It is a while since I considered myself to be a professional marketer, but I am getting my confidence back now. The past 7 months took its toll on my mind.
Today I was sitting thinking about what it means to be a professional marketer, and really it is quite differrent to what most people might think.
A professional marketer needs to know how to cut through the noise and be seen.
A professional marketer needs to understand how to read signals that others don’t even know exist.
A professional marketer needs to be able to think from the perspective of others.
There is a lot of analysis and data collection……
Many people have no idea how to do any of those things and yet they believe that they can work online (and they can!).
What they can’t do is become a professional marketer in a few days or weeks…… yet that is often the expectation of people who join this industry.
Those expectations have been created and communicated in an industry that thrives on making false promises to generate sales.
It fosters a lack of trust.
Personally I think we should challenge those belief systems and methods. Sharing real information and providing a realistic view of what is involved in marketing allows people to stop feeling like a failure. It generates an environment built on learning and understanding that it takes time to build income online.
That is why I recommend starting with a simple plan that doesn’t cost a lot (or anything) to get started.
Learn to work on small goals initially so you can build experience without the risk of losing a lot of money.
As an experienced marketer it is quite obvious to me now how the pieces of the marketing jigsaw fit together.
To someone with no experience it seems like trying to complete a jigsaw with no image to guide you. It is confusing and frustrating. I remember it well….. so today I want to provide that full affiliate plan image in one place so you can see how it all fits together.
What I do is teach each step individually so it is not so overwhelming AND I also provide one to one PERSONALISED guidance in my forum to help those who need it.
My aim is to teach everyone how to become a successful affiliate marketer without spending a lot of money trying to learn it. It doesn’t matter to me where you live or your experience level. In the forum we can work at YOUR pace on a personalised plan.
A full affiliate plan DOES NOT need to cost anything to start. Spending should begin with a small amount in my opinion (and you can easily earn $1 to do that).
The Individual Steps
Over the past few weeks I have been writing blog posts that show the full system being built step by step. Today I want to show you in a single post how each of the steps fit together in my system. If you have started working with me you will be able to see which step you are on from this list:
Step 1 – Earn $1
Step 2 – Purchase $1 Product
Step 3 – Create automated traffic
Step 4 – Set up advertising system
Step 5 – Turn $1 into a lot more funds
Step 6 – Repeat each step over and over again.
Now let me provide a little more detail on each step:
Step 1 – Earn $1
You can earn $1 without any doubt or risk by simply clicking on ads using a free earning site such as Reward Joy.
I have written a guide on how exactly to use this site here:
You can use other sites if you prefer, or you can use multiple sites at the same time so you earn $1 much faster.
If it takes a few weeks to earn $1 then IT DOESN’T MATTER because your main income is earned in step 5 as you will see below.
Please note that you CAN also work on step 3 and step 1 at the same time if you wish to do so, or you can work on a single step at a time if you prefer.
Step 2 – Purchase $1 Product
There are multiple $1 products available to purchase however the FIRST one that I recommend and the reason why is discussed here:
Here you can see that this system can turn $1 into a lot more. These are sales made from sharing my own campaign page on a single traffic site. The campaign is set up to continuously work in the background for me so I should see more and more sales coming through on autopilot over the next weeks and months (that is not guaranteed, just what CAN happen).
Now that I know for sure the campaign is working on one traffic site I will start to add it to more and more traffic sites.
As my traffic sites are upgraded I DO NOT need to spend time earning ad credits on each one. What I do (and recommend you do too) is to focus on adding 1 or 2 traffic sites at a time. Work to upgrade a site and then add a new one to work on.
I begin with 1 traffic site that I have upgraded, I then start to work on a second site to earn the upgrade. Over time I can add 5 then 10 then 20 then 50 then 100 different traffic sites using this method.
Having 100 traffic sites all working on autopilot for me will obviously get me a lot more hits to my lead capture page, and (hopefully) will help me gain more and more and more sales too.
Step 6 – Repeat each step over and over again.
This is a simple but effective approach to affiliate marketing that everyone can follow.
When you work on building a portfolio of $1 products that are all being promoted on autopilot (as explained above) you can easily reach $10 – $100 a day of income.
You want to MAKE SURE that you have new affiliate products to promote to the people on your email list who have already purchased the first one.
Obviously some people might not purchase the second product, or some might not purchase the first few you promote. This is why you need to be able to provide a variety of products long term.
Your goal is to get more and more active BUYERS on your list. You need to keep the first buyers interested as well as targeting new subscribers.
This is how to BUILD an full time level affiliate income that continues to grow over time.
