Where Should I Start If I Want To Build Up An Affiliate Marketing Business? – 9 Tips To Get Started

February 2, 2024

The title of this post is a question I was asked today.

Here’s my answer:

1. Decide How You Want To Promote Offers

Do you want to blog, make videos for YouTube, become a social media influencer, buy paid advertising, etc.?

2. Decide What Niche You Want To Promote

The niche you pick doesn’t have to be something you’re passionate about but it does help.

Pick a niche where there are people willing to spend money – health, make money online, relationships and personal development are the most lucrative niches.

3. Identify Your Audience

Do some market research.

Does what you want to promote appeal to men, women or both?
What age ranges are most likely to buy?
Where do they live?
Are they white or blue collar workers?

And so on.

When you know your audience, you’ll have a much, much better idea of what to sell them.

There will be a lot of competition in these buyer niches so it’s better to find a sub-niche here than trying to appeal to a broad niche.

4. Find A Good Affiliate Marketing Mentor

Go read this article which talks about how you find a good mentor.

You can see mentors I follow at the top of the sidebar her on this site.

You will need to buy a course to follow.

If you’re not ready, willing or unable to buy a course, I recommend you start with Zach Crawford’s free affiliate marketing training.

Expect to pay $497-$3.000+ for a quality course, depending on the mentor.

Courses can vary hugely in quality, regardless of the price.

Zach offers a paid coaching program which, I think, is the best available currently that teaches you how to sell anything.

James Neville-Taylor’s program is the best option if you’re looking for faster results but his program is nowhere near as comprehensive as Zach’s.

You can start James’ program for free and scale up from there as you start to get results.

Spencer Mecham’s course is also excellent, but is the most expensive.

Russell Brunson’s course on how to get leads for your offers is also free but is quite limited in scope.

5. Put Your Focus Entirely Into Following What The Course Teaches

Whatever course you pick, (even if it’s not one of the above), stick with it – this is the hardest part as there are always new shiny products enticing you away.

If you give in to the seduction of new products, especially if you feel you’re not seeing the results you want with your chosen course, that is a recipe for disaster.

You’ll end up hopping from one course to another and none of them will work for you because you never give any one of them enough time.

So don’t be distracted by all the other offers you’ll be subjected to over time.

Prepare yourself for failure and obstacles because we all hit them.

They’re part of the learning process and, even if you become an expert, you’ll still encounter them.

They’re part and parcel of building an online business.

It’s how you deal with them that will determine if you’re cut out for ultimate success or not.

You need to learn to overcome them and look on them as learning experiences rather than walls designed to stop you in your tracks.

6. Be Consistent In Your Work

You can’t let other things distract you, and you have to push through when you don’t feel like doing the work.

Being consistent develops good working habits.

That means dedicaticating a set amount of time to working on your business and doing training, come hell or high water.

Consistency is one of the keys to finding success.

7. Don’t be a perfectionist

Some people don’t get things done because they’re never happy because they think that whatever they’re doing isn’t perfect.

Imperfect action is always better than perfect inaction.

You can always improve and tweak things later if needed.

8. Don’t expect fast results

This is one of the affiliate marketer killers…

…being sucked into the hype of becoming rich overnight because of some fantastic strategy that’s being presented to you (remember those shiny new objects I mentioned?).

Then, when the promised riched don’t drop into your lap, you’re off looking for the next promise of getting rich quick online.

Rinse and repeat.

And never see success.

9. Whatever affiliate marketing model you choose to follow, build a list

This is the only asset you will have 100% control over.

You may say that you own your website so you control that.

But it’s success depends on traffic…and that can depend to a very large extent on traffic sent by Google, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.

None of which you control.

You can always move your email list to another autoresponder if you need to.

You can download your subscriber list for safekeeping.

But your list is your direct communication channel to your subscribers.

It allows you to send them multiple offers over time.

They’re a captive audience.

But treat them with respect.

They’re real people, just like you.

The longer you put off building a list, the more money you leave on the table.

So, once you’ve got the basics of your affiliate marketing business set up, make sure to start building your email marketing list as soon as possible:

https://salesfunnelquestions.com/how-to-create-squeeze-pages-and-landing-pages-and-sales-funnels/

If you’re new to building email lists, then I highly recommend signing up with Systeme (I use them myself).

This is an all-in-one marketing platform that lets you build funnels, blogs, courses, communities and email lists.

Since everything you need is on the one platform, you don’t need to pay for separate services (which would cost more)…

…and you don’t need to integrate separate services (like capture pages and autoresponder services) which can be pain to do otherwise.

You can even get started with a Lifetime Free Account: