Working a full-time job isn’t an easy task, still, some do it because they have heavy responsibilities on their shoulders and so they need the paycheck at the end of the month. It is not important that a person loves their respective jobs, they might be doing it because they don’t have any other option. Amid the situation, unhappiness replaces one’s passion to work when they are stuck within the time frames of the corporating limiting creativity, passion, hard work and seriousness.
However, if you are among the humans who have a miserable time managing their full-time job then you might find this article interesting. One can find their lost happiness and change by doing something in addition to their full-time job, for instance, grow your own business or start-up but working part-time as an affiliate. The concept of affiliate marketing, at first, grabs the attention of people who are in the business field, but as they grow through this fieldwork increases.
However, to make you familiar with the fact, this might be a lot difficult for you given the tiredness of your full-day schedule and at times, you might not take out time for your self. But as each day passes, you will be able to build your brand name and services in the market.
Talking numerically, as much as 81% of brands rely on affiliate programs to improve their businesses and other than this, affiliate marketing is responsible for 15 per cent of the total digital advertising revenue. Well, these are some of the stats supporting affiliate marketing which is why it is worth all the part-time you take out while working full time elsewhere.
Many people get attracted to this unique yet simple marketing technique. The reason is that it is a great source of passive income. Nowadays, it is very tough to survive with a single job given the unnecessarily increasing inflation around the world. But being an affiliate marketer can pay you well and in some cases even better than your regular job.
Affiliate marketing is simple because you do not require a product or service to sell. You don’t need a full-fledged business for it. Also, you don’t have to be a customer (unlike the network marketing process). All you need to be a publisher that promotes certain products or services of different brands and you will earn commissions. Sounds easy?
Many find it difficult to continue with affiliate marketing because of their 9-5 job. There are certain reasons for that. The foremost reason is lack of knowledge. Affiliate marketing sounds like an easy method of earning money. However, this is a vast concept that has to be thoroughly researched.
Inappropriate knowledge about affiliate marketing leads to failures. Without complete knowledge about it, you will see downfalls and end up quitting it. But believe me, if you do affiliate marketing consistently, you can earn much more than you earn from your full-time job. Undoubtedly, that would require time and a lot of patience. Also, we are not motivating you to leave your job. We are just helping you explore a really good source of passive income.
In this article, you will get to know what affiliate marketing is all about. We will unfold different aspects of it. You will understand how to earn money through affiliate marketing while continuing with your job.
This concept is vast and to initiate the same, one needs to first understand from the core what exactly affiliate marketing is because one cannot practice the field until or unless they are able to know the basics.
Here’s Affiliate Marketing in a layman’s language
The idea behind affiliate marketing is to promote products that do not belong to you and getting commissions on their sales. You will earn commissions only if the purchase is made because of your marketing.
Affiliate marketing is based on revenue sharing. If you have a product to sell, you can take the help of affiliate marketers for its promotions. However, you will have to give them some financial incentive.
If you do not have any product, you can be an affiliate marketer, promote other’s products and then earn commissions out of it.
The consumers complete the cycle as revenue cannot be generated if they do not buy the product. No consumers mean no sales. No sales mean no revenue.
Here is a very simple definition of it.
There are different components to this unique marketing cycle. Each component is important. Broadly, there are two major components of affiliate marketing. The merchant and the publisher.
The merchant is also called the manufacturer. The manufacturer has the product or the service to sell. It can be anyone. Even you can be the manufacturer. You just need to have a sellable service or product. The manufacturer can be a major brand as well.
Next is the publisher. It is also called the affiliate. An affiliate can also range from one person to an entire company. The major work of the affiliate is to promote the merchant’s product on several platforms. The promotion process includes a lot of different processes. There is no affiliate marketing without an affiliate.
Another important component of affiliate marketing is the affiliate network. The major work of the affiliate network is to connect the merchant with the publisher. Usually, affiliate networks are well-established companies. One of the most successful affiliate networks in the world is Amazon. It helps connect the manufacturers and the promoters through its associate program.
The most important component of affiliate marketing is the consumer. Without consumers, there won’t be any revenue to share. The major motive of affiliate marketing is to drive more and more consumers. That is the reason affiliates are asked to promote the products.
Mostly, it depends upon the affiliate if they want to tell the customers that they are a part of an affiliate marketing system. Some want to have complete transparency with the customers but some do not want to reveal anything. No matter if the consumer knows about it or not, the amount to be paid remains the same.
What channels do affiliates use to promote products/services?
There are different channels on which the affiliates try to market the products and the service to influence the consumers. It can be social media, websites, e-mail marketing, blogs, reviews etc.
One of the most widely used promotion techniques is writing product reviews. The affiliates write blogs about the merchant’s products to influence the consumers. Undoubtedly, reviews and blogs are credible methods to influence customers. As both pros and cons are highlighted, the credibility factor increases.
