Affiliate Marketing for Seniors and Yes Seniors can Be Affiliates
So you want to make money online? Whether it’s to supplement your retirement income or replace a job, there are certainly plenty of ways to do it. Become an affiliate because affiliate marketing for seniors is a great way of making money online.
However, affiliate marketing is good fit for both newbies and established marketers.
There are lots of other ways too. You could get into e-commerce and drop ship your products. You could dive into info-product creation which could be a big money maker if you do it right. . Maybe you’ve thought of local marketing consulting, website building, SEO and well… I could go on with lots more ways to make money online.
And while all those methods can work, this wide array of options is precisely why most people get overwhelmed and end up taking no action at all! That’s when I usually recommend to keep it simple. Try a no-cost or low cost method that I consider one of the easiest ways to make money online.
That’s affiliate marketing. It’s especially good for seniors. Below you’ll find a few reasons why…
Zero to Low Startup Cost
Whether you’re on a shoestring budget or you’re working from nothing this could work for you. Affiliate marketing is a strategy that doesn’t ask much of you from the start. The investment you’ll be making will be mostly effort, not cash.
Of course for those who want to jump start their return, you can always do a little investing in things that cost money – like a domain, hosting, and some advertising if you want to. None of that is necessary to get the ball rolling.
When you’re just getting started there are so many different business models to choose from. You may not be sure if you’ll enjoy (or profit from) some of them. When you find a strategy that’s no or low cost like affiliate marketing, it lessens your financial risk.
This is a big factor for seniors. Some business models require a huge investment up front. Then not only are you wasting time and effort if it fails, but you’re out hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That’s a no-no if it can be avoided.
Another great thing about the negligent upfront costs associated with affiliate marketing is that you can be just as successful using 100% free promotional efforts as you can using a paid platform.
So let’s look at the minimal requirements to do affiliate marketing.
It’s always best if you can start with a domain. You can find great deals on domains. For example, you can do a Google search for a coupon code for your favorite domain registrar like GoDaddy.
Just enter something like “Godaddy coupon” and then the month and year that you’re searching. Sometimes this can knock a domain’s price down from over $10 to just a dollar or two!
And hosting isn’t much at all. Hostgator has great deals too – and you can get a plan that costs under $10 a month.
If you’re worried about building a website, don’t be. There are people on fiverr that will do complete blog installations for $5 – $20. Once they’re finished all you have to do is log in with a username and password and start publishing content as an affiliate marketer.
If you want to learn more then find the instructions on how to install WordPress free online and do it yourself. You don’t even need sales experience to become a great affiliate. Your job isn’t to sell the customer, but to recommend solutions and then let the vendors’ websites do the selling!
No Product Creation Hassle to Worry About
Creating a product can be daunting to newer marketers. You have to learn all sorts of things; niche research, product creation, and maybe multi media platforms. You need to learn how to launch a website. There is creating high-converting sales copy (not so easy), and more.
With affiliate marketing, there’s no production costs involved. You need not pay for graphics. No launching on a paid platform. No paying for a tool that delivers your product to the target audience.
Doing affiliate marketing, you’re not burdened by all of these inconveniences. All you’re doing is being the middleman.
That means you go into a niche hoping to bring together buyers and sellers. You’re the liaison between these two groups of people. This can be just as rewarding as being the one who created the product.
So for instance, let’s look at how an affiliate marketer would be the primary go-between:
-
- Let’s say you pick the acne niche. Your job as a product creator would be to provide a solution that helps people cure or treat their acne.
- But if you’re an affiliate, your job is to find the people suffering from acne problems. Once you find them you point them in the right direction to where they can find good help, the sellers.
Build a List of Subscribers
The key to becoming a super affiliate is to build a list of subscribers (they have free list building tools until you can afford a paid one) and become their go-to person whenever they need advice. You should be someone they can trust.
You’re not actually providing the advice. However, you can if you want to. You’re just saying, something like “You need help with acne scars?” I know of the perfect product for that. “Here’s the link” or something to that effect.
You probably already know that building a stronger rapport with your readers will increase conversions. If you take the time to review and maybe even implement products and share your results, that will help convert even more buyers.
