How To Build AnEARN As You LearnAffiliate Business
The Tools & Services Needed To Start You On The Right Foot
In case you find this post without seeing the previous content let’s quickly add some context…
For those looking to EARN as they learn affiliate marketing I recommend they find themselves a coach or mentor…
Somebody proven to help people like them reach goals like theirs. So they can provide 4 critical elements…
1. You have to TRUST your mentor and have FAITH that they have your best interest at heart.
2. They must provide a PROVEN plan or Blueprint of the action steps required.
3. Training that addresses both the external challenges of doing what’s needed but also the internal (between the ears stuff) that undermines most people moving out their comfort zone. It’s rarely covered but surely needed.
4. A way to validate that what you’re doing is correct, so you can correct course if needed.
Previously I mentioned I’d found 2 mentors that met my needs.
This series of earn as you learn information tells my experience implementing the proven plan provided by Vick Strizheus and his Four Percent Success Challenge.
The Blueprint I’m building by following the Challenge training looks like…
Yeah, I thought that too…
For a detailed breakdown of what it all means click here…
This post is about what I used to build this on a budget.
The tools and services needed to run a solid robust affiliate business…
This bit of the blueprint…
I’m going to assume you’re new to affiliate marketing as I explain all these elements.
Please also ask any questions in the comments below.
Lets start with the Opt in page. & Pre frame page / funnel. The Opt in page is used to offer people something of value in return for their email address.
The Pre frame page or funnel is used to educate and inspire people on the product that sits behind it. So that when they click your affiliate link to go to the product sales page they are better informed, and hopefully excited to see the product.
Vick explains that what tools you use are optional, but recommends a couple of the leading brand solutions including a great service called Clickfunnels for all his Opt in and funnel building needs.
Clickfunnels is great and should be used if you can budget for it (costs $97/mo). I found a budget friendly option which I’ll discuss further down.
Next we need an Email Service Provider to manager your List.
Aweber and GetResponse both have a good rep and are affiliate friendly…
I use Active Campaign which apparently isn’t affiliate friendly, but haven’t had any issues.
I think this is because I tend to avoid hyped language and rarely link from email to affiliate offers, I much prefer to bring email visitors back to blog posts where I provide value with affiliate links sometimes included.
I also use GetResponse because it is affiliate friendly and I wanted to test it out.
A HUB is a Website. If you’ve already got one you don’t need another. I had a website and modified as the Four Percent Success Challenge suggests.
The idea being you use landing pages and funnels to build your lists, and then your hub / website to provide additional helpful content.
What’s great about a website is that as you build out your helpful content it will start to attract search engine visitors to your website at no cost. Not a fast traffic source, but a very profitable one if you develop it.
Products Sales. These are the affiliate products we link to from our content (Pre frame, funnel, email or hub). There should be one primary product we promote and then other tools & services that help you implement better, faster of for less cost.
So using this sequence of information as an example.
The Four Percent Success Challenge is my primary product I promote, but I also promote Wealthy Affiliate as an alternative mentoring option because I feel both have their members best interest at heart.
Thrive Architect as a budget option to create Opt in Pages and Pre frame / Funnels and your hub. I’ll explain more about Thrive later but it saves me a lot against the cost of hosted landing page / funnel builders (Clickfunnels, Lead Pages and Kartra specifically)
Thrive Architect also replaces the need for E-Stage which is a premium WordPress Theme provided optionally from Four Percent Group.
Active Campaign is the email service provider I use for this sequence of information, and finally Clickmagick provides tracking services so I can see what’s working and what’s not.
So by promoting as an affiliate as well as using these services I have 6 streams of income plus I also get the Multiple streams of income as a promotional partner of Four Percent Group.
To be clear you don’t have to use any of these tools and services, but I use them for a reason …they help me do stuff better, faster, or for less cost )
Retargeting is a form of advertising targeting people that have previously shown an interest in your content.
There is no cost associated with building your custom audience as it’s called.To do this you simple add a tiny piece of code to your website called a retargeting pixel.
Google Facebook and Adroll are three of the main retargeting advertising platforms, and you can join whichever ones you want, grab and install the pixel(s) on your site and these advertising networks will start building your custom audiences ready for when you want to advertise to them.
Though I’ve installed the pixel and built a custom audience I haven’t started a retargeting campaign yet.
