And Become Successful Years Faster

The Shortcut

How to get started in Affiliate Marketing that the right way, is an idea that has been sought after for years.

Yes, there are a lot of ideas out there and some of them are really good and some of them are

really horrible. The idea started with meeting people to blaze the trail. We needed entrepreneurs

to go out and fail again and again until we got message that worked. The entrepreneurs that

started to come after that, realized that this was also a way to make money. They then proceeded to

jump on  the bandwagon and pollute the arena with bad information. Thankfully

there is now ways to not only get started and become successful, but do it in a much

shorter amount of time. 

What Is Affiliate Marketing 

Let us first get on the same page as far as what Affiliate marketing actually is. affiliate marketing at its core, is the

method of helping other people. I feel it best to not include the idea with saying it is just another way to make

money. Even though it certainly is, it is not the driving force that an affiliate marketer should have. Investopedia

defines affiliate marketing as “an advertising model in which a company compensates third-party publishers to

generate traffic or leads to the company’s products and services.” Now I will agree that this is the actual

methodology of what affiliate marketing is. However when it pertains to an actual affiliate, this definition does not

do them Justice. The most successful entrepreneurs in today’s era are the ones that genuinely wish to help other

people. The affiliate marketers that are honest, straightforward and genuine are the ones that are followed the

most. 

So Many Wondrous Ways

There are so many different ways to earn a commission in the affiliate marketing space right now. The level of

technology that we have today is astounding in and of itself. On top of that companies are seeing the results of

these methodologies and the profits that they are bringing. It makes them so eager to start their own programs

because they see the amazing power of social media. You’ve heard of videos and social posts going viral right?

Imagine if your company had an ad campaign go viral and there was a profit attached to even a portion of it.

Exactly, cha – ching.

The Big Ones

The main goal in affiliate marketing is of course to build an audience that is interested in the same idea(s) as your

niche. To that end there are a couple main ways to use as the basis to accomplish this. They are:

Your List

 Now as I said before the objective is to build a list of followers. The Big Three accomplish this goal in terms of

subscribers to their channels or blogs or whatever.  You can, however, build a list of followers with a subscription to

an email newsletter separately. This could be from a signup form on your blog, or merely from funnels that are

running off of ads that offer something for free. The offering could be something like an eBook or an infographic or

any type of free content you want to create. This free content just needs to offer something of value to your

followers. 

You can build this email list in tandem to any of the other options, or you can do it on its own. The trick here being

that you can build your list much quicker when your audience has a face and/or a name to go along with it. 

B2A2C

The rest of the opportunities come from the plethora of businesses that offer affiliate programs. As an affiliate

marketer you can certainly join these programs and if you so chose, offer them to your audience. This is the basic

functionality of affiliate marketing. A business that offers goods or services, then offers a system to a person with a

large following, i.e. the affiliate. They then get a small portion (commission) of every purchase that their audience

makes. The key component that increases the amount of profit of course being the size of that affiliate’s list. 

The best part about this is that, there are more and more opportunities becoming available every single day. Not

only that, but once you establish yourself as an authority and gain a large following, you can even convince

companies to start an affiliate program.  If you are able to do that then you would end up being the first to utilize it

which is like getting in on the ground floor on opportunity. This is regularly sought after in any business and

considered to be the best way to make the greatest return.

The Aspects Of Each Method

Now I mentioned above that no matter which method you choose, there are multiple aspects attached to each one

that you must consider. Each method has an amount of time required, an amount of effort required, a level of

competition it competes with and a range of return that it would bring. It becomes very important when choosing a

method to utilize to consider all of these aspects. There are pros and cons to each one, and you need to choose the

option that works best for you. 

The AMMF

I have devised a formula to help quantify these aspects and to better help me decide on new opportunities. I used

this formula when I first started trying to decide on a method to use, and I still continue to adapt and utilize it even

today.

I affectionately refer to it as the AMMF, or the Affiliate Marketing Methodology Formula © .