When it comes to product creation, you’re limited in time and the creation process. It might take you months to take a product from conception to completion. Meanwhile you’ve made nothing during that time.
But as an affiliate marketer, you can instantly begin promoting. You can find hundreds of products with a wide range of opportunities for your readers. You’ll be profiting on all of them you can promote, not just one income stream.
Once you have started establishing a following you can be among the first to recommend new solutions as they are introduced to the marketplace.
Affiliate Marketing Allows You to go into Many Niches to Test Profitability
Here’s one of the best perks of pursuing the affiliate marketing route: diversity. You can go into dozens, possibly even hundreds of niche markets. That way you can see what works best for you.
You’re going to get to determine:
- a. Whether it’s easy to compete in that niche.
- b. How much money you can potentially earn.
- c. Whether or not you find it satisfying.
All three of those are very important factors for your online success as an affiliate. Some niches will be harder to break into than others. So as an affiliate you can test the waters to see how easy it is to dominate. You’d do this before you buy a domain and go full force into it.
Potential earnings will be of concern to you. If the traffic’s coming, but it’s hard to convert the visitors into buyers, then you might prefer to go with another target audience.
Personal satisfaction is what this career path is all about! Online marketing in general is about being your own boss. You not having to pursue tasks and topics that don’t fulfill you.
As an affiliate marketer, you can dabble in many niches all at once. You’re getting a feel for what satisfies you. You’re going to probably read a lot about keyword volume and competition. It’s important, however, to pay attention to which niches excite you. Make you feel like getting up out of bed early so you can get engaged with your audience!
Affiliate Marketing is Easy for Newbies to Master Quickly
A great thing about affiliate marketing is that’s it is easy to do. Many people find it intimidating to go into product creation because there are so many behind-the-scenes elements involved. That includes many technical skills you need to know.
But as an affiliate, you’ll need to learn some basics that are easy for any level of marketer, including things like:
-
- Blogging – Blogging is simple when you’re on a free platform like WordPress. You should have the self-hosted version. Yes it will cost you some money for hosting and a domain name, but it’s worth it. If you’re on their free platform you are at their mercy and they could cancel your account at any time, for any reason. Here’s an example of a simple free WordPress site of mine.You’re basically going to set up a free WordPress website. Select a name and URL for your blog and start publishing posts. It’s good to learn what people want in terms of blogging.
One of the biggest factors is personality. They want you to share insight, opinions and advice with them. Blogs are a great place to review products and share your results and they rank well in search engines.
- Video Reviews – If you’re comfortable with video, then you will want to start using YouTube. You can embed your videos into your blog. In your videos talk about the niche problems and solutions that you advise. Visitors would be able to purchase them through your links.
- Blogging – Blogging is simple when you’re on a free platform like WordPress. You should have the self-hosted version. Yes it will cost you some money for hosting and a domain name, but it’s worth it. If you’re on their free platform you are at their mercy and they could cancel your account at any time, for any reason. Here’s an example of a simple free WordPress site of mine.You’re basically going to set up a free WordPress website. Select a name and URL for your blog and start publishing posts. It’s good to learn what people want in terms of blogging.
- Social Marketing – Social marketing is all about sharing. You’ll be using sites like Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook and Pinterest to share your blog posts. You’ll also share links to good products that you think will help your niche audience. Other sites you can use are Pinterest and Instagram and more if you like.
You don’t have to Deal with Customer Service as an Affiliate
One of the most time consuming tasks when selling online is handling emails and requests from customers. They may have download issues, need clarification about the product, or want other help.
As an affiliate, none of that is your problem. It all rests on the shoulders of the product creator. It’s their job to handle the customer once you send them there. Since you’re just an affiliate you can continue working on what matters most – finding and converting new customers.
Affiliate Marketing Ranks High for Seniors and Everyone Else
Affiliate marketing is right for just about everybody. It’s really good for seniors since there is normally no money outlay to get started. Even product creators adopt an affiliate strategy to complement the product development branch of their business.
It’s time you add a serious affiliate marketing plan to your online business too. It’s virtually no cost and the profits can be high if you can get a lot of traffic to whatever you’re promoting.
Does it sound like affiliate marketing might be something you could do?
Leave a Reply