Most of us start our online journey with affiliate marketing.

It makes sense really – who has the time or knowledge to create products when just starting out?

But the fact remains that most people struggle to succeed with affiliate marketing.

I get it because I have been there too.

My first attempts at affiliate marketing were … ugly.

So I went to work to discover a process that would work over and over again. A process that would allow me to promote as many products as I wanted while still building my list and business.

And discover it I did!

Today, I want to share with you seven keys that transformed me from struggling to affiliate to super affiliate, and valued JV partner.

This is the process I have used for almost 20 years now. It continues to work, regardless of changes in the market, or in technology (think AI) because it is based on human nature.

And that does not change.

Now, I’m not going to brag about things that I’ve won, or money that I’ve made, cause I just don’t do that. But trust me when I say, I am a super affiliate, and when I decide to promote other people’s products, it goes well.

1 - Promote a variety of products

It’s a common mistake to promote one product and not promote other complimentary products as well.

Here’s a fact, people on your list will buy more products than the one you’re promoting, and they’re going to buy it from someone, so why not let it be you?

Here’s your action step. For each key, I’m going to give you a specific action step you can take today.

ACTION - make a list of the potential products that your customer might buy, and arrange to promote them.

Register for their affiliate program, get your links in order.

Now, the key here is to imagine the prospects average day.

Let’s say you’re in the health and wellness field, and you’re working primarily with women who are 35 to 50 years old.

What does their average day look like?

• Are they moms?

• Are they working people?

• Are they both?

• Are they first-time moms?

What does their average day look like, and then think through what types of things they might need to buy.

If they’re busy, they might like to read books on their Kindle, so they’re going to be buying from Amazon.

You can be an Amazon affiliate.

If you just take the time to think through what their average day looks like, you’ll find four or five products that you can promote to them, as well as your core product you’re promoting.

You may be surprised that they buy them from you. Remember, they’re buying them from someone else, why not let it be you?

2 - Promote a variety of price points

A lot of people go for the gold when it comes to affiliate marketing. They want that $500 commission, or higher.

Nothing wrong with that. Big commissions are very powerful.

But, remember, the people on your list are going to buy a variety of things, and they’re going to buy a variety of price points.

Not everyone on your list can afford the main product you’re promoting.

ACTION - find products with free to start offers and then those products upsell the customer.

In other words, if you can find products like softwares as a service (SAAS), or membership sites, or things like that where there’s a trial offer, and then it’s free for them to start, and then after seven days, or 30 days they get billed.

Those work very well for you, and you’re always promoting something free to your list, which is very powerful.

3 - Create residual income

I believe the internet can set us free in three particular ways.

1. We reach large numbers of people, huge audience.

2. We can automate our marketing.

3. We can create residual income.

There’s just no replacement for waking up in the morning and seeing new order notices in your inbox.

That’s what’s called, “Residual,” or, “Passive income.”

Passive income is the key to succeeding online because if you create $100 this month of passive income, then next month you create another 100, you’re going to earn $200.

Every month you can add $100 of passive income to your stream, over time it builds into a mighty, mighty flow.

It’s like owning a franchise, only better.

Really, you don’t have to show up and go to work, you don’t have to have employees. Passive income is the name of the game.

ACTION - Find membership sites, or software as a service, that’s called, SAAS, software as a service like LeadPages, or Unbounce, or things like that, and promote those.

Here’s why this works so well.

These are monthly recurring membership models, and the membership site owner or the software owner is going to do their job to make sure that your person stays on month after month after month, which means you get paid month after month after month, but you only have to promote it one time.

This is the beauty of affiliate marketing when you’re promoting monthly sites.

You promote it once, person joins up, now the site owner takes over and he or she does the job of making sure the customers happy. As they do that, you get paid every month.

4 - Promote products with proven upsell flows

The fact is, it’s many times easier to make a low dollar sale, and then upsell the customer to a more fully priced product.

ACTION - You want to find products where there’s a low point of entry, a low barrier to entry.

It might be seven dollars, it might be $97, but the point is, it’s a low barrier of entry compared to the price of the main product, and then they do upsell as well.

You want to beware of upsell Hell.

That’s the situation where the person buys a low priced product, and then they get trapped in this loop of eight, or nine, or I’ve seen 12 one time offers. They’ll have these auto start videos, “Wait, don’t go. You’ll never see this page again.”

Some of them actually say, “You’re stupid if you don’t buy this.” It’s just terrible. Here’s why it’s terrible, your customers will resent it.

They will blame you if you put them into an upsell flow where they feel trapped. Make sure you understand the upsell flow that you promote.

5 - Build YOUR list

You wouldn’t hear the phrase, “The money is in the list,” so much if it weren’t true, and it is true.

Ask any professional marketer what they wouldn’t give up, and they’re going to tell you it’ll be their email list. I certainly would.

ACTION - Use a lead capture page before sending traffic to the affiliate offer.

Please never send cold traffic (like from advertising) to an affiliate’s sales page.

Always send them to a lead capture page, and build your list before sending traffic to the affiliate offer.

6 - Use unique bonuses

You see this a lot with product launches. There’s a lot of product launches going on right now on the internet, there always are.

You’ll see these big name marketers giving out $10,000 or $20,000 unique bonuses if you buy under their link. Well, you can do the same thing on a smaller scale by using unique bonuses.

By providing your own bonus to the affiliate offer, you can add value and use scarcity in your marketing cause you can take that bonus off the market, and replace it with something else. That’s a very powerful thing.

ACTION STEP - Choose or create bonuses that compliment the original product AND help buyers succeed faster too.

If you’re promoting a product and you really love it, and you know it well, use your own insights, or your own cheat sheet for your unique bonus.

If not use a PLR product to create a bonus. Now, PLR stands for, “Private label rights.” You can easily modify these to be perfectly consistent with the product you’re promoting.

7 - Use the perfect affiliate marketing lead magnet

I don’t use the word, “Perfect,” very often, but I’ll tell you I am here.

This is the perfect affiliate marketing lead magnet.

I’ve used it many times, it works every time.

To create the perfect lead magnet - one that is unique and has high value - is to interview the product owner.

When you interview the owner of the product, and you use that interview, whether it’s written, or over the phone, or by video.

If you use that interview as your lead magnet, as a way of building your list, you’re going to make more sales.

Here’s why. You benefit from being in the know, because you interviewed the owner of the product. And, it is completely consistent with the offer.

If you’re promoting product Y and you interview the owner of that product, now your interview becomes your lead magnet, becomes your giveaway, and it’s completely consistent with the offer. It actually wets the appetite of the visitor to know more.

Make a list of these seven things, write them down, and see which ones you can take action on today.

You can take action on a lot of them today if you try. It really will revolutionize your affiliate marketing.

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I hope you have a wonderful day.