Okay then, here is why affiliate marketing is the best business model in the world. And let’s start by getting three reservations out of the way.
First, I have not always been convinced that affiliate marketing is a good way to make money. In fact, I felt that there is a certain cheesiness about recommending other people’s stuff for money.
Turns out, as with most things in life, that the way you conduct your business determines cheesiness.
As an affiliate, you could be farming clicks for people to buy dubious financial products. Very cheesy!
Or you could be a sophisticated information broker helping people make sound decisions about products you have tested yourself and truly endorse. Way to go!
Losing Reservations about the Affiliate Marketing Business Model
Second, affiliate marketing seemed not to provide a real sense of achievement because it’s simplistic and just focused on money.
Well, looking at the below graphic, the basic model of affiliation is indeed straightforward.
But that doesn’t mean that you post a few links on websites or social media, and the money starts rolling in.
While you can earn big by being an affiliate, most will need to go through a genuine learning curve and dedicated work to start making money.
And this learning curve includes writing, web technologies, consumer behavior, and analytics. Apart from becoming an expert in your market. Not so simple anymore now.
With all these skills under your belt and a very reasonable income on your balance, nothing is missing to feel sincere accomplishment.
Thirdly, I am not trying to convince you to become an affiliate marketer. Some of us have callings to make music, paint, cook, build things, or write poetry. Then your calling is your path.
All I am suggesting is that affiliate marketing is something anybody could learn to do as a side hustle. Or make it the main focus of your income.
And it is precisely this flexibility and scalability that makes being an affiliate so cool.
Now, with these considerations out of the way, it just keeps getting better.
10 Reason Why Affiliate Marketing is the Best Business Model in the World
1. Start Affiliate Marketing from Nothing
Indeed, nothing is a strong word. It goes without saying that you need to be able to sustain your living costs. Further, it would help if you had a computer with a web browser and an Internet connection.
And as far as investments go, most employees don’t leave their disliked jobs because they can’t figure out how to cover the unprofitable time when starting a business.
So, yes, you need time and free space in your life to get going with your new online venture.
But as far as any capital investment is concerned, you can literally start with zero, niente, nada money if you publish content on free blog networks and social media.
And if you wish to get going with your own domain name and hosting for a proper website, you can be on your way with well under 100 USD.
2. Ideal for Solopreneurs
Working alone is not for everyone. But many more people enjoy going solo than society’s common narrative wants us to believe.
In case you fall into the category of people who enjoy and prefer to work by themselves and for themselves, then affiliate marketing is for you.
And if you ever feel lonely, the online gig economy offers innumerable touch-points to liaise with other human beings. Whether that are affiliate networks, make money online forums, or market places for digital services, don’t feel unconnected.
3. Learn and Get Paid through Affiliate Marketing
Part of my story is that I spent a long time at university. In fact, I don’t even dare to say how many years had passed by the time I finally completed my Ph.D.
Gladly, I started to work simultaneously at a fairly young age, which allowed me to understand the following: Formal education is not only overrated but, in many cases, dysfunctional. And true learning happens when you put yourself out there and take in feedback from reality.
In today’s world, we all have to be continuous learners, anyway. With the recent lockdowns in response to the novel SARS virus, this insight has only accelerated. As a result, more and more universities offer programs that combine academic study with practical work.
But while education institutions attempt to save the broken economic model of higher education, affiliate marketing offers the perfect combination of learning and being paid simultaneously.
You won’t get an official degree, which oftentimes is useless, but in online marketing, reality rewards you with hard cash instead. Which gratification do you prefer?
4. Circumvent Traditional Business Headaches
While being your own boss as an entrepreneur rings sweet, small business owners know that the reality of running a business can be tough.
From admin headaches to inventory hassles, many spend significant time on tasks they’d rather not.
Enter affiliate marketing. There is no inventory. There are no complaining customers. And if you are a solopreneur, there are no staff to look after.
Yes, you need to create and manage good relationships with your website visitors and merchants. But that’s integral to what you do as an affiliate marketer.