ONGOING work on your email list is what achieves this (and I will be teaching how to do this too).
For now please try and remember that it can take time to get email subscribers who respond to you. Patience and determination is what will get your through that initial phase.
Long term your target is to KEEP increasing the amount of traffic that goes to your lead capture page. THAT is the engine that keeps new subscribers coming in.
Upgrading on traffic accounts allows you add campaigns to hundreds of different sites that are working constantly in the background for you. The more different traffic sites you work on upgrading the more views your campaigns will get.
More views = More Subscribers = Better Results
To help you achieve this I will be constantly adding new sites to my own list and will share them with you here:
My aim with this post is to provide you with clear steps to follow beginning with step 1. I hope it has provided you with the full picture so you can see exactly where you need to focus in the plan AND where you are heading too.
Has this post helped you to see things more clearly? Please do let me know. Ask me questions if you have any because that helps me to provide good clear information to others as well.
If you have ANY issues, get stuck on any point or step, need a bit of extra support etc etc please do join my forum. It is there for exactly that reason.
In addition to the one to one guidance you can get on the forum we ALSO have a 10 people plan……. more about that will be explained in my next post.
A few days ago I wrote a blog post explaining what I was doing to start a simple affiliate campaign.
In that post I provided the actual page that I used for promoting so you can copy it and use it too.
Today I want to show you what exactly I did with that page and what happened as a result of doing it.
Reminder: Here is a screenshot of the page I used:
Now before I started sharing this page I had to create an email list. That is where the details are stored for anyone who enters their information into the form on the page above.
How To Create An Email List on Leadsleap
Click on the LIST MANAGER in the main menu as shown below:
Click on the ADD NEW LIST button:
Give your list a name and save it – I called mine $1 Traffic Source:
When your list is showing on the list manager page you need to add some details to set up that list before you can use it.
Click on the cog icon (highlighted in black in the image below) to add your own details to the form:
You will need to click the blue button shown to get a code to enter in the code box. You will also need to enter your address in the form to comply with legal regulations for sending bulk emails.
After doing that scroll to the bottom of the form and tick the agreement box:
Click the blue SAVE & ACTIVATE button.
You now have an email list that will store details of your contacts and will allow you to send everyone on that list emails. I will explain more about that shortly.
Your next step is to connect the email list to the page. This tells the system where to save the details of people who enter their details into THAT page.
Go back to the PAGE MANAGER section of Leadsleap and you will see the page in a list format like this:
Click on LAUNCH EDITOR button. Then choose LIST in the side menu:
Click on GET LIST ID button and you will see your new list in the box:
Click on the list and it will be added to the List ID box
In the top right on the list editor page click on the SAVE button:
Your list and page will now be connected and the details of anyone entering their information on the page will get stored in that email list.
The last step before you start sharing the lead capture page is to write an email that will get sent automatically and immediately to anyone joining the list.
Go back to the LIST MANAGER page and click on the second icon as shown in black below:
This is where you can adjust your welcome email at any time. This is the email I added:
Click on the SAVE CHANGES button at thebottom of the email editor to add your email to the system:
Your page is now ready to share with others.
How To Share Your Lead Capture Page
I created this page to work on traffic sites.
The first traffic site I added it to was Surf4Quality
Note that I followed the surf to earn bonus cash system for this site and used the funds I earned to pay for my upgrade before using it to promote my simple affiliate campaign page. Just click that surf to earn link to read more about that system and get step by step instructions for that if you wish to do the same.
Here is the url of my $1 traffic page on Surf4Quality
I have allocated 3000 hits to this page and 9 have been used so far. I ALSO added this page to the RESERVE PAGE section where there have been 65 views today so far:
Due to this promotion this morning I have now made the following affiliate sales:
That = $16.22 of commission earned in a few hours by using this simple affiliate campaign and ONE traffic site.
That is how you use a traffic site effectively to generate affiliate sales.
The EMAIL that got sent out automatically for me is what did the selling for me.
As I have gained some new subscribers on my email list because of this campaign I can email them over and over again. I send out daily emails with guidance on what I am doing and the results I am getting….. you can see exactly what I am sending out by joining my email list below.
I do hope you have found this step by step guide for affiliate marketing useful.
If you need any help to set up your own campaign or any other aspect of marketing you can get one to one guidance on my forum:
When you are just starting out as an affiliate it is best to keep things really simple. Start your first simple affiliate campaign by using the guidance in this post.
You should start off with an offer that has high demand and a low price. You should also aim to start off with what is called an “evergreen” product.
