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Copywriting and Affiliate Marketing?

by wordsuwant
7 replies
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So, I am a freelance writer and feel like I want to do something more. I go to school full-time and write a lot. I have two kids also, and feel like I do not have enough time to learn everything about both copywriting or affiliate marketing. I feel like copywriting would be too hard to learn, and I just don't think I would ever excel with it, even though I would love to. I get discouraged very fast when I hear ppl say there is no money in it, too much competition, and I get discouraged when I see that courses to learn it cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. I LOVE writing though. So, my question is...

Can I make a full-time income with affiliate marketing? And, can I do affiliate marketing without having to learn copywriting? I feel I do not have a way with words to do copywriting, and as much as I would love to learn it, I do not have enough time nor money to learn it and to spend trying to find the information.

I find that I am getting extremely overwhelmed with books and videos and others offering several series of emails. I wake up every morning to about 50 emails of tips for affiliate marketing or ppl trying to get me to sign up for their coaching and copywriting classes.

Can I just focus on creating websites and blogs for promoting clickbank and affiliate products? I know it wont happen overnight and that it takes time, but I jut feel like I cannot do both plus go to school full-time and take care of two kids! I'm ready to pull my hair out! And what is the best place to learn affiliate marketing and how to succeed with it without having to spend hundreds of dollars.
  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Many people make a living as affiliates. Whether you can or not is unknown since I don't know you, your talents, your work ethic, you intelligence, or dozens of other variables.

    There's a lot of money in copywriting too, if you're good. I'm OK at it, good enough to sell my products. Having basic skills in copywriting come in handy as an affiliate too, you have to "presell" your audience, so affiliate marketing is also about selling if you want to be good at it.

    Go to your local library and see if they have any books by Joe Sugarman. If not see what they have on copywriting. It doesn't have to be expensive to learn enough to make money at it.

    Creating websites and blogs to promote affiliate products is one way to make money, but you have to drive traffic to them too. No traffic = no money.

    If you're good at making websites you might enjoy flipping them (selling them on sites like Flippa). Or design them for local businesses.

    You've got a lot on your plate with the kids and school. You've also got a lot of options. In addition to what you've mentioned, being a writer you might find writing PLR lucrative.

    Good luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author wordsuwant
      Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

      Many people make a living as affiliates. Whether you can or not is unknown since I don't know you, your talents, your work ethic, you intelligence, or dozens of other variables.

      There's a lot of money in copywriting too, if you're good. I'm OK at it, good enough to sell my products. Having basic skills in copywriting come in handy as an affiliate too, you have to "presell" your audience, so affiliate marketing is also about selling if you want to be good at it.

      Go to your local library and see if they have any books by Joe Sugarman. If not see what they have on copywriting. It doesn't have to be expensive to learn enough to make money at it.

      Creating websites and blogs to promote affiliate products is one way to make money, but you have to drive traffic to them too. No traffic = no money.

      If you're good at making websites you might enjoy flipping them (selling them on sites like Flippa). Or design them for local businesses.

      You've got a lot on your plate with the kids and school. You've also got a lot of options. In addition to what you've mentioned, being a writer you might find writing PLR lucrative.

      Good luck.
      What is PLR and how do I learn about it? And I am just learning with the whole website thing. I'm no professional at it that's for sure lol I just use wordpress to do them. I'm no good with coding or anything lol
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by wordsuwant View Post

    Can I make a full-time income with affiliate marketing?
    Nobody here can know the answer to this question. There are some people here who've started off affiliate marketing businesses and been making a full-time living from then in slightly under 6 months. There are many more who've tried repeatedly, on and off, for years and never earned more than $100 or so in total. Nobody can tell whether you will make a full-time income from it.

    I think, though, that having some writing skills would give you a big advantage, one way and another, over many people who try to make a living from affiliate marketing. When I started, I was earning a full-time living within 6 months (and actually I wasted the first 3 - 4 months of that, by not knowing what I was doing), but I certanly wouldn't have managed that without my writing skills.

    Originally Posted by wordsuwant View Post

    can I do affiliate marketing without having to learn copywriting?
    Yes.

    Copywriting has very little indeed to do with affiliate marketing.

    A common mistake that affiliate marketers make, in fact, is to try to write words that sell. That isn't an affiliate's job at all, and those who don't quite understand that typically don't get very far.

    Originally Posted by wordsuwant View Post

    I am getting extremely overwhelmed with books and videos and others offering several series of emails. I wake up every morning to about 50 emails of tips for affiliate marketing or ppl trying to get me to sign up for their coaching and copywriting classes.
    You need to unsubscribe from all those lists. Today. Now.

    Yes, you might miss one good one (possibly), but you don't have the skills to be able to identify it anyway, and you need space to learn what it is you actually need to do without being bombarded by people trying to sell you things.

    Originally Posted by wordsuwant View Post

    Can I just focus on creating websites and blogs for promoting clickbank and affiliate products?
    That's what I've always done.

    I wasted my first 4 month by making every mistake you can make, through believing a lot of forum "information". But once I learned what I actually needed to know, I was making a living within another 2 months.

