How To Start An Affiliate Business On A Shoestring Budget.

Have a limited budget?

You can't afford to hire a mentor or invest into an expensive course?

What if l tell you a strategy that you can use to start affiliate marketing without a mentor, using limited resources that you have?

If any of these interests you, then this is an article you don't want to miss!

What You'll Learn

Without wasting time, let me jump straight into more details of this discussion.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Basically, affiliate marketing is simply a business model whereby a person like you can partner with some of the biggest companies in the world and you advertise their products on their behalf.hbehalf.

Affiliate marketing is one of the business models that has been on the rise over the past couple of years due to its associated advantages such as low overhead costs, low barriers of entry, no need to invent a product, less capital needed to start, no need to deal with customer support, the list is endless.

This business model had been around since the 19th century, whereby amazon had the first affiliate program back then.

However, others argues that amazon is not the first company to launch an affiliate program, since it is believed that the business model existed way before amazon introduced their affiliate program.

It’s only that amazon was the first company to make the business model ‘official', otherwise the business model has been in existence for quite some time.

Affiliate marketing has created more multi-millionaires online, since the business model is ‘simple' to start and also it is easily scalable through leveraging the power of the internet.

After seeing a lot of successful affiliates online, more and more people are being motivated to venture into this business model, so as to follow the path of those successful affiliates.

With the pandemic that took place in 2020 in most parts of the world, more people ventured into this business model since most people lost their 9 to 5 jobs, also salaries were cut due to a decrease in the work hours.

Whilst looking for ways to make money online, most people discovered about affiliate marketing and most people took action and jumped into this opportunity.

It is anticipated that the number of affiliates will triple by the end of 2022, since more and more people are venturing into this business model everyday.

How It Works?

So ideally, you get to partner with some of the biggest brands or companies.

(You will be a middlemen who connects customers to great products and services, and you get a commission in return)

All you need to do is to signup for the affiliate programs.

Once you get approved, you get a custom trackable link (affiliate link), which will help to track all the sales and conversions that comes through your links.

After getting your affiliate links, you have to drive traffic to your affiliate links through creating content on a platform like a blog, YouTube channel, Instagram amongst other platforms.

In that content, you include your affiliate links which links directly to the products which you mentioned in your content.

When someone buys products or services through your links, you get paid an affiliate commission.

However, l have seen some people who by-pass the content creation process and they simply run paid ads (Facebook ads, Google Ads, YouTube ads, Solo ads, etc.), and they send all the traffic to a ClickFunnels landing page.

On that landing page, there will be a lead magnet or a freebie which people can get after they submit their email address.

Once people insert their email address, those addresses will be automatically stored into an auto responder, where there will be a series of follow up emails which are aimed at driving those leads to some specific affiliate offers.

However, l don't usually recommend paid ads for beginners since ads requires a lot of testing in order to find the best converting ad set.

However, if you don't have enough skills to run these ads, you might lose a lot of money since ad campaigns dies if they are not done properly.

Another issue is that other platforms like Facebook are banning ad accounts if they feel like you violated some of their policies.

For example, most weight loss ads accounts are getting banned, since Facebook is now strict about certain weight loss products which goes against their policies as well as their terms of service.

Thus, the best option is to use some organic strategies if you're still a beginner like a blog.

The content that you upload on your website or any other platform allows you to earn true passive income in the long run, since you can literally get some traffic for some piece of content that you created some months or even years ago.

This is unlike the case of relying on paid traffic, whereby you have to continuously test and change the ad sets, in order to keep the money coming. This method is less passive and more active (even though it is highly scalable).

How To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing On A Shoestring Budget?

So this is the section you have been waiting for since it is the major topic that brought you into reading this article.

I know a lot of people who want to get started with affiliate marketing but they don't know how to navigate the wires.

I get you because l was also there at some point in time.

I was so eager to invest into a proven mentorship program which costs around $997.

However, l was broke back then since l was still in college thus, as a college student, l had limited income streams.

This kept me away from starting my affiliate business since l was waiting for that golden opportunity whereby l will magically get the $997 to invest into the course and get started.

However, after waiting for countless months, l realised that if l keep waiting for that golden opportunity, it will never come.

Thus, l decided to take huge responsibility and commitment and l said to myself;

‘Boy just start something today'

I have to admit that l made a lot of mistakes along the way since l had no one to help me out.

I learnt that no one in this world is here to save you; you have to save yourself.

(If you don't do it, no one is going to do it for you)

This taught me to add value in other people's lives since you have to give value first, and get a reward later.

I came to realise that there is some students who fail to get results even after investing in a proven mentor for some reasons like wrong mind-set, not taking enough action, shiny object syndrome, or maybe the course information is not realistic.

Most students thinks that the course will do the work for them but that’s not how it works.

The course gives you the blueprint on how you can get started, but as for the implementation part, you have to put in the work and take massive action in order to see the results.