And for routine processes like content distribution, gathering of statistics, and tracking payments, you can learn to automate them. In fact, make automation your friend.
Claims of businesses that make you rich entirely on autopilot are usually overdone. But you can certainly minimize repetitive tasks by batching or automating them.
5. Realize Location and Time Independence as an Online Affiliate
Being a global nomad has been one of the talks of the town for some time now. And indeed, living mobile with an international lifestyle is seriously mind-expanding.
Yet many people don’t realize how much determination and discipline location and time independence demand from a professional.
But if you muster the skillset, the rewards are unique. And making money with affiliate marketing can be a substantial element of that competence.
I find two rewards particularly remarkable:
Location independence runs much deeper than perpetual travel. You get to live in an exotic country with its cultural peculiarities. At the same time, you write content and interact with people from the other end of the world. When you truly gauge the implications for your mind, your consciousness grows quickly.
Time independence doesn’t mean that you can now get lazy. And while it certainly means that you can be completely flexible, there is another really amazing effect: I now allow myself to be driven by targets rather than time. And that is hugely rewarding.
6. Make the Trend Your Friend
So much of today’s public discussions are lead by ideologies, wishful thinking, and false beliefs.
When you work on the Internet, you cannot but have a solid footing in reality.
Researching what people search for on the Internet and web analytics of your content and websites unavoidably reveals what people think and what works as a business.
As a result, affiliate marketers gain good insights into trends. And using that knowledge, you can ‘piggyback’ on successful products early.
7. Scale Your Affiliate Business Quickly with Key Parameters in Sight
The more visitors you attract with your content on the web, the more options you have to drive your business into whatever direction you please.
And the more traffic you have, the more you can concentrate your effort on products you know they are profitable.
And once you know the conversion of your affiliate links on your website and the conversion of your traffic on the merchant’s website, you may consider buying traffic.
Have you ever noticed the advertisement for certain companies or products that seem to be everywhere on the internet? Here, people have figured out their key conversion metrics and scale up sales by throwing money at online advertisements. And you can do the same!
8. Be in Control of a Resilient Wealth System
People erroneously believe that affiliates depend on their merchants’ goodwill.
What is true is that it might be hard to find good merchants when you are starting and have hardly any traffic. And some merchants will only work with high traffic website owners.
Rather than focusing on specific merchants, you are better off to hone in on the topics and niches that your content covers. Because once you have substantial traffic, you can choose your merchants from the various affiliate networks.
And the more traffic you have, it is your choice how you monetize that traffic.
9. Develop and Extend Your Business Model in Any Direction You Like
The more traffic you have, the more options you have to develop your business.
As an affiliate marketer, you are in the business of creating compelling content that is useful to your readers. In this context, the affiliate business model is one way to monetize your traffic.
But down the road, perhaps, you want to create your own products? Because you accumulate so much product knowledge in your field, it is quite likely that you might want to get into product development.
Or have you created so much good content on your website that you can make it into a book? Or speak about your topic at seminars? Or create online courses?
The key is to create effective systems in your life to become so productive at churning out good content to take your affiliate business in many different directions.
10. Live Life on Your Terms with the Affiliate Marketing Business Model
If you have come this far, you now understand that affiliate marketing can be the tool for you to live life on your terms.
It is also an extra benefit to start with affiliate marketing even when you are not sure what business to do yet. Start writing about where you are today and see where it takes you. Writing is the key. And then, you can move on from journaling to blogging and start affiliate marketing on your blog.
And after some time, you want to branch off into a new field of interest. Well, write, away, it’s all your for the taking.
The affiliate marketing business model, plain and simple, is a fantastic opportunity to live life on your terms.
So That’s Why Affiliate Marketing is the Best Business Model in the World
Becoming an affiliate is the ideal point to start doing business after you have realized that you want to be independent and happy.
And every skill you have to learn to become successful at affiliate marketing significantly levels up your game in this life. Meanwhile, you can go as far as you like and can diversify as much as you like. But do go far enough to make a good living.
And there you have it, that is why affiliate marketing is the best business model in the world.
