices and work harder than everyone else. The more you put in, the more you get out of it. If you can do this, you will achieve financial freedom.
7. Be consistent
You can't work on your affiliate marketing business once in a while. That won't get you results. Research shows that 90% of startups fail. A huge reason why this happens is because of a lack of consistency. If you want to have a successful affiliate marketing business, you have to make sure that you're working on your business consistently.
If you do, eventually a snowball effect will occur and your business will grow faster. I've been working on my online business for 7.5 years. Every single week I've been consistent. This is what has allowed me to get to where I am today.
I encourage you to develop the habit of consistency now. More importantly, make sure you reward and acknowledge yourself along the way. This will motivate you to keep going when you have bad days.
8. Be patient
Building a business is a process that you must be patient with. Affiliate marketing isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. If you want to build a sustainable business that stands the test of time, it will require a lot of time, hard work, energy, and money.
A lot of people get into affiliate marketing with the wrong mindset. When they don't see success quick enough, they give up. They are dabblers who jump from one thing to the next but never finish anything. Don't measure your success based on how much money you are making.
That's just you being attached to a result, which you don't even have control over. All that you have control over is the process, so you may as well enjoy it! Don't forget to celebrate the small milestones that you make along the way.
The first time that you get your website set up or the first time that you publish a piece of content online, celebrate that goal. Whenever you reward yourself, you repeat that behavior.
9. Always add value
The relationships you create with people are the most valuable thing. When you create valuable content and have the mindset of serving, you are building trust and goodwill. This is what allows you to turn a follower into a lifelong customer.
You want to have these kinds of people in your corner. When you give to others, they will want to give back and support you as well. Don't just send people to an affiliate link. Make sure that you're collecting their email addresses so that you can start building relationships with them.
10. Make sure that you are compliant with affiliate terms and agreements and FTC
Every affiliate program has its own terms, rules, and regulations. Make sure that you follow them or else you will get into trouble. Make sure that you read and understand what you can and cannot do. Also, when it comes to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), make sure that you include a disclaimer in your content that clearly delineates that you are an affiliate for the product that you are promoting.
These are my top 10 rules for affiliate marketing success.
If you can live by and follow these rules, there is no limit to the amount of money that you can make. Which rule will you implement in your business today?
Do you want to know how to make money with affiliate marketing from scratch? CLICK HERE to join my FREE Affiliate Marketing masterclass!