Lammo.net: Affiliate Marketing Blog

Approximately 17.4 times per day, the following question is asked on an affiliate forum somewhere in the world: “How do I become a super-affiliate?”

First of all, I’m going to change the question - Most people asking this question do not really want to become a mythical “super-affiliate”, donning their pants on the outside and getting changed in phone boxes.

What they really want to know is “How do I become a successful affiliate?” How do you define success? Any way you want - Success is personal to you: Many would be happy earning an extra £300-500 a month from Affiliate Marketing, others strive for tens of thousands every month.

Whatever success means for you, you need to know how to get there, and what happens when you do. So, how do you become a successful affiliate? Exactly the same way you’d eat an elephant - one bite at a time.

Take a minute now to think very hard about where you want to be, either in terms of traffic levels, revenue, membership levels, etc, etc. Now try and think how hard you’re going to have to work to get there.

How many inbound links are you going to have to obtain? How much content are you going to have to write? How many emails are you going to have to send? How many PPC campaigns are you going to have to put up?

If you’ve not given up at this point at the prospect of all that work, then congratulations (either that, or you’ve grossly under-estimated the work you need to do) - Now you need to plan how you’re going to do all that work. Most people would rush in, trying to do as much of it as possible, and a week or two later when they’re not rolling in money, they give up.

It’s far better to take the “Eat an Elephant” approach - In much the same way as Pound Cost Averaging makes investing in the stock market a more smooth ride, doing very little, every day, on a regular basis will, over a long period of time result in greater success than rushing in all guns blazing.

I’ve been following a simple formula every day since April: A little PPC, a little SEO, and a little networking every day. Nearly six months later, and I’m only just really starting to see the results of swapping from my previous regime of just trying to get everything done as quickly as possible.

The difference is astonishing - Whereas I’d previously had trouble getting motivated in the mornings (mainly due to not knowing where to start), I’m now straight into the swing of things, and whereas I’d be burned out by Wednesday every week, and still working through every weekend, I’m now finding that my much smaller to-do list is getting cleared by mid-afternoon most days, leaving me free to go out walking with the dogs, ride my bike, or just play some Wii or PS2.

Even more astonishing - Doing less every day has resulted in my affiliate earnings going up - we’re now making £9,000 a month more profit than in April - and it’s not really that surprising when you think why that is - Every single day for the last six months, I’ve done something towards the important stuff: Google loves regularly updated sites - most of ours have been updated every day pretty much without fail, we’ve got hundreds more inbound links, we’ve managed to put up around 400 PPC campaigns, and we’ve made loads of great contacts and new partnerships.

Of course, life will throw things at you to put you off course - you’ll have emergencies to deal with, priorities will change, and you’ll have days where you just can’t get motivated. In which case, give yourself the day off - or the week if you like. Then get back in the regular habit of a bit of PPC, a bit of SEO and a bit of Networking.

Don’t set your targets too high: I work full time at AM, and aim to do 3 PPC campaigns a day, an hour of content, and around an hour networking (which normally means playing on facebook, posting on affiliates4u or chatting to people on msn or email). It gives me enough “spare time” to ensure that I can deal with anything else that might need doing, or just head off to the driving range at 2pm knowing I’ve already done a full days work. and I’m still raring to go come Friday afternoon (although the pub is still calling by then!)

What if you’re still working the day-job, or at Uni etc? Well, you should be able to spare an hour a day (I used to work AM 9am to 12pm, then my FT job from 1pm to 9pm, and still do a few hours in the evening on AM), so aim to do 1 PPC campaign a day, 20 minutes SEO work and 10 minutes networking. Might not sound like a lot, but give it six months, and you’ll have done approx 130 PPC campaigns, 43 hours of SEO work and 21 hours of networking. That should put you well on the way to giving up the day job if you wish to.

You will need a degree of patience, as this approach brings steady results rather than instant ones - Most people would give up if they don’t see big bucks within a month or two - you should be prepared to give it at least 4 months before seeing any impact on your cashflow (as I’ve said, I’m only just starting to see a major impact after 6 months). Just don’t give up - you’ve only got to do a little bit each day - that’s not so hard is it?

There’s no doubt at all that I’m going to continue with this “Eat an Elephant” approach to my business, and there’s no reason why it can’t transfer into any part of your life - Want to lose weight? Don’t bother joining a gym, working yourself into the ground for 2 weeks then giving up like most people do - just do a little more exercise every day (walk to the shops and get a paper?) and eat a little less crap.

Speaking of eating, I’d better sign off - My elephant’s going cold.

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