If you only have time and energy for one bite-sized affiliate marketing method, this should be the one.
It is the most effective method for making affiliate commissions. And it is the least time-consuming one. It is as close to set-and-forget as it gets.
It is amazingly simple.
Depending on your available time, this system will take you a couple of weeks to get ready to run.
That is fine. Once it is running, it is not going to stop again, unless you want it to. And the preparation here can soon pay off.
You will need:
Sounds like a lot?
You can set up this system in bite-sized timeslots. Go for 15-minutes at a time if you can. That is the perfect amount of time for these tasks.
That way you will finish this step fast, and you only need to do it once.
Such a system is called an auto-responder (AR) or sometimes Email Service Provider (ESP).
You will need it, because it is such a handy tool to set up a perpetual money-making system. You can simply feed it emails to go out automatically so you can focus on other things. For your autoresponder, I recommend (your affiliate link here).
You can start with a free trial until your list is bigger.
Do you need to shorten your links?
No. But this comes very handy when a vendor changes an affiliate link. Then you just need to go in and change it inside the link shortener. Otherwise, you would end up with a lot of links out there which can no longer make you money.
If you have a blog, you can add the Pretty Links addon for free and use it.
Bitly can do it, too, but not in its free version. You will need to upgrade to a paid plan. Right now, it costs minimum $8 per month.
When you have your autoresponder, you need to create a list in there for the email addresses you are going to gather.
How you do this depends on which autoresponder service you choose.
Thanks to this list, you will be able to deliver the free gift you are going to give your new subscribers as a thank you for giving you their email address.
People do not just join a list anymore.
They will do it if you offer them something valuable, they truly desire. The easiest way to do this is to find a problem you can solve for them.
And you should solve it in one sitting.
This means no 100+ page eBooks. Make it short. 1600-1700 words are perfect. Or make a checklist or a cheat sheet or even a spreadsheet that is helpful to them.
Your potential list subscribers need somewhere to add their email address so you can add them automatically to your autoresponder.
Your chosen autoresponder will help you with this step. You can find opt-in forms (sign-up forms) inside your autoresponder dashboard and usually change the look of it. When you are done, you will get a code you can add to your blog.
Some autoresponders will even give you a link and host the form on their own site.
If that is the case, you do not even need a blog for this system to work.
Now your system is up and running and you do not need to work on it again… Unless something goes wrong.
Do not start the system yet, though. You need something to sell.
Since we are setting up this system to run automatically, you need evergreen products.
Something this is only available for a week will not work. It must be products that will help your audience now and for years to come. And they must be able to buy it even years from now.
Take that into consideration when you look for products that will help your audience.
If you promote one new product per week, you need to repeat this step weekly.
Remember I said it would take a couple of weeks to set up?
If you spent one week on the previous preparations, then this week it is time to prepare for next week. This week you are not going to send out any emails yet or work on getting new subscribers.
Always be one week ahead of time, and there is no overwhelm built into this system.
Every week you should:
When you have done this for a year, you have 52 weeks of emails ready for your next new subscriber.
Is this enough? It could be. I recommend you do one or two things, though.
Go through your 52 weeks of email. See if there are things you want to change or tweak.
Check that the links are still working. And if some are not, then change the redirects either with Pretty Links or a paid bit.ly account.