    When you tell me that you've unsubscribed from every mailing-list you're currently on, I'll give you a little reading list which will get you off to a good and fast start, if you like. And you won't need to spend a penny on any of it.
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    • Profile picture of the author wordsuwant
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      Nobody here can know the answer to this question. There are some people here who've started off affiliate marketing businesses and been making a full-time living from then in slightly under 6 months. There are many more who've tried repeatedly, on and off, for years and never earned more than $100 or so in total. Nobody can tell whether you will make a full-time income from it.

      I think, though, that having some writing skills would give you a big advantage, one way and another, over many people who try to make a living from affiliate marketing. When I started, I was earning a full-time living within 6 months (and actually I wasted the first 3 - 4 months of that, by not knowing what I was doing), but I certanly wouldn't have managed that without my writing skills.



      Yes.

      Copywriting has very little indeed to do with affiliate marketing.

      A common mistake that affiliate marketers make, in fact, is to try to write words that sell. That isn't an affiliate's job at all, and those who don't quite understand that typically don't get very far.



      You need to unsubscribe from all those lists. Today. Now.

      Yes, you might miss one good one (possibly), but you don't have the skills to be able to identify it anyway, and you need space to learn what it is you actually need to do without being bombarded by people trying to sell you things.



      That's what I've always done.

      I wasted my first 4 month by making every mistake you can make, through believing a lot of forum "information". But once I learned what I actually needed to know, I was making a living within another 2 months.

      When you tell me that you've unsubscribed from every mailing-list you're currently on, I'll give you a little reading list which will get you off to a good and fast start, if you like. And you won't need to spend a penny on any of it.
      I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. I have unsubscribed to every person that has been emailing me things.

      I just want to be able to make an income from home, and I hear that with affiliate marketing I can do that if I work hard enough at it and try to learn it.

      I am just confused because I get so much information and I just want to learn what to write about products to get them to sell. I want to make a full time income writing, but I feel like I am not a good enough writer to make full time income and I cant find any place to find any work.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by wordsuwant View Post

        I just want to be able to make an income from home, and I hear that with affiliate marketing I can do that if I work hard enough at it and try to learn it.
        Yes, this is so - especially if you find a way to do it that you like, that matches your existing skill-set, and don't fall off the learning-curve, and don't get taken in by misinformation (as I did, when I started). Sorry if I'm making it all sound very difficult - it's just that one must be realistic and acknowledge that more people fail than succeed.

        Originally Posted by wordsuwant View Post

        I am just confused because I get so much information
        Yes - I completely understand. "I was there".

        Originally Posted by wordsuwant View Post

        and I just want to learn what to write about products to get them to sell.
        Ah ... here's the thing: you don't (really) get the products to sell by writing things about them designed to make them sell. That isn't the affiliate's job, at all.

        You choose the right products which the vendors have already written about - on their sales pages - in ways that make them sell to the right people, and then you find and build relationships by email with those "right people" by giving them information about the niche (not so much about the products), and establishing credibility with them, so that they trust you and when you do recommend products to them, some of them will buy.

        And if you select the products very carefully so that they're always pleased when they've done so, they'll trust you more and more, and you'll be able gently to encourage them to buy more and more products. And you need to select your niches and products carefully, right from the start, so that that outcome becomes possible (which means learning some skills, of course).

        And - as mentioned above - if you have some writing skills to start with (I'm not talking about sales writing skills at all - you don't need those), that definitely shifts the chances in your favor, at least to some extent and maybe to quite a big extent.

        Originally Posted by wordsuwant View Post

        I want to make a full time income writing, but I feel like I am not a good enough writer to make full time income and I cant find any place to find any work.
        Well, there are (at least) three possible approaches for you. (I've actually tried all three, myself, and made some income from all of them, but have come down very heavily in favor of the third one, long ago, and rightly in my case) ...

        (i) Learn "sales copywriting skills" and become a professional copywriter (big learning curve, very difficult to tell how long it will take and how you'll do with it - though to some extent that's true of the other two options as well);

        (ii) Become a "content writer"/"article writer" and make money by supplying content/writing to other marketers (not necessarily impossible, but a huge mistake, if you have any writing skills worth talking about, to try to "start at the bottom", because there are more writers than customers at that end of the market, and it's a nightmare for them to earn a living. I can refer to you as many threads and good explanations about this subject as you want, if you want, but I don't really recommend them);

        (iii) Become an affiliate marketer, using your writing skills just for your own affiliate marketing business, effectively being "your own only client" (it's what I've done, and it worked out far better for me than anything else, though it doesn't for everyone, I admit).

        So, if it's of interest/help to you, here's what I do. If you read this post, and click on all its links, and read those posts/threads (and click on some of their links too, "moving outwards", as it were) you've got there the basic scheme of "how I built my business and make a living". You've also got an enormous amount of reading to do! Here's the starting point for all of it: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post5721774
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  • Profile picture of the author wordsuwant
    Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill View Post

    Send traffic to advertorials.

    You'll make money.
    hi, can you teach me how or point me in the direction of your response to my post? as far as sending traffic to advertorials?
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