Which is best to start with? email marketing or affiliate marketing?

20 replies
I am a beginner on internet marketing and I would like to know what should I do first?I don't have that much money(I can invest like 1-200$) but I want to start in the right way in order to not have regrets later.I learned some things from Justin Spencer's videos and Donald Wilson and I have some knowledge about both tactics .Please let me know ,your answers will help me a lot!
#affiliate #email #marketing #start
  • Profile picture of the author abdullaadeeb
    I think the best thing to start is email marketing and start build your list
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  • Profile picture of the author sirtiman
    If you start with email marketing, you must think how to pay the bill for autoresponder service. You said you don't have much money. I recommend you to start with affiliate marketing with blogging because no need to worry so much about the bills.

    But I suggest you more to have a good fast cash income for you to pay your daily needs.
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  • Profile picture of the author sankar789
    In my view, Email marketing is best for the beginner. It need two resources
    1. Email Database, Which is having active users.
    2. Bulk Mailing Software.
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      What do you mean ?

      They go hand in hand together.

      It would kind of like putting together a band and practicing and rehearsing but NEVER actually going out to get Gigs and make money


      - Robert Andrew
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  • Profile picture of the author easy4tutoring
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author sirtiman
      Originally Posted by easy4tutoring View Post

      On the off chance that you begin with email promoting, you must think how to pay the bill for autoresponder administration. You said you don't have much cash. I prescribe you to begin with member showcasing with blogging in light of the fact that no compelling reason to stress such a great amount over the bills.

      Anyway I propose you more to have a decent quick money pay for you to pay your day by day needs.
      Are you spin my post?
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      Originally Posted by sirtiman View Post

      If you start with email marketing, you must think how to pay the bill for autoresponder service. You said you don't have much money. I recommend you to start with affiliate marketing with blogging because no need to worry so much about the bills.

      But I suggest you more to have a good fast cash income for you to pay your daily needs.


      Originally Posted by easy4tutoring View Post

      On the off chance that you begin with email promoting, you must think how to pay the bill for autoresponder administration. You said you don't have much cash. I prescribe you to begin with member showcasing with blogging in light of the fact that no compelling reason to stress such a great amount over the bills.

      Anyway I propose you more to have a decent quick money pay for you to pay your day by day needs.





      Wow, I think I have seen it all !!!

      Folks , introducing to you "Post Spinning "
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  • Profile picture of the author mazzuca
    Yes start with email marketing and thus you can build a large list. After that you can do affiliate in particular product based on your list niche.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fonzan
    As most of the members already said, start with building up your list.
    Every person has knowledge about a subject. So start giving value to your new
    email list. Let's say you know about "How to make money", or "How to get a slimmer belly in 30 day's"
    Then give free information to your list, so they will know you, like you, thrust you.
    You build up a good relationship with your list, and then you can sell your offers........
    Signature
    Try this if other courses failed,
    Like, "How to sell affiliate products"
    http://dearfonz.com/
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Andrew B View Post

    Which is best to start with? email marketing or affiliate marketing?
    They're not alternatives, Andrew.

    "Affiliate marketing" means not being the vendor yourself, but being paid a commission by a vendor whose products you sell to one of your own subscribers/visitors.

    "Email marketing" is one of the ways in which you can do that (and/or a number of other things in internet marketing which can produce income).

    You can do email marketing with or without doing affiliate marketing. You can also do affiliate marketing with or without email marketing. (I wouldn't advise "without", at all, though - the people who experience any success with affiliate marketing are almost always doing it "with"/"by" email marketing!).

    In other words, if you want to be an affiliate, the answer you're looking for is "both".


    .
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  • Profile picture of the author SunnyDelight
    Email marketing... you always want to be building a list no matter what and email marketing and affiliate marketing go hand in hand...

    Build your list via a capture page ... once your subscribers opt in present them with a one time offer (your affiliate offer)...

    Bada BOOM killed 2 birds with one stone!
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  • Profile picture of the author ronyoung
    Banned
    personally I would just do both so you can make money doing both and they dont have to be two differnt things. Just join the two together and make money from both
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  • Profile picture of the author Joan Altz
    You can do both pretty easily through JVZoo by promoting products as an affiliate with bonus offers that require an optin to your list for the download page link to the bonuses.