That's why you see students who enrol in the same course but still gets different results.

But l have to admit that mentorship programs are great in order to cut your learning curve into half or less.

This is so because the mentor knows the road better and knows which pit falls to avoid, since a mentor is someone who has travelled the same road and yielded the type of success that you're looking to achieve.

But if you can't afford to buy an expensive course, that’s not problem because there is some other strategies you can use in order to get up and running in less time.

But bear in mind that you have to invest some time or sweat in order for these strategies to work.

Strategies

So the best strategies to succeed with affiliate marketing with a limited budget is to create either a blog, YouTube channel, Instagram Page, Facebook Group, Pinterest Account, or any other platform that you can think of.

In my opinion, a blog is more ideal since you can get more organic targeted traffic through leveraging the power of SEO – also google is the biggest search engine in the world.

It’s up to you to choose the platform that you fill comfortable with.

Once you create a platform, you will need to start creating content around a particular niche or product.

This is so because content is king, since content is the one that sales.

Content can be in the form of Reviews, Comparisons, How To ......., Best products in ....., Top 10 ...... etc.

The idea is that you want to add value to your audience so that you can build some trust and relationships with them before they can actually buy from you.

Once you add some value in other people's lives, they will buy from you ...... that's called reciprocation.

Once you give someone value, they will feel like they owe you and they will ‘easily' buy from you whenever you recommend a product or service to them.

That’s where the concept of know, like, and trust comes into play – people buys from someone who they know, like, and trust.

The biggest mistake which most people make is that they try to attack affiliate marketing the wrong way i.e. they try to look for shortcuts.

I see a lot of people spamming their affiliate links in YouTube comments, Facebook groups, or any other platform hoping that people will magically click those links and buy through those links.

You can get some few bucks here and there but that's not sustainable in the long run because you won't get to 6 figures per year doing this method.

You have to learn to do it the proper way – add value and help people in making their purchasing decisions and money will follow.

That's why most Review channels and websites receives a lot of traffic and sales – because they add value through helping customers in making the right purchasing decisions.

But the question which l get most of the times is;

‘How do l know the type of questions which buyers have in their mind?’ or ‘Where can l get the content ideas?’

Wow. That's pretty simple.

You can go to a website like answerthepublic.com

You simply type the topic that you wish to work on and the website will automatically give you the list of questions which are being searched by real people on a daily basis.

If you want to know how many people searches for that particular topic; you can head over to a website called wordtracker.com and you will see the statistics and figures about that particular topic.

You will never run out of content ideas because customers' problems and needs are always evolving everyday and those problems will need someone like you to be solved.

That's why businesses which are centred on solving problems never collapse.

Because customers’ problems are always evolving each and everyday.

Another great technique that works perfectly well is through Tutorial videos on a YouTube channel; whereby you teach people how to use certain tools /products /softwares.

This is so because there is a lot of people out there who are willing to buy some certain products but the main thing that is stopping them from making the purchasing decision is the fact that they don't know how to use those products .

This happens a lot in the software space since most are not tech savvy, thus they avoid buying certain softwares simply because they don't know how to configure those tools and softwares.

So your main duty is to teach those people how to use those softwares through tutorial videos on YouTube.

You can simply find a free screen recording software like Loom, and you simply record your screen whilst demonstrating how to use certain softwares.

Once you educate people on how to use these softwares, some people will signup for the software through your links simply because they will now have some knowledge about how to use that software.

The greatest part about most softwares is that they give a free trial period like 14 days or even 30 days for some softwares.

So you can simply signup for the trial version of the software, then you spend some few days learning about how the software actually works.

Once you understand the software, you will now need to record videos teaching people how to configure these tool and softwares.

If you do it consistently, you will start to see some positive results in the long run.

You can also do it using a software like ClickFunnels, whereby you teach people how to build sales funnels.

You can also share already build funnels to your audience and those people will end up signing up for ClickFunnels in order to access the share funnel.

The tactics are endless!

All you need to do is pick a strategy and dominate with it. You will build some authority in the long run.

If you want to use start a blog today and get started as soon as possible, check out this article

Conclusion

Getting started with affiliate marketing with a limited budget can seem difficult. But the truth is that you can start with a small budgetif you're committed enough.

You have to believe in yourself and stick to your grind. Results will follow along the way.

It might take some time to configure this online business by yourself since you will not have a road map to take you where you want to be.

You will be doing some trial and error before getting the results but you will get better with time.

A person who takes action is better than someone who never attempts.

You will learn a lot of tactics along the way and you will get better and better with time.

You will face a lot of obstacles along the way but overcoming those obstacles will make you stronger both mentally and physically.

But once you start to get some income, you might then decide to invest into a course so as to get more advanced tactics that will help you to move fast in your business.

My advice is; don't get carried away by the shiny object syndrome.

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