An evergreen product by the way, is something that doesn’t have an expiry date. You can promote it for years after the launch. The offer above can be promoted again and again and again. It does not go out of date.
This means that you avoid the huge competition that happens with new launch products. Trust me experienced marketers will be all over those and you CANNOT compete with them (yet). My advice is don’t even try.
Evergreen products also give you the opportunity to learn a lot more about how to promote properly. They allow you to try different things and check your results (which is what experienced marketers constantly do). That is what makes them one of the best products you can use for your first campaign.
As I already explained in my previous post The Processes Behind Making Affiliate Marketing Sales you also do not want to try and make affiliate sales to people who are interested only in earning ad credits – that is pretty much the audience who will see your ads on traffic sites.
You want to work on getting people onto an email list.
Below you will find a page that is designed to do that and I will talk you through how to add it to your account on Leadsleap.
Here is the page that I am using to promote the $1 affiliate offer as discussed in my previous posts:
Before I tell you how to get a copy of this page and how to use it, let me take a moment to explain something important.
A lead capture page has ONE job.
That job is to get people to join your email list (I will explain how to create that list too).
A lead capture page is NOT there to make a sale or to get you referrals.
Remember this – You should ALWAYS be working on getting new leads. Leads are the backbone of your business. Without learning how to generate a constant flow of leads any income system you try to use is pretty much dead in the water.
Leads = affiliate sales AND referrals. In other words it doesn’t matter what you are working on, you need to learn how to generate leads effectively.
It is the MAIN thing that you should focus on learning if you want to succeed online.
How To Get A Copy Of My Lead Capture Page
Log in to your Leadsleap account and click on PAGE MANAGER in the main menu:
When you click on that page you will see a blue button at the top which says ADD A NEW PAGE CAMPAIGN:
When you click that button you will be asked to provide a name for your new page:
This name is only for you, I suggest you call it $1 Secret Traffic Source (or something similar).
Enter the name you want and click the ADD NOW button.
You will see the following in your account:
Next click on the ADD A NEW PAGE DESIGN TO START button.
You will see the following pop up:
In the share code box add the following code:
page-atK6p9
Click on IMPORT NOW button and hey presto you will magically have a copy of my lead capture page in your account.
This page is NOT ready for sharing just yet. You will need to create an email list where the details of your leads will be saved.
I will explain how to do that in my next blog post.
What does this tell me about the PERSON who added this advert?
They are working on an MLM They are promoting a health based offer They are sharing information directed at organisations, schools and churches.
Ad 2:
What does this tell me about the PERSON who added this advert?
They are sharing advertising They have chosen Bitcoin specific ad sites They are interested in rankings
Ad 3:
What does this tell me about the PERSON who added this advert?
They are interested in clicks They shared a very simple looking ad They are using a lead capture page
Why Research Is Important?
By looking at the adverts on the site in more detail it allows me to get a better idea about the PEOPLE who are using that site already.
The more attention I pay to the actual adverts the more I can learn about the people behind those adverts.
Most people, especially those who don’t understand marketing in very much detail, do not take the time to actually look at ads. They are just interested in earning as many ad credits as possible.
The funny thing about that is learning about traffic means you need less ad credits to get results, not more. You start to learn about what makes an ad EFFECTIVE.
When you slow down and take the time to do so, you can gather a LOT of very useful information. It is like learning the language of marketing. EVERY ad you see, EVERY bit of content, EVERY image, EVERY headline literally speaks to the experienced marketer. The language of marketing tells you huge amounts of information about PEOPLE (not products).
When you begin to understand the people you are sharing your ads with, THEN you can create adverts, or indeed share options, that are more likely to appeal to those specific people.
THAT is how you immediately increase your chances of success…….
Change your focus to learning more about the people who see your ads if you wish to become a REALLY good marketer!
Stop surfing with your eyes closed.
Stop focusing on the number of ad credits you can get.
Learn to listen to the language of marketing…..
Here is a bit of a truth bomb for you:
If you don’t take the time to understand REAL marketing you will never improve your results. More traffic does not get better results. More effective use of traffic does.
In my next blog post I will begin to explain more about ads and how to use them effectively.
Affiliate marketing is often portrayed as “just share your link”.
Technically that is true, BUT in the background of affiliate marketing there is a LOT MORE that happens to generate sales.
Today I want to explain some of the processes behind making affiliate marketing sales. To help me explain how it works I want to take a moment to tell you what MOST beginner affiliates try to do.
Understanding Beginner Affiliate Problems
Imagine you are walking down the street on your way to an important appointment and you are running late. The only thing on your mind is how you are going to reach your desination on time. You are hurrying along when someone you do not know tries to stop you and sell you something. You don’t even know what it is they are trying to sell you.