    And what do you think email marketing is mostly about? Relationship building leading to promotion of products to your list as an affiliate (in most cases). Granted, you may choose to promote only your own products to your list or use email marketing to acquire new clients for services/consulting and so on, but you'll be passing up some serious income if you limit yourself that, imo.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rory Singh
    Andrew here are some tips to getting started with Affiliate Marketing:

    1- Pick a product to promote. Make sure you see the 'value' in this product for yourself before trying to sell it to others.

    2- Get a lead capture page.

    3- Set up Aweber or some other quality based auto responder. This is going to cost you around $20 monthly.

    4- Traffic: Start driving 'targeted' traffic into your lead capture page. Use Free or Paid methods. You are probably going to have to use Free methods.

    5- Conversions: X amount of traffic will turn into sales for you. However, not all of them will depending on how highly converting your sales page (affiliate sales page) is.

    6- Email Follow Ups: This is your chance to build a 'relationship' with your list. I usually send people to my sales page right from the start after they 'opt' in.

    You can send them 'relevent' info helping people on issues you are learning (right now).

    How to do this?

    You first learn something that you consider valueable yourself, then teach it or share it to your list.

    You are most likely ahead of many beginners. Share what you have learned or are learning and with (your list).

    They will perceive this as value because you have helped them with some issue or area.
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  • Profile picture of the author ninosem
    "Email marketing" is foundation of the online business.

    So no doubt how to start... You can also do affiliate marketing with email marketing.....
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  • Profile picture of the author EDIT
    Hey everyone.

    I am like OP here and a beginner and am kind of confused about some of the things that have been said in this thread. As a matter of fact, I have been kind of stuck in understanding how this email marketing goes hand in hand with affiliate marketing for weeks now?

    I'm currently on my first site and am trying to learn about building an email list so I went and signed up to the email list of some of my competitors in my niche to get ideas and since they all manufacture / own these products, they have the freedom to do what they want (ie free giveaways, discounted prices, etc.) unlike an affiliate who is just promoting the products without any kind of rights or ownership of those products.

    If you start email marketing with a service like Aweber as an affiliate marketer who promotes physical products, then how are you supposed to offer those products that you promote at a discounted price or give some kind of offer related to that product as a "bribe" so to speak, to capture their email since you, as the affiliate, do not own those products and don't have the freedom to give things away or at a discounted price?

    I have read about people starting contests and giveaways and such to build an email list, but am still failing to understand how that works without you just buying the products yourself and giving it away for free?

    Or is the only option to send / give away a newsletter or video of some sort sharing the knowledge you have on those physical products since you are not the actual owner?

    I have also thought about contacting the owners of these products myself and asking for free samples, discounts, etc. but hesitate to do so because I am sure they wouldn't even give me a chance if they knew what my traffic was like.

    I mean, I can see how this would work for information type products that you create yourself, but I am failing to understand how this works with physical products as an affiliate?

    Can someone please shed some light on this for me? I have seriously been struggling to understand this for weeks now and came to the conclusion that maybe building an email list is not appropriate for some niches.....

    Am I wrong? Right? I am seriously confused?

    I have been on this forum for hours everyday searching for different topics to help me get on the right start and all I keep reading is email this and email that, build a list from DAY ONE!

    Ok cool. I don't doubt that building an email list is the way to go, but how are you supposed to do this from day one when your site is still in it's infancy.

    What am I not understanding here?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      since they all manufacture / own these products, they have the freedom to do what they want (ie free giveaways, discounted prices, etc.) unlike an affiliate who is just promoting the products without any kind of rights or ownership of those products.
      Yes, that's true.

      Not often relevant, but true.

      No vendor/merchant who values his affiliates is going to compete with them directly. Many vendors/merchants don't even promote the products themselves at all. Affiliates have almost infinite choice: if you find a product-owner whose activities are making life difficult/inconvenient for his own affiliates, just promote someone else's product instead?

      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      how are you supposed to offer those products that you promote at a discounted price
      You're not. The vendor gets to decide the price. The affiliate gets to decide which vendors' products s/he'll promote.

      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      or give some kind of offer related to that product as a "bribe" so to speak, to capture their email since you, as the affiliate, do not own those products and don't have the freedom to give things away or at a discounted price?
      You produce your own little 5-6-page PDF report on the niche (not the product!) to offer as the incentive for the opt-in. It doesn't have to be very big. It just needs to serve all these purposes, to work well for you.