The formula looks like this:

Return / Time x Difficulty x Competition or R/TxDxC where each component is assigned a value between 1 and 10.

The result is a number between .001 and 10, where .001 is a terrible option and 10 is the perfect option. You will

notice that most options are between 0 and 1 if there are no other extenuating circumstances. 

Now granted this is all subjective as it is based on opinion. The best option would be to reach out to someone with

an established channel or blog or whatever and ask them to rate each of these aspects. If you do not wish to do

that then it will still give you an idea as long as it is the same person that rates each method. For the return, pick a

number as a target such as 10K/month or 3X your monthly salary. This will also help with the time aspect as you ask

how long on average each method takes to reach that amount of return. Let’s look at some examples.

AMMF Examples

Take YouTube. I rated it like this: 

R=6, T=7, D=4, and C=7. After putting it through the formula, the result rounded up to .031.  

Then I did Niche Blogging. My result was .029. These are very close and were my two options in the beginning

because you can get started with little to no money as long as you have a computer. In the end I went with

blogging because at the time I had trepidation being on camera. 

I also ran building an email list by itself through the formula and it gave me .022, not as good of an option.

The B2A2C options start to vary widely, but the difference there is whether or not you already have a list or not. 

The AMMF is not an exact science, but neither is affiliate marketing. It will, however, give you some insight when

trying to choose between methods. Using this formula on only one topic really does nothing, but when used on

many options gives you a quantifiable metric that makes it much easier to decide.

Will Affiliate Marketing Be Around For Long?

I explained above that becoming a successful affiliate marketer includes building a large audience. The next

question that is important to address is whether this market will continue to grow or if it has an expiration date.

According to streamline-marketing’s research, “affiliate revenue has been growing 10% each year since 2015. This

trend is expected to continue until 2021 or later.”  Thedrum writes, “The global content marketing industry is

projected to enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 16% according to the latest market research forecast to be

compiled by Technavio.” Content marketing is the method used by affiliate marketing, the business model. There

are many other studies as well, all of which project AM (Affiliate Marketing) to continue to increase well into the

future. There should be no trepidation about starting on this journey. 

Get Your Mind Right

So let us assume that you are convinced. You are hungry, eager and simply cannot wait to get started. The question

is are you truly ready? This is actually something most people always say yes to but do not actually know. It is

unfortunate that many people that wish to start this journey dismiss the idea of having the right mindset. A person

needs to have at the least a growth mindset to get started, and to become successful will need to develop an

entrepreneurial  mindset.Becoming an affiliate marketer takes an ample amount of time, but also true Grit and

determination to get through the difficult times. Affiliate marketers are always tested and without the proper

mindset, will almost always quit. 

Choose A Niche

Once you ensure you have the proper mindset, the first actionable step is to choose a niche. Choosing a niche is

very important as it will set the tone and direction of your affiliate marketing journey. You may modify or even

change this altogether in the future, but it will act as your direction in the beginning. 

The Requirements

There are a few things to consider when choosing a niche. The first and arguably most important thing to

incorporate, is that your niche needs to be  something you are passionate about. Think about it. If you choose to

become an affiliate marketer, you are changing the path of your life. Sure you may choose to change or even add to

your niche in the future, but whatever you choose is going to be what you eat, sleep and breathe for at least a year

and most likely more. If your niche is not a topic you are very passionate about, you will get bored and either start

over or quit. If this happens you can kiss all of your progress to that point goodbye.

Another thing to consider before you decide on a niche is to make sure it is a topic that will be around for a long

time. Sometimes issues or ideas become extremely popular but do not last. Remember fidget-spinners? Those were

an absolute fad. Fidget spinners were not niche material, but were definitely a fleeting idea. If your chosen niche is

something similar to those thermal-graphic t-shirts that changed color when you put your hand on them, you are in

trouble. 

