About six months ago I attempted my first affiliate product sale on my blog. My audience are small business owners, entrepreneurs and internet marketers and while I suspected the product I was going to affiliate sell would be interesting to my audience I wasn't sure they were buyers. You never really know until you try. I went to work writing a solid sales letter which was quite effortless since I had used the product myself so I knew how good it was. It's easy to write about something when you feel comfortable recommending it and know about it. My sales letter wasn't exactly a traditional sales letter - just a recommendation blog post with lots of sales-esque talk in it - a very natural conversational tone as you would expect in a blog. My traffic was nearing 900 visitors per day at that time so I was hoping that even with a low conversion rate of around 1% that I would make at least 10 sales, around $100 in affiliate income (it's a start!), with the possibility of doing better. I finished the sales letter, clicked publish, read it over once and then went to bed hoping to wake up in the morning to lots of sales. I woke up the next morning, powered up my computer, scanned over my email headers and saw... no sales I was pretty bummed. There were some comments made to my post but no one was buying. Over the next few days and following week no sales came through and I started to question why I was even bothering to blog, whether I should choose a different target market or refine my existing niche further. I was depressed at the time but it didn't last long. About three weeks later the first sale came through. I was pretty happy to see that "You have made a sale" email in my inbox, but still quite disappointed with how badly I went given my traffic numbers, especially considering how many hours I had put into blogging during the previous months for no financial return at all. I decided not to change anything about my blog and just went back to work as per normal. That was about four months ago. Fast forward to two weeks ago I woke up to another "You have made a sale" email, which by this time I had gotten used to receiving. Over the months I added more subtle sales pitches in blog posts, I started promoting a few different products and very lightly "played" with affiliate selling techniques. I haven't had amazing results but thanks to my continuous efforts I have reached the point where I make around $100 - $300 in affiliate income per month. My sales letter while performing dismally initially had created a trickle of sales over the months even though it was well archived within my blog. I may have been disappointed with the immediate results but the longer term results have made it worthwhile proving that not all sales happen immediately. Some people won't by for many months but as long as you refer them you will eventually make a commission when they finally make that purchase. Now, that email I received two weeks ago notifying me of the latest sale was a bit different. Generally one of those emails come in and it's anywhere from a $13 - $140 commission, that's what I had gotten used to receiving anyway (but I was pretty darn excited when I saw $140 commissions for the first time). This latest email was different. I opened it up, quickly scrolled to see what the person had purchased and it was something big, something very big...I kept scrolling and hit my commission payment... $875 USD!!! I was pumped! That was the single biggest sale I had ever made at one point, was more than week's salary for most people and best of all, I didn't have to do anything - someone else had to provide the customer support, the services and the products - I just collected the affiliate payment. Immediately the potential really started to hit home. Imagine doing this even just once a week. Just once a week would be more money than most of my friends earn for a full 40 hours of work in a week. Imagine doing it once a DAY! The only thing stopping me from reaching goals like that were the numbers. If I had ten times as many readers would I have had ten times the sales? - $8000+ in one month now seemed realistic. The more relevant traffic and audience I had access to, that trusted me and enjoyed my work, the more potential I had to earn. Best of all was all I needed to was keep doing what I loved - helping others run their own businesses. Since then I've had another $800+ sale and the usual trickle of smaller sales. February is going to certainly be my best month so far with over $2000 in affiliate income. I don't expect to do this well every month since the big ticket product I've sold twice is a once off event, but the opportunity is clear and by continuing down this path $2000 months may quickly become regular events. I'm definitely sold on affiliate income!
Andreas - I could recommend affiliate programs but it's really pointless unless you focus on the same markets as I do. I tend to affiliate sell what I use (Lots of Perry Marshall, Brad Fallon etc) and I write a lot about the industries that the products relate to so it all makes sense. The targeting is so important otherwise you get results like I did during the first weeks - zilch sales. You know what would be fantastic from a monetary point of view - having a blog/list/site focused on a wealthy, big-spending online demographic - like say jewellery or wines or something, but since I'm not interested in those industries it's not going to happen for me. I'll stick to online small business.
posts like these help people to believe that earning money on internet is not magic, its a result of sustained effort over a period of time, mix of failures and frustrations and hitting the right combination some day.
Congrats! I am conviced too that affiliate income is where its at. Just imagine how long it would have taken you to get that amount with adsense, ypn, etc....
Nice post. Thanks for the inspiration! The "think smart - work hard - be patient - work hard some more" concept combined with stroke of luck seems to work and that's great!
I have an affilaite throught blank-cd-cdr.com this wasmy firts attempt at having an affiliate and have made $20 dollars doing it. I get paid 8% commission and you get paid out at $25
I like reading posts like yours Yaro. It shows people that you really can earn money from the internet if you spend so time on it and wait for the results rather than just epecting to do some work one day and being a millionaire the next.
Thanks for all the kudos guys. Haven't had any more big sales but a few small ones keep coming which is reassuring. I've got a blog traffic course coming up that I'm leading so I have to admit I'm not working as hard on affiliate sales as I'd like to be. It all adds up though.