Would you even stop to listen to what they have to say?
Chances are the answer is no….. yet THAT is what most new affiliates try to do.
THAT is why most new affiliates struggle to make sales.
They basically try to do it at completely the wrong time (and then wonder why it is so hard for them but others make it look easy).
The person walking down the street is the equivilent to someone using a traffic site.
They have just 1 thing on their mind:
Getting to their destination as quickly as possible = Earning enough ad credits to promote their offer.
When you use a traffic site to promote an affiliate offer you are trying to stop that person from doing what they are there to do.
You are trying to make YOUR goal more important than theirs.
It doesn’t work and all you are doing is wasting your ad credits by trying to work this way.
Do you understand a bit more now why affiliate marketing is hard for beginners?
How To Overcome This Issue
ALL experienced affiliate marketers who are making regular sales understand what I have explained above.
They DO NOT attempt to make an affiliate sale to someone who is busy doing something else like earning ad credits.
What they do instead is use the few seconds when someone who is surfing ads MIGHT see their ad to gain a little attention.
Experienced affiliate marketers use those few seconds to try and get someone to give them their contact details. Doing this allows the experienced marketer to contact that person when they are MUCH more likely to pay attention to what they are saying.
This is like chatting to the person on the street when they are looking in a shop window deciding what they want to buy. You get to say things like “I bought that one and I really like it”.
Do you think that person would now be interested in chatting to you about that product?
THAT is why experienced affiliates build an email list.
They get to chat to people at the RIGHT time when someone wants to hear what they have to say.
If you want to work as an affiliate then you need to avoid the beginner issues that cause so much frustration and take a little time to learn about list building. It is really not as difficult as you might think…..
THAT is why I recommend anyone who wants to learn about affiliate marketing (or any kind of marketing) joins Leadsleap. It provides the tools required to start following that same process and greatly increases your chance of success as a marketer. Many of the tools on Leadsleap are free to use as well.
In my latest update for earning $10,000 I explained that I want to work on affiliate marketing again. Specifically I want to teach those with no affiliate experience how they can actually get started making money as an affiliate in the easiest way possible.
Today I want to look at the question “Is affiliate marketing right for beginners?”
I have put a lot of thought into this topic because I know that it is often VERY hard for new marketers to actually make money with affiliate marketing. They simply do not have the right skills yet AND chances are high they do not have the right contacts yet either.
This is why most beginners never make any money with affiliate marketing…..
In todays post I want to start looking at HOW exactly new marketers can begin working on affiliate marketing without the barriers to success as mentioned.
First of all the skills of affiliates…… there is a very misleading idea that gets promoted a lot in this industry that affiliate marketing is just about sharing links. That was certainly the impression that I was given when I began many years ago. I honestly thought all I had to do was share a link on my Facebook profile and I would make lots of money.
It seems very naive to me now, but in my defence this was how affiliate marketing was explained to me. It took me several years to actually learn what was involved.
One of the MAIN reasons that new marketers struggle to make affiliate sales is because they do not have the right contacts yet.
By that I mean new marketers do not have an email list of people they have built a relationship with. Nor do they have any idea about targeting…… we have all been there. It takes time to learn about this in any detail.
How To Overcome This Barrier?
The easiest way to overcome this barrier is to use the fact that beginners can use pre-existing lists of people. This is provided by traffic sites.
The reason people join traffic sites is because they have something they want to promote. So we can say without much doubt that this site provides access to almost 3000 people who are interested in ADVERTISING.
That is a basic premise that can be used for TARGETING.
As an experienced marketer I know that is not the full picture. For example there are likely to be many members of this site that have no interest in PAID ADVERTISING – that is a futher distinction.
Targeting is about getting as specific as possible and even the “paid advertising” category can be further sub divided…… but lets leave it there for now. Its enough for you to understand that each traffic site has different categories of members: People who are (maybe) interested in what you are promoting and people who are not.
As a beginner affiliate what you can do is use this information to help you make sales.
Barrier Number 2
Now you understand how to overcome the no list and targeting barrier a bit more, I need to explain another barrier to making affiliate sales.
People on traffic sites are literally bombarded with offers every single day. If they surf 100 pages they see 100 offers. That is if they are even looking at the ads when they surf…… most people try to surf really fast because they are focusing on earning as many ad credits as possible.
This creates a LOT of competition (and is the main reason that traffic sites are not the best place to make affiliate sales).
To overcome this barrier you need to have A LOT of traffic combined with an offer that is “too good to pass up”.