      (There are also some vendors - though not very many, perhaps - who have available a good, ready-made one which they'll give you free of charge to pass on to your prospective customers/subscribers. I tend not to use those, myself, because I prefer my own, which brand me.)

      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      am still failing to understand how that works without you just buying the products yourself and giving it away for free?
      You wouldn't normally be allowed to buy something and then give it away free, unless it's MMR or PLR, or something designed for that specific purpose? But that doesn't matter. You just produce your own. You know something about the niche (clearly - otherwise you wouldn't have chosen it, one hopes?), so produce a little "free report" of your own. If you do it that way, you can use it to build your business, not someone else's. Again, you need it to serve all these purposes, whatever you're promoting, don't you?

      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      Or is the only option to send / give away a newsletter or video of some sort sharing the knowledge you have on those physical products since you are not the actual owner?
      What you give away to incentivize the opt-in doesn't need to be directly related to the specific product you're aiming to promote. It just needs to be relevant to the niche.

      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      I am failing to understand how this works with physical products as an affiliate?
      You can do exactly the same as you'd do for an information product. I promote physical products, too, but I still give an information product as the incentive offered in exchange for the email address.

      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      I have seriously been struggling to understand this for weeks now and came to the conclusion that maybe building an email list is not appropriate for some niches.....
      I can't immediately think of any, but maybe there are some. I probably wouldn't want to promote products in those niches, though.

      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      I don't doubt that building an email list is the way to go, but how are you supposed to do this from day one when your site is still in it's infancy.
      I don't understand the question: why would the age of your site be relevant to this?

      When I start off in a new niche, my site is only two or three small pages (including an "introduction", an "affiliate disclosure" and so on), but I have a working, prominently displayed, well incentivize opt-in at the top of the landing page before visitor number 1 turns up. What if the first visitor happens to be ready to rock 'n' roll? You also need to be ready to rock 'n' roll, surely?

      Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

      What am I not understanding here?
      I'm not sure. More specifically, I'm not sure if my quick reponses will actually have helped you at all ... and apologies if they haven't.


      .
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      • Profile picture of the author EDIT
        Hey Alexa. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

        It is all starting to slowly make more sense to me now (I'm a slow learner, but I do eventually get it lol). I have read your replies several times now lol. Your second to last statement about the opt in before visitor #1 shows up is a real eye-opener for me. I think I need to change my whole approach and angle.

        See, I was thinking that I need to get a website up, get it going, and once I see some sort of momentum in the way of traffic to set up a way to capture email addresses, which I am now realizing is probably not the best way of going about things and in retrospect doesn't make a whole lot of sense because I could be loosing the potential for those initial visitors to return to a more mature site in the future with more product posts, etc.

        Now I am starting to think I am going to need to think about the opt-in first before even thinking about the rest of the website? Oh well, there is always the next project / website I can try this out with.

        No need for the apologies. Yes, your responses have helped A LOT as with many of the other ones I have found from you searching this forum so a big THANK YOU! I started copying and pasting a ton of stuff from this forum that I feel will be useful to me to refer back to at a later date and many of the responses are from you and a few others on this forum so THANKS so much!
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

          I was thinking that I need to get a website up, get it going, and once I see some sort of momentum in the way of traffic to set up a way to capture email addresses, which I am now realizing is probably not the best way of going about things and in retrospect doesn't make a whole lot of sense because I could be loosing the potential for those initial visitors to return to a more mature site in the future with more product posts, etc.
          Yes, I think this is exactly right. "Early visitors" to a small, developing, partly formed site are usually not coming back, but an incentivized opt-in will effectively retain some of them.

          Originally Posted by EDIT View Post

          Now I am starting to think I am going to need to think about the opt-in first before even thinking about the rest of the website?
          I think this is wise: as an affiliate marketer I want the primary purpose of all my main websites to be "to collect the visitors email addresses" (just because I don't earn anything worth talking about, any other way), so that seems a good place to start, and let the site be designed/grow around that function.

          .
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrew B
    Thank you all for the answers ,you've been very helpful to me !It certainly gave me courage to see that there are so many people willing to help here!I wish you the best!!
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  • Profile picture of the author romaine617
    Me personally i started out affiliate makreting but figured out later if i had started email marketing and built a huge list like i do know, i would be lined up properly to make big sales with my affiliate business/products to sale as backend stuff in my email funnel
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