Go Deeper

Once you decide on a particular niche, you need to go deeper. Most new affiliate marketers make the mistake of

choosing a niche that is very broad. They get caught up in the idea that thousands of people search for their niche

every month, and disregard the idea that the competition in that particular space is overwhelming. Because of this,

they are never able to rank for any keywords and end up getting lost in the vast ocean of the internet. The only way

to be seen in the beginning is to get very specific. The way to be successful is to rank for a bunch of long-tail

keywords. These are search terms that are about 4 or 5 words long. If you define your niche to be very specific, you

will most often write about very specific topics, which translate to these long-tail keywords. If you target keywords

like these, once you have 100+ articles on the subject, you will then begin to rank for smaller keywords. This is when

you will begin to really increase your website traffic.

How To Get Started In AM Years Faster

Becoming an affiliate marketer is no easy task. In fact it takes a very long time to become considered an authority

on your specified niche. Most people start their journey on their own, learning as they go. Whereas this is

completely acceptable, there is a surefire way to rise to the level of success you seek years faster than it would

normally take. This is true for just about anything you do, whether it is affiliate marketing or starting a business or

becoming a stock trader etc. The way to do this is to get at least one good mentor.

Types Of Mentors

There are different types of mentors available in the world today. Some you may not even consider to be a mentor

but they are. 

The first type is the traditional type, an in-person, actual teacher-type mentor. You work with them side-by-side and

they guide you through what needs to be done. This is becoming more and more rare as technology has increased.

The second type is a community of like-minded people that you can access at anytime and get questions answered.

This is much easier today as we have the technological capabilities to do so. This has definitely not always been the

case. It is now the preferred method unless you have direct access to someone who has already become successful.

The last type I have to mention is the type that most people utilize, and that is relying on a search engine. Google

can be your best friend or a cruel puppet master that leads you on a bunch of wild goose chases. It doesn’t know if

the information it is showing you is really any good or not. The algorithm only knows how popular a piece of

content is. Sure you would hope that by the process of selection the options became better, but this isn’t always the

case. This is all I had to rely on in the beginning, and it took me much longer because of it.

My Wasted Time In Affiliate Marketing

I have tried many different options attempting to become a successful entrepreneur. I started the unfortunate way,

by myself. I had no idea what I was doing and thought that with my intelligence and Google by my side, I could

figure it out. Now, years later, I look back and think how stupid I was. Not because I couldn’t figure it out, but

because I could have saved myself years. 

I have tried many things, and through the process I realized that I wished to become an entrepreneur that

specializes in affiliate marketing as opposed to starting a traditional business or anything similar. But to get to the

point where things started to get good, I tried it all. I started with MLM. I tried the first one for a year and a half but

had not changed my mindset yet so I had zero l luck. I decided one year was to be by benchmark and if I had no

success to move on. I tried another MLM. I made $5 once and was ecstatic. Then nothing else occurred so I moved

on. I tried a mobile based MLM, no luck. I went on to try YouTube, eBooks, video courses, car advertising, listing my

community pool for rent sharing, online surveys, Amazon Affiliates and Amazon FBA, Fiverr, side jobs in the Steady

and Bacon mobile apps, and more. Yet nothing gave me any great progress until I found it…

Finally 

I finally came across exactly what I needed, a true mentor. It came in the form of an online community that gave me

all the training and support I needed. The best and most important part, it was FREE. I couldn’t believe it. A whole

community of affiliate marketers based on the idea of paying it forward. This meant all I had to do was help other

people by offering my knowledge to that point and giving what advice I could. They would help me succeed

because the community helped them succeed, and so on and so on. It was like being thrown a life-preserver when I

was drowning. It became the point everything turned around for me and I am to this day eternally grateful. 

The Blueprint: How To Get Started In Affiliate Marketing

So there it is people, the blueprint on how to get started in Affiliate Marketing. These are all things I have learned

on my journey, and all things a person must do to become successful in their niche. I hope and pray that if you are

interested in Affiliate Marketing, it saves you years of heartache and enables you to become the successful affiliate you have

always dreamed of becoming. Cheers.

P.S. If the main ingredient you are missing is the training and support of a mentor, join the free community.  

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