Lets look now at both of these things in more detail.
A Lot of Traffic
To be able to generate enough traffic to make affiliate sales on traffic sites you need to learn how to AUTOMATE your traffic.
That is why I have been focusing on the surf to earn upgrades option myself. I have now got 4 of the 6 sites upgraded JUST from the surfing bonus cash. The commission I have earned is going into the bank…..
This traffic plan is an important step in the process and most beginner affiliates do not have upgraded traffic sites to work on. Yes you can spend time earning ad credits instead of upgrading BUT you will never be able to generate enough traffic from doing that.
This is why the surf to earn bonuses feature is so useful.
Spend your time working to get traffic upgrades NOT just ad credits. It is what makes the biggest difference between experienced and beginner marketers.
That is also the reason I use PTC sites (I spend time earning money not ad credits = I can buy more traffic upgrades and increase my automated traffic).
What makes an offer too good to pass up?
One that makes life easier by overcoming a problem.
For example, imagine having a professional affiliate marketer work for you. Someone who gets affiliate sales on a daily basis.
Imagine if they did all the work for you…..you just need to give them your link and they shared it for you. Would that solve an issue for you?
Now what if they had already got a list of thousands of people who buy affiliate products regularly, would you like that person to promote an affiliate product for you?
People often pay hundreds of dollars for exactly that kind of service. I have even paid $1000 for this service myself.
$1 for a professional affiliate who gets daily sales to share your link for you.
THAT is what makes this particular offer too good to pass up.
You could make a lot of money….. IF you are willing to pay $1. Its not guaranteed of course, but it certainly tips the scales toward being able to make some sales. It removes the list issue and the traffic issue both at the same time.
Over the next few days and weeks I will begin working on promoting this offer myself so I can show you EXACTLY how I am doing it.
Needless to say you CANNOT just add your affiliate link to a traffic site……
If you follow my blog posts in the next few weeks you will start to learn a bit more about how affiliate marketing actually works.
I will also try my best to help you make your first affiliate sales!
I started working on it last month and so far I have earned just over $1000 as you can see:
As I REALLY want to get my mortgage cleared this year I need to up my game a bit more….. Aiming for $2000 a month would take me where I want to be BUT so would $5000 a month!!
Can I do it?
I certainly need a solid plan in mind if I am to have a chance of doing that.
How do you even start creating a plan like this?
The way I do it is to think about what is required first of all.
For example, I could aim for:
10,000 x $1 commissions,
2000 x $5 commissions
1000 x $10 commissions,
200 x $50 commissions,
100 x $100 commissions,
20 x $500 commissions,
or……
10 x $1000 commissions.
Of course there are various unlimited combinations of these figures that would reach the $10,000 goal as well. The calculations above are about helping me to work out what is required.
You will see that my plan ALSO takes the combinations option into account but I do not need to figure those numbers out in advance.
The next step I take is to identify opportunities that would pay those kind of level of commissions AND I would be happy to promote.
I would then make a shortlist of options that meet the criteria like this:
I can also use free sites to earn $1 over and over again. That can help to reduce the number of commissions required down from 10,000
I will be doing the same thing for EACH of the commission options that I Identified above. First though I will focus on getting this $1 commission plan up and running.
Next Step = Create Promoting Plan
Ok so if I need to aim for 10,000 commissions I need to have a really good promoting plan in mind.
I begin by working on a promo page that I want to try out.
Leadsleap Page Manager is my choice to design a page and I play around with it until I am happy with what I have created.
I may play around with it a bit more – I’d like to add a lead capture box to it etc so will think about how best to include that.
Last Step = Start Promoting
This is where my initial focus on traffic building and automation really starts to come into play.
I have already built several traffic sites up to top level upgrades (by using funds earned).
Now I just need to add the link to the new page I have created and let it work for me in the background. By doing this I can spend my time on other tasks instead of constantly trying to get hits to this page. My time is better spent working on new promoting pages, writing blog posts and providing training for my email subscribers.
THAT is how to scale your income levels. You have to be selective about what you spend your time doing or you will get stuck in a rut where you can’t earn enough.
Earning traffic is a drain on your time. It also prevents you from being able to scale up your traffic levels.
Focus instead on CASH tasks that will allow you to pay for upgrades. Upgrades are what provide automation. Traffic generation is a basic task that can be taken care of without you spending hours and hours on it.
If you have not done so already I suggest you read the following blog posts to help you earn some free upgrades:
I also use PTC sites such as Reward Joy to earn cash from every click that I make. Using those funds to pay for site upgrades is MUCH more time effective than clicking for ad credits.
