Affiliate marketing is one of the best business opportunities you’ll discover online.
It is, though, like any other type of business in which the more you invest the more you’ll get.
Once you start to gain a respectable return on investment you, no doubt, think of where to re-invest the money so that you may earn additional income.
The following deals with that opportunity. Six of the following will give ideas as to how to invest your affiliate income to increase your profitability while in this industry…
1. A dedicated content producer
How often do you produce content? Really?
We have best intentions to produce content once a day (or at least a couple times a week) but over time we get burnt out and when we do we miss our schedules.
One excellent investment is someone that can produce content on a regular basis.
Someone that can produce content each day greatly aids your business in gaining long-tail keyword placement in search engines. Each new time you produce a piece of content that ranks for search engines is another time you potentially drive new leads to your business.
Not only are you going to save time from having to produce the content but their professionalism will general ensure they are creating the content that has the right call-to-actions that will boost your affiliate conversions (way better than being stuck trying to come up with ideas and writing a post when you have other items on your to-do list).
2. The big wins
Business can start to wear at you after some years. You can push through it and keep working but you’ll most likely hit a point when you’re too over stressed. You got into affiliate marketing so you didn’t have to work the traditional 9-to-5 (right?).
Take it from me… go on a vacation.
We all need a little get away from our work from time to time. Without it, we start to become too consumed. Once we’re too involved we forget the reasons for getting involved which are generally free from working for others and having the ability to spend time with family.
You should invest your earnings toward this break away from doing business.
Another thing to consider…
The affiliate money does start to dry up due to increased competition so it’s probably within your best interest to take that money you’re earning now and funneling it to something that has sustainability or a big payoff. Use those funds to make smart investments rather than being short-sighted and squandering it on items you want rather need.
3. A selection of automated services
Not everything in affiliate marketing should be automated but there are plenty of items on your list that could and when you free up time due to this automation you can work on bigger goals (like product creation or a bump in marketing efforts).
Automation tools for social media, blog posting, or such things as templates for the website and its advertising can greatly cut down your involvement. The price of these items are very affordable and should be every marketers’ list.
4. A larger budget for advertising
This is a no-brainer.
The more you invest in advertising the more traffic you’ll receive. The boost in traffic means a greater chance of converting leads.
Need I say more?
5. A subscription to learning channels
I wanted to make sure this was a part of the list because education should always have a priority with your investment.
There are many, many online courses out there – many free and the others are still very affordable.
The reason for the investment is quite simple: you keep your edge.
Affiliate marketing is a dynamic industry in which you need a thorough understanding of many topics from SEO to graphic design. Even if you don’t fully pursue and master these items you still gain the knowledge of what to expect when hiring individuals that do have talent in these fields.
An hour a day is often all you really need to keep your edge. It’s well worth the investment.
6. A product of your own
The majority of your time as an affiliate is promoting other peoples’ products.
After some years, really doesn’t have the same impact as selling your own.
Selling products/services of your own not only helps establish a brand but lets you become the individual pushing offers through an affiliate program. Once that hooks you are the front runner of the product/service rather than trying to make commissions.
There are many different ways to make products from infoproducts to downloadables.
Realistically, if I were to start again, I would invest a good amount of money toward building an offer for my niche so that I had a strong presence within the marketplace. Once established most other work involved (like content creation) naturally leads people to this offer rather than the “hope” they will convert on some affiliated promotion.
Basically: have a product you can get behind (because it’s yours) vs one which you need to put in extra effort to convert.
