Is Affiliate Marketing A Long Term Business Model For The IM Niche?

I think if you built a strong relationship in the first time. No matter how much you promote affiliate products, the list won't affect much. They will generally trust you but maybe a little bit lower.

Just think to yourself that did you already provide valuable information to your list?
If you did, then don't worry about promoting some good stuffs.

Example
For me, I trust Brendan Mace so much because he wrote an article about which to choose between ClickBank, Amazon or Clickbank. He provides these in details and it makes first impression strong because I really want to know these things. Even he promotes some craps for ten times already. I didn't feel like disliking him because he always respond to my messages fast.

Another one is Alex Becker. This guy I really trust about SEO. I can wait for him promoting all products and without lowering the relationship because he really provides VALUE to his list.

No need to write good or quality content but HELPFUL content.

Hi,

You're building a list so yes use other peoples products that have been
well tested and refined to convert and get promoting.

Of course once you create your own products (if you decide to) then
you'll obviously want to promote those as much as you can too.

Hope this helps
Gavin

I do.

But I won't be for too much longer.

Why?

Because you want to be recognized as the
authority in your niche.

It's transference of authority.

I don't mind the occasional affiliate product,
namely the high-ticket products that would
take an enormous amount of time and effort
to create on my own.

...nor do I mind so much recurring affiliate
commissions.

Ultimately, after you've tested your funnel,
create your own product and buyers list for
you to market to in the future.

I wouldn't be too concerned with it.

If you have intentions of creating your own products, then do so.

But if you have no intentions, you can still crush it as an affiliate.

If you're adding enough leads to your list on a daily basis, "burn out" won't be an issue.

They're gonna get burned out one way or the other.

It really all depends on what you want.

I have no intentions of making my own products and am perfectly fine with just making money as an affiliate in the IM niche and every other niche I'm in.

I'd suggest putting yourself in the shoes of the folks in your list. Why are they on it? Because they want great info on IM.
Are you the only person with great info and products on IM? I'd humbly suggest not. So by promoting affiliate products that you really believe in, you're giving your list value and increasing the trust they have in you.
Not only will that pay huge dividends, but by introducing affiliate links you're also creating an additional revenue stream.

A no brainer if you ask me.

Is Affiliate Marketing A Long Term Business Model For The IM Niche?

Yes i think so. Lots of people are killing it in the IM niche as an affiliate. Plus alot of the sales pages by vendors are really good. It's not complicated... just continue to build quality leads, give them good info, and pitch your affiliate products.

Sure.. affiliate marketing is a sustainable long term business.
I built a fairly big list a few years back, and it continues to grow.

However, I honestly slowed down on recommending product after product to my list.

And yet my income grew!

How?

I started promoting an evergreen product with an extensive sales funnel.

Before that, I was thrashing around recommending different stuff every other day.

When I did that, yes, I made some money. But not much.

But I didn't feel really good about what I was doing, and I didn't make a lot.

But when I focused on one evergreen system, with a deep funnel.. things absolutely took off for me to the point that I've been in the top 1% in that system for over a year, and have really done well.

Hope that helps.
Patrick

It's really the same process whether you sell your own product or your sell someone else's product (affiliate). Either way you are selling something and you still need to follow the basics, build trust, etc.

I think you need to do a read up on lists and list building.

The most important is the relationship with your list. If you are helping them for free, and offering products you should be fine. Infact I know one warrior making about $100,000 USD a month and he does not even has his own product. Now yes, he would be making alot more with his own product, but that is just what he set out to do from day one.

His main core of his busuiness is getting about 1000 leads a day, giving them help, and then offering them stuff in a funnel.

If you advertise an affiliate product someone else will get the email address of those that buy, but this does not mean that you are losing anyone from your list. In fact, someone who buys from a link you provided should be thankful that you turned them on to something they found worthwhile, and they should be reading your stuff more closely going forward.

It isn't just about recommending products and hoping your subscribers will buy. It's about recommending products that will genuinely help them - it's the same in any niche.

If you continually promote crap eventually they'll lose faith in you and stop buying / unsubscribe.

People are already on dozens of lists in the IM niche in most instances. The trick is to not be like everyone else.

Stand out. Be different. People will notice that and buy when you recommend rather than bu ywhen some other guy they don't really have much faith in does it.

Affiliate marketing can only be a long term business model if you are making big commissions on the backend and it also helps to have residual rolling commissions each month.

Most people fail in affiliate marketing because they are only making small commissions and not making enough ROI so they go bust.

The business model should always focus on getting the bigger sales on the backend after making the initial and smaller upfront sale.

Yes it's not mandatory but it's MUCH easier to make money when you have the high ticket commissions.

For example, let's say I want to make $5000 this month. If I was making $100 commission per product, I would need to sell 50 products.

But if I am making $1000 commissions per product, then I would just need to sell 5 of those programs. It gets EVEN better when I can also make $3000 and $5000 commissions!

It is MUCH harder to sell 100 items than it is to sell 5 high priced backend products so why even try?

The ROI on the smaller commissions is often not enough to even break even, let alone invest more on advertising, and this is why the majority of affiliate marketers go bust: They are using the wrong business model.

Sure you can use the "stack 'em high sell 'em cheap" business model and automate lots of different low ticket sales funnels. The problem with this method is it takes a lot more work to make less money and it's more hassle than it's worth.

My advice to anyone starting out or struggling is to join a high ticket commission program that provides all the set up training and has a great sales funnel that converts the front end sales into the much bigger backend commissions for you!

This is the best business model online!