AFFILIATE MARKETING SUCCESS STORY!!
When 24-year-old Shannon Smith lost her waitressing job. She was understandable upset. However, now she makes $8,600 per month in passive income working just 2 hours a day. This is her Affiliate Marketing Success Story.
When the pandemic hit, she lost both her waitressing and personal training jobs. That’s when Shannon decided to take the loss as a sign to build the online fitness business she had always dreamed of.
She sold 90-day fitness programs. This included custom workout and meal plans. And she provided weekly coaching sessions via Zoom. Her earnings were between $1,000 to $2,000 a month and she supplemented her income with her savings and Covid stimulus checks.
But she ended up working 10-hour days and getting burned out. So after a year of trying, she decided to part ways with her fitness business and find another way to make money.
For months, she had seen affiliate marketers (people who get paid commission by an online retailer for website traffic or sales) on her “TikTok feed”.
She was skeptical at first, but had nothing to lose. She took an online course that convinced her that affiliate marketing could be a worthwhile business model. So she went all-in.
In July 2021, she used TikTok and Instagram accounts to market affiliate products. She began posting multiple times a day. Giving tips on how to start a side hustle, earn passive income, and grow your presence online. All the while, promoting business and wealth-building tools and programs.
By October, She had amassed 43,000 followers on TikTok alone..
Since then, she’s made an average of $8,600 per month in passive income (a.k.a. commission off her affiliate posts. Including posts that are several months old and posts that sold recurring subscriptions).
If you told me a year ago that I could do what I love: creating helpful content right from my phone, and work just two hours a day, I would have laughed.
I now have the freedom I’d always wanted. At 24 years old, I was able to move into a beautiful apartment in New York City, I get to travel frequently, and my life no longer revolves around work.
Shannon Smith
You don’t need to have a TikTok presence to build an affiliate marketing business. It can be through a website or some other social media platform.
Not Every affiliate marketing success story is so straight forward and quick to bear fruit. Success rarely with happen overnight, it takes a lot of time and effort at first. Here are the top five tips for getting started:
1. Turn to the experts for guidance
Look for people who have done what you’re trying to do and study their strategies. Reach out and ask if they’re willing to walk you through building your type of business. This will save you tons of time, energy and money.
There are also courses, one-on-one mentorship programs and online communities that can teach you how to start an affiliate marketing business. Just like Shannon, I used the 15-Day Business Builder Challenge to expand my knowledge and skills.
2. Don’t start with multiple niches and products
To focus your efforts, start with one niche and find one winning affiliate product to promote. Once you’ve mastered marketing that product, you can can start exploring other products.
I recommend brainstorming a list of your hobbies and interests, then doing some research on the best affiliate programs in each category before narrowing your niche down to just one.
If you’re planning to add an affiliate marketing business to an already-established account or website, your niche should match the content your audience already loves. If you have an Instagram account full of pictures with your dog, for example, look for affiliate products in the pet space.
From what I’ve seen, health and wealth-building are two of the top-paying niches because products in these areas are often in high-demand.
3. Find winning, high-ticket products to promote
You will spend the same amount of time and energy promoting a product that pays out $2 in commission as you will promoting a product that pays out $2,000 in commission. So the key is finding high-ticket affiliate programs and making those the bulk of your business.
I use sites like Shareasale and digistore24.com to find affiliate offers that pay well. When deciding what to promote, I look for products that have:
- High gravity, or a high number of marketers who are actively promoting the product. If many other people are putting their time into sell a product, that probably means it’s working for them.
- Recurring subscriptions, or consistent monthly charges for the product, so you will make recurring commissions.
- A low refund rate, which means that the majority of people who purchase the affiliate offer are satisfied with it. This helps me ensure I’m only promoting high-quality products.
- Upsell opportunities, which means that when someone buys the base-level offer, they also have options to add upgrades to that product for more money. Upsell opportunities help you cash in on both customers with a low budget and customers who are willing to spend more.
4. Build trust with your audience
No matter what platform you are marketing on, make sure your content is authentic. People want to buy high-quality products from someone they trust.
My content is always relevant and relatable to my audience. I build trust with them by doing things like putting my email in my social media bios and responding to direct messages from my followers.
This lets them know that they can always reach out with any questions they have about the products I’m promoting.
5. Hone your marketing skills
Affiliate marketing isn’t a “get rich quick” scheme. It requires you to learn skills like copywriting, generating consumer interest and communication.
These are the skills that differentiate a good affiliate marketer from a great one — and there are many online courses to help you master them, such as Dave Sharpe’s Legendary Marketer and specific courses on Teachable.
Shannon Smith is a full-time affiliate marketer who teaches others how to make money online. Follow her on TikTok @hustlewithshan. Her story first appeared on CNBC on 19th January 2022