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What is affiliate marketing?
From my understanding, affiliate marketing is selling the products of another business, and earning commissions on the sales you make. This is completely different to Multi Level Marketing (MLM) or Pyramid Schemes. Many people who I have spoken to about what I do, think that affiliate marketing is the same as MLM. I can understand the confusion; however the confusion means that those people do not understand what affiliate marketing is. For example, Amazon offers affiliate opportunities. So if you sell products on Amazon through your unique link; you would get a commission on it. If the customer asks for a refund later, you would likely lose the commission on that particular sale. With physical products, the sale is once-off. Just because you might make say, 100 sales in one month wouldn’t guarantee that you make sales again the next month. This would mean you continuously have to keep on making sales to earn an income. You could automate the process by having your own website- say, with a review of the product and a link to it. You only have to write the review once; but could make sales from that review months down the line. With physical products, there’s no guarantee that they would have stock of the product you’re selling. There might even be delays with shipping, and all of that is beyond your control.
Passive, Recurring Income
With the example of Amazon above, all of the products on there are once-off, direct sales. However, if you sell online memberships, you would get a commission on that sale every month. Memberships can take on many forms, an example I would use is Chess.com. I currently have a paid membership to play chess, do tactics puzzles, go through lessons- basically access resources that this company spends a lot of time, money and effort to develop. If I sell a membership to someone else- I would get a monthly commission on that sale. If a member cancels their membership, I would stop earning a commission on that sale. It really is that simple.
This might be where the confusion with MLM comes in. MLM schemes have complicated ways of tricking you, and others, into paying to be in a network where the people above you earn more than you do. They promise recurring income- but that is on the condition that the pyramid keeps growing. If it stops, the scheme would not continue and would go bankrupt if they deliver on the promised payouts.
The Value Exchange
Going back to the Chess.com example- even if I make zero sales, I would still be happy with my membership because of the value I get from the products they give me for the monthly membership fee. This is the main difference between legitimate affiliate marketing opportunities, and hyped-up scams. Most affiliate marketing opportunities give you value for money when it comes to membership fees. I have personally been learning about affiliate marketing, from various sites and platforms. This does not mean that I have been making money from all of them. That is not the aim. The knowledge and skills developed will be valuable to me for years to come. I can say that I have received a lot of value from all of the sites listed below- and I still have a lot of action to take for each of them.
My Top 5 list of legitimate affiliate marketing platforms / opportunities: (Click on each link for more information)
Lead Lightning ($7 once-off, $6 commission per sale) Link: {bit.ly/joleadlightning}. I would recommend starting with this one. It provides all the essentials you need to start generating leads (customers) to your business. Going through and applying this training would be a good place to start out. There are also up-sells and higher-priced memberships, but this is the membership I’m on. I would say it’s better to upgrade when you’ve gone through and implemented the training that’s available from here. Below is one of the banner ads used to promote this product.
BuilderAll {bit.ly/jobuildall} This is an all-in-one platform for existing business owners, with everything you need to build and automate your business sites, email campaigns, ad campaigns etc. ($29 initial sign-up fee; various monthly membership options depending on your needs).
WealthyAffiliate {bit.ly/wealthyafjo}. This is another platform that I am personally using. It includes training, web hosting, email automation, site research, a supportive community and everything you need to start and grow your online business. There is a free membership option, with limited benefits. There is only one premium membership of $50/month, with the first month being $19 to see if you like it. This is a must if you are serious about growing a business online- and want to make sales on multiple platforms and multiple products.
Legendary Marketer Free Blog: {bit.ly/legendaryblog} (Club Membership: $30/month, $18 commission per sale) Sign Up link: {bit.ly/LegendaryJo}. This is the one that got me started in the affiliate marketing niche. The training is excellent, combined with expert coaches makes it a must-have for anyone who wants to do well in this niche. The results of this company are hard to match- over $100 million in just over 2 years is no small feat. The claims you see in the promotional videos are all real. There’s nothing fake about this company. The authenticity of the people who train you makes you realise it is possible for you to achieve what they have. I like how transparent David Sharpe and the team at Legendary Marketer are. They really do tell you everything they know- and everything you need to know about the company. I would say the raw quality of what they offer is what sets them apart. Everything they’ve created is top-notch. The site is easy to navigate, the training is clear, everything works, the graphic design is great. This is for everyone from beginners to experts. The higher-value products seem like good value for money to me- but I have not had the cash to upgrade to any of them yet. I’m sure there are many people reading this that might be in the same situation. That’s OK! The skills you learn from the Club membership will make earning higher commissions easy when you can afford to upgrade.
MyLeadSystemPro {jldupreez.topearnerstrategy.com/}. (Various pricing options) This one is for more experienced marketers, or people who have a lot of time to look through a lot of different trainings / products to suit their needs. It is quite easy to feel overwhelmed or experience information overload when looking through all the things this platform has available. I would say you should have a clear view of what you want before joining this- because it is likely that they will have pretty much anything and everything you can think of. All the top affiliate marketers I know of are on here and promote this. So if you want to get to the top, this is definitely one of the companies you should know about.
In conclusion I would say these are the platforms most likely to help you grow a successful online business. Something that must be mentioned for legal reasons, is that there is no guarantee of income from any of these. The earnings you get from any of these are directly proportional to the work you put in.
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