Marketing Archives – How to take your business forward using the Internet

What is Affiliate marketing Australia and how can it make you an online business empire. Here Peter Hanley takes you down a Path to success.

First of all lets explain Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is probably the best form of easy money because you have little or no outlay.
Basically you market someone elses product and get paid a part of the profit.

In the olden days it was called commission selling but now comes with a more Internet name.

You have no physical products
There is no packing and sending
Customer service is done by others
Commissions may be one time or recurring
Products can be physical or virtual
They can include services

What affiliate opportunities in Australia

Start counting now and when you finish reading you will be part way there.

First of all world programmes and Australian programs are available to you. There is little transparency in many of them and they are sometimes more to your market.

I live in Perth Western Australia so I write about local and overseas products.

Amazon Affiliate program

This is arguably the most famous and widly recognised affiliate program available to the masses.

Your marketing and advertising links to an Amazon site and if people buy you get paid. Infact you can also get paid when they buy other products after entering through your portal.

If someone looked to buy a $10 book ( 10% commision to you) and kept trolling to end up buying a home Gym at $10,000 your commission is looking good.

All that seems pretty exciting but where do you start and what are the downsides.
The best way is to get some basic training.
Amazon has a university-based around how to market their products. It is quite inclusive and will get you up and going. I use Wealthy Affiliate as my go to training on all things Affiliate. It is free to join and teaches everything from start to money.

The downsides of Amazon affiliate

First of all the commissions are on the low end of the scale. You can not achieve any degree of return selling low-value products.
Furthermore, if you don’t continue to obtain sales you get dropped as an Affiliate.
The rules are very strict and easy to break with consequences that are deadly.

What other affiliate programes are available

I will show you how to find any number of programes shortly but let’s look at some local examples on a big scale.

I am sure you have been approached with a Health fund upgrade to a better deal. There are companies that specialise in this.

What happens is they become an affiliate for all providers. If they find a better deal they switch you and they get paid. Huge business and slick performers.

Insurance is another big one as they play one against the other.
Most noteworthy is that there is nothing wrong with this as they do provide a service and often give good advice and save you money.

First of all you need to learn the basics

The Wealthy Affiliate is a service based on training and website hosting. You will need a website for anything you do plus an understanding of Keywords SEO and page building.
Although based in Canada it has a worldwide reputation and we have many users here Down Under.

Furthermore, you can recommend their product and get paid which is a further bonus. I have been involved for about 5 years and host about a dozen different sites

Recurring billing products are the big winner

When you sell a subscription service that is billed every month and you enjoy a share of the billing you have a long time income.
You can also build a base of customers all getting billed every month and thus build a regular monthly income. Incomes in the tens of thousands a month are possible.
What’s more you can automate a lot of what you do so you don’t need to be permanently attached to a screen.

Wealthy Affiliate is such a product and you can read countless genuine reviews about successful affiliates earning the big bucks.

OK, my promise delivered

So you want to find a bundle of Affiliate programmes.
Go to google, pick a subject, let’s say shoes as an example , type in Shoes Affiliate and up will pop all sorts of opportunities. More than you could ever imagine.
The market is huge, the opportunities endless and they are waiting for you.

However do nothing until you have some basics.
Companies want affiliates that show promise and have a way to market their program. Most often a Website and knowledge of marketing.

You join for free, get a website for free, endless hours of training and a web forum .

Not to mention online support, and backup at any time. well worth a look

Do you really need a website to be an affiliate

The answer is no depending on what you want to do. Therefore you seek opportunities locally.
I also work in the telecommunications space and recommend an On hold message service, Live Answering Service, NBN service and phone system for which I receive a commission.

You can find these opportunities in your area of expertise by asking around or message me and I will give you some tips and advise.

Finally we come back to encouraging you to have the basics before we start the journey.

If you fail as an affiliate what then?

If you have the basics failing is not an option. You will get your contract cancelled if you fail to sell, cross the honesty boundries, contravene the terms and conditions or generally mess up.

Likewise, you won’t be accepted unless you show promise and the ability to market their product in a manner suitable to the supplier.

You can sell Shoes, clothing, sporting gear, machinery just about anything that floats your boat.
It is all there for the asking.

Can you make a business out of affiliate marketing

There are many people doing this for a full time living and earning in the 6 figure incomes even over the million dollars a year but it takes work.

At Wealthy Affiliate, there are many hundreds of high-income earners as there are in a lot of programs. Personally, I think Amazon is a bit hard
to make a lot of money but it is a good training ground.

You can also set up an online shop and not store a single item with every order going straight to the manufacturer.
You can buy from Alibaba the great Chinese supplier of products also delivered direct or drop ship them to say Amazon to house and market them for you.