However, this technique has a major drawback. You will have to wait for the audience to visit your website. Also, it must have a lot of traffic. Only then, this technique would be beneficial. The reviews must be ranked higher on the SERPs, which is not easy at all.
Isn’t it better to go to the consumers rather than waiting for them to visit?
E-mail marketing can be a great option. This is another good technique that can be used to influence consumers. For e-mail marketing, you must have an amazing database. For that, you must use different techniques to gather information about the visitors to your website. Different lead magnets can be used to collect e-mail addresses.
A lead magnet is what you give for free to your website’s audience, just to get their email address. You don’t have to put immense effort to provide something great for an email address. You just need to be creative. A free course related to your business, free trials, some cool quizzes, amazing case studies, etc can be provided in the lead magnet.
Other than this, putting a call-to-action button on the website can also help. You can place this on the header section so that it becomes easily visible. But do not overdo it. If you keep asking for details repeatedly, your audience will leave your website.
Pop-ups leading to social media connection can also help. You will have many people liking your page on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms. In this way, you will have a strong social media presence and you can influence the consumers there also.
Now since we have understood the entire concept of affiliate marketing, let’s talk about how can you manage it along with your full-time job.
Before you think of beginning your affiliate marketing business, remember that owning, beginning and running a business isn’t an easy job, you would require to work day in and day out. Therefore, be prepared to give everything to your business. Also, do not succumb to quit your full-time job initially. The reason behind this statement is that an affiliate marketing business may fuel up a little too late but the assurance is that when it does, it would fill your pockets with money and life with fullness.
Dedicate a few hours each day
Early in the morning or after you return home from your full-day job, dedicate a few hours to work on affiliate marketing. First of all, understand this point that you need to be regular about your work if you want to build a name at a fast pace. Slowly, when you start receiving a good response from the businesses, then the time of engaging would increase.
Also, another factor is that try and be available at that particular time period only. Don’t change your work timing as it will impact your communication with your clients.
For instance, if you communicate or e-mail someone during the evening time between 5 to 9, the clients will automatically figure out that this is your work time and will respond accordingly. However, if you suddenly change the work time and begin working early in the morning, then it will also affect the process. Therefore, try and maintain the same time period every day.
Sit every week to analyze the progress
Not only in affiliate marketing, but this practice is required in your everyday routine as well. Analyse your everyday work and check what results to were able to generate during the whole week. During this process, evaluate the flaws, and points where you think you lacked and the factors that could be avoided.
This will help you understand how you are doing in your business and most importantly, your approach strategy. Managing 2 works at one time is difficult and confusing. At times, it might happen that you jumble up your thoughts and harm your progress. Therefore, it is vital for a start-up affiliate to organise an analysis session each week.
Also, in your other part of the brain, try and take out the answer to one question, how can you improve or what are the areas you lack behind in improvement? Remember, there is always a scope of improvement and one can never be fully improvised.
Take little steps, don’t hurry
Since the world is now approachable, the world has also become a wider place where we get influenced by affiliate marketers across the globe and get backed down by their success. Everyone sees success but no one sees the struggle and hard work they have put into it. Therefore, begin your approach with a little step and don’t hurry in the process of achieving success in a short span of time.
Most successful businesses require time to flourish, especially in the case of affiliate marketing, you must take steps one by one and focus on each one to generate good results.
Prepare yourself to work on odd hours and weekends
No, we are not trying to build your confidence down but this is a truth you cannot move away from and we are preparing you for it. Since you are a full-time employee, there will be exceptional days when working might become a challenge altogether. However, on those days, you have to make sure that you work in the odd hours, weekends but do not miss everyday work. This is one of the factors a true businessman must never forget.
There will also be times when you would try and find time for yourself but that’s when the real challenge would occur, you will have to forget about yourself and work to make ends meet. Affiliate marketing is not tough, it is a simple, yet effective technique to earn money in current times, but the process requires core understanding, conceptualisation, approach strategy, time management and speed. All these factors together will help you build good outcomes in regards to your work.
Improve your writing speed
With time, you must learn to quickly draft the proposals which will only be possible if you make it your regular practice and learn with each passing day. If you only work with a perception that ‘you have to’ then you will not able to improve and increase your work speed accordingly. Hence, the overall results will get affected. Therefore, manage to improve your writing speed so that you can take up more and more projects and clients.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing requires time and attention both if you want to create regular results but managing it along with a full-time job is a challenge in itself. As suggested above, one must not fully depend on affiliate marketing and give up on the jobs because it will not help you make ends meet. But with every day hard work, technique, one can build a proper name in the affiliate marketing field.
About the Author
With a pinch of humour and a realistic approach, Garima Aggarwal is a Creative Content Writer working with TABSCAP Digital Marketing Agency. She has been in the field for the last 2 years wanting to develop change with her words and thoughts. She is passionate about her work and writes about topics related to Fashion, Lifestyle, Health, Paid Marketing and Digital Marketing.