My Earn As You Learn Set Up
The only difference in my set up to the one taught in the Four Percent Success Challenge is that I use my WordPress website to handle all Opt-in page, Pre frame, Funnel AND Hub functionality.
Clickfunnels is used in the challenge, and is an excellent product for building full sales funnels but at $97/mo is expensive when we only need a simple lead capture solution. So by using Thrive Architect I can achieve the same at $67 one time!
Also Thrive Architect can work with any WordPress Theme so you could also save on Premium Themes as well 🙂
Here’s The First ‘Funnel’ I built Following The Challenge Training…
The Challenge teaches you to create a UNIQUE to you approach or angle… The image on the right was my Opt-in page ‘angle’ (clicking the image will take you to the page)
The Ultimate Affiliate Program was my original thought when I understood Multiple Streams of Income as offered as an incentive to affiliates.
I figured people would want to know the identity of ‘The Ultimate Affiliate Program’. (results post here).
My Pre-Frame / Funnel is simply the the thank you page that educates people on what to look for in an affiliate program. It’s way easier to earn money if you promote stuff that works and people love…
If it offers lifetime affiliate commissions and multiple streams of income as well …you’re really at the races.
My page then lets people evaluate Four Percent as a company by providing 2 links into free value content they offer as well as a link into the Premium Four Percent Success Challenge Sales Page.
At this point the people that joined my email list receive a short email encouraging them to click through to my post on how to profit promoting the Four Percent Group (clicking the image will take you to the post).
The email achieved 30% open rate and 15.93% click throughs to the post. Which I think is OK (no expert remember).
Email 2 links to a post that goes into more detail about why it’s so important to set up an affiliate business that has frontend, backend, and recurring commissions streams flowing into it.
It also shares how I structure my business and what traffic sources I tested with this approach.
The email achieved 26.85% open rate and 9.02% click through to the post.
If you want to see a brief case study of my Ultimate Affiliate Program idea please click here…
The rest of the emails in this Ultimate Affiliate Program sequence focus more on the free training provided by the Four Percent Group as I felt that would-be affiliates would also want to see the quality of content they can provide their audience freely, and with no sales pitch attached.
The Tools & Services…
I share the stuff that makes me better, faster, and saves me money…
The first tool I use is Thrive Architect. I’m actually a Thrive Member which costs more but gives me access to all their WordPress Themes and Plugins. But you only need Thrive Architect…
If you want your WordPress editing to be faster and better (understatement)…
If you want to collect email addresses in countless ways and test for the best…
If you want to create Landing Pages, Opt-in Pages, Funnels, and so much more, quickly from pre-made templates or uniquely with full design control.
If you want your site to load faster…
If you want your images to pop (Thrive is so good I don’t need Photoshop anymore)
If you want the best FREE video training on all this (Thrive University I dare you not to be blown away!)
Thrive Architect which is all you need cost $67 one time!
Want to see what I mean?
Click the Image below…
Or if you just want to see Thrive Architect click here or the image below…
Thrive is a WordPress plugin therefore it works with all Themes even the free ones.
I feel very confident in saying the Thrive Architect will make all your WordPress work better, faster, and if your comparing it to funnel builders it’ll also save you money 🙂
So Thrive covers all my opt-in and funnel building work to build my LIST…
Active Campaign is my main email service provider.
Must confess I don’t get as excited by email autoresponders as I do the Thrive stuff.
But you can test out Active Campaign with a free trial …yay 🙂
Finally I use Clickmagick for tracking paid traffic sources.
Again it’s a pretty dull subject, but really important if your using paid traffic.
ClickMagick also have a 2 week free trial 🙂
Conclusion
Buying a domain name will cost about $15/yr and hosting starts from $3.5/mo. WordPress is free and so are many of the Themes, I would add on Thrive Architect $67 one time, and an email service provider around $20/mo at this point you have a solid technology platform to build a real business.
The risk reward ratio is off the charts in favor of setting up an online business.
But most fail! 🙁
But not the ones that find a SUITABLE mentor, and take consistent action following a PROVEN plan AWARE that you’ll be facing external challenges (time to learn) and internal in the form of self limiting beliefs which cause most would-be successes to give up that yard short of the tipping point.
Good luck on your journey, and please ask anything you want in the comments below.