Beware the scams in Affiliate marketing

Are there shonks in this business.
Let me warn you they are everywhere wanting to take your money.
People just like you get financially hurt with great promises of instant wealth every day.
The internet is loaded with really great marketing of products aimed to make the promoters rich.
Having some basic training may save you a later headache and financial loss.

How much work do you have to put into Affiliate marketing

The answer is as much as you want but remember effort creates rewards. You can spend an hour a day or run 12 hour days the only difference is in results.

To start go slowly and learn the basics and then grow your effort with your results.

It is however the best game in town so get moving now and reap the rewards soon.

Affiliate marketing Australia by Peter hanley

Small business confidence has taken a hit lately and many are doing it harder than they should. Here Peter Hanley gives you some ideas to help move ahead

Let’s look at the world first

When I look at the world economy I first look at the leaders and the problems they have.
In the USA you have Donald Trump who spends time fighting off allegations of fraud and corruption, sparring with his Chinese opposite, trying to stop a Caravan driving through a wall and a wife not talking to him.

In the UK we have Theresa May fighting Brexit with everything she has and trying to control the past immigration problems. Her tangles with the EU are coming to a head.

Australia has changed Prime Ministers regularly of late so no one has a chance to settle in and finish a job.

You can only wonder why the attention has been taken away from business?

So what of the small to medium business owner?

Increased regulations on labour, health, local conditions have all added to the pile of things we need to sort out before we can conduct our business.

Small business confidence — Small business

When our focus moves from marketing and selling to administration and clerical duties something is going to suffer and that is profit.

I can’t fix a President but let’s focus on you, the business owner

The issues that have made the biggest changes, that I see, are Online trading payment ability, Social media and the rise of the Mega store
If you are not seriously looking at these issues and working them to suit you it may just mean failure on your part and we don’t want that.
Keep your attention on the most important issues to you and your business.
Things are changing so here I provide some important aspects you may not have noticed and can apply.

Online trading

We all have the Amazon effect in some way unless you are selling a service only. Sales through Amazon and similar outlets continue to grow, so you need to actively compete. If you are selling physical products someone is getting part of your business and hence a bit of your income.
Can you set up an online store and compete

The Mega stores

This would also relate to the Megastores, an example is ALDI where the arrival in any town has an effect. You could even go to the lower level and include Starbucks and Hamburgers. In your country, you will see the superstores with massive marketing budgets and slim margins pounding away at your customers, the best you can hope for is poor service and delivery in the equation. The closer you are can also enhance your problem
So don’t ignore it, fight with Service and local marketing efforts

Social media and target marketing

The word is remarketing and it is having a big influence on your business
If you don’t know what this is it is the advertisements that pop up after you visit a site on the internet associated with a product. Try any major brand and see what happens.
Say I search Gucci handbags and all of a sudden Adverts are popping into my news feed or it seems everywhere I look thus
creating a possible dilemma at Xmas
As my wife follows my news feed, she may get an inkling at my gift intentions, but, that is the least of it.
Your customers may go online to price check or search products at another site and will get bombarded with popups taunting them away from you on an impulse or a whim.

There is nothing you can do but join them and pay the price to compete.
Most of the major companies are spending over 20% of their marketing budget on retargeting for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc.

You can read more on this problem in a recent blog I wrote on remarketing

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin all must do’s

It is not enough to set up a Social Media site and forget it, you may as well not do it at all unless you are proactive.
As a marketer, I often cut to the Facebook site to see what they are up to.
If there is nothing there I move customers, it’s as simple as that.

It is relatively easy to program posts well into the future to save the daily struggle and I have more on a template approach here

While I do suggest being in all my recommendation is to use just one in your major focus. Instagram can be as effective, if not more so than Facebook whilst others choose LinkedIn. Just focus on one to get that working as good as possible

Instant payments

This is a real game changer with Instant credit. Most of the market is cash strapped particularly the under 25 set who still maintain a constant need for clothes and accessories. This means they will shop on credit with instant money where and when they can. If you are not in the market you will miss out.
Yes, it cost you about 10% of the sales value which is more than the 2.5% credit card fees but a hell of a lot more than no sale at all.

Many, if not most of the majors are now offering this service so pulling customers away from you.

I reckon it’s a do or be dammed outcome.

In conclusion

While the world leaders can’t maintain focus how do you expect to do it better. The answer is doing the things that will have the most return or benefit and concentrate 80% on that until you have it working as you want it

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My PS

A lot of free training at Wealthy Affiliate will teach you how to do things to grow your business on the Net