Affiliate Ecosystem…What It Is &Why You NEED ONE
Affiliate Ecosystem: If you’re looking to affiliate marketing as a source of income you MUST understand the power of an affiliate ecosystem…
This is not a ‘shiny object’ this is the future…
What Is an Affiliate Ecosystem?
Here’s how Google defines ‘ecosystem’
For our purposes a complex network or interconnected system…
To my mind an Affiliate Ecosystem is an interconnected system that serves a community of people and provides affiliates the opportunity for lifetime affiliate earnings from MULTIPLE companies…
It’s vital the ecosystem creates a WIN for ALL situation.
- A WIN for community members & customers
- A WIN for the owners & operators
- A WIN for the affiliate partners
Affiliate Ecosystem Example
In the teaching affiliate marketing niche this is the best affiliate ecosystem example I’ve found…
Four Percent Group
The group serve the Entrepreneur community through their free member portal at FourPercent.com.
Where they host both free and premium content in the form of video based education, and formal training courses.
FourPercent.com is a ‘website plus’…
The online ‘hub’ of the company hosting sales, training, blog content, affiliate center & soon to be community.
Affiliates pay close attention to the Multiple Streams of Income opportunity mentioned later.
The Four Percent Groups business objective is to become the foremost online resource for entrepreneurs. Serving them through their free to join hub where members access all content free and premium.
Four Percent Group make money when they serve their free entrepreneurial members so well they decide to purchase premium products and services.
Four Percent ‘market’ with view to attracting people back the their hub to always be building their Four Percent membership.
Currently the ‘community’ function is accommodated off-site using a thriving Facebook Group, though this will change with the soon to launch new FourPercent.com hub.
So let’s consider the ‘AFFILIATE’ ecosystem (connected system)
There are a number of big benefits to promoting a whole ecosystem as an affiliate…
1. Because when you refer a member to Four Percent through any of the content (free or premium) you open the door to potential affiliate commissions for as long as people stay members… # Lifetime Affiliate Commissions.
2. Because all the content within the ecosystem cross promotes each other in effect when you promote any one item (free or premium) from the ecosystem you are able to earn affiliate commissions from any of the premium products. #Promote One Promote All
3. All the training content recommended 3rd party products and services are linked to from an ecosystem resources page (Multiple Streams of Income page) which allows qualifying affiliates to insert their affiliate links and so potentially earn affiliate commissions from multiple companies. #Multiple Streams of Income
4. The ecosystem does all the follow up marketing to the members you introduce for as long as they remain which powers your ‘lifetime’ commissions and frees you for the only task needed to make this work…
Finding People Interested In The Topic!
The only task needed for success when promoting an ecosystem as described above is finding people interested in the topic it serves…
Entrepreneurs and would-be online business owners of all types (affiliate, network marketer, ecom, product vendor, service provider, consultant etc etc) in the Four Percent Group example…
A broad growing market.
How To Grow Multiple Affiliate Income Streams Without Being An Expert Marketer By Leveraging an Affiliate Ecosystem…
If you’d like to see my free case study which shows you
1. The Affiliate Ecosystem I used
2. And how I found and helped people interested in the topic (the one thing required to make the business work)
Hmm … What an interesting article..
I think this four percent program is a good website that provides an ecosystem for anyone who wants to try to make money online. Why? Because there are very few websites that open up opportunities to have multiple streams of income (all i know is only one way ex. owner to user).
I think, I would try to join this program. However, what come to my mind is “Can this program be followed by me who doesn’t understand anything about the world of affiliate marketing?”
Thanks
Hi Kylie, Four Percent was the first I’ve found that offers the multiple streams of income feature to affiliates. I’ve since found a few more but not within such a good all-around package.
I do think it will continue to be copied and can confirm it’s a super valuable perk.
There is both free training and premium aimed at the beginner to affiliate marketing so you can test it to see if you like what you see.
If you go to fourpercent.com homepage there is a join for free tab, you then have access to the back office where you can explore and check it out.
I have been in affiliate marketing for awhile and have been interested in the 4% program. You site got me curious as it led me from page to page. I did enter my email to learn more about the programs. This is a pretty good model. My curiousity go the best of me. i will continue looking over the material where I was led, later today. Thanks for the site.
Hi Anastazja, yes Four Percent are offering something a little different …it’s worked for me. If you’re interested you can join as a free member and see if the training and approach resonate with you …it’s not for everyone.
An ‘ecosystem’ is an interesting analogy for affiliate marketing, which makes total sense. Is the four percent group an affiliate company itself, or just offers a community for people who do Affiliate Marketing?
What type of products or services are included? How do you find interested people to bring into the group?
I’d be interested to learn more…
Hi Wendy, a young company Four Percent is aiming to become the top resource for entrepreneurs, providing free on-topic content that will lead into premium level for people that want to dive deeper.
The company has started out with a bias towards affiliates and network marketers because that’s where founder Vick Strizheus is known, but a broader market and audience is the target over time.
Current Four Percent training is focused on Affiliate Marketing, traffic generation and money management, however there is also a portfolio of training from top experts in other areas of online business SEO, Ecommerce, Branding etc.
In terms of how to find people the target market is broad and growing, and with free content it’s possible to provide a very value-led experience for people. If you want to target the premium products I used paid advertising and have a case study you can look at here.
Thanks for commenting 🙂
Affiliate Ecosystem great choice of words to describe affiliate marketing. You mention training for affiliate ecosystem, what training are you referring too? What are the benefits of free to premium membership? I am looking for more detail training on the affiliate ecosystem, as every program online offers different training and views.
Hi Jannette, with regard to the example ecosystem from Four Percent Group they offer all manner of free training to allow people to judge for themselves if they like it. Style-wise the marketing system taught is direct response marketing with a lot of integrated mindset development. If people like the free content they can then upgrade to premium to get the deeper ‘mastery’ level content…
All supported by money-back guarantees and an engaged user community.
This article I thoroughly enjoyed for a number of reasons, had never heard of this system before, so as always with something new, did read every word. I am an avid affiliate marketer, so was absorbed by what can be done with the product, The potential to really expand this is as an affiliate is absolutely huge, would suit anyone who wants to join a progressive and potentially exciting company to make some residual income.
Will be accessing the website later, with a view to joining this exciting project.
You have covered the detail so as to make it obvious to anyone that this is must for the future of affiliate marketin
Thanks Stuart, yes it’ll be interesting to see how other companies improve their affiliate’s features and ability to earn through their business infrastructure (ecosystem).
Thanks a lot for sharing with us this article with such an amazing information. I’m new in this affiliate marketing industry and for me is the first time when i hear about Affiliate Ecosystem. Reading your words about FourPercent i sound very attractive and i would like to try it. At this moment I am a member of Wealthy Affiliate and I would like to ask you if these two platforms have something in common?
Do you think the training’s I’ve done so far would help me handle FourPercent as well?
Thanks and keep in touch.
Hi Nimrodngy, I am a paid member of both and would say they have some aspects in common. Both teach affiliate marketing WA largely through content creation and search engine optimization, Four Percent through a more direct response marketing style …different strokes for different folks. Both believe in value-led prospecting with free offerings to allow people to evaluate. WA has a far superior community function being in house as opposed to Facebook hosted, but this may change with the new Four Percent website due for launch soon.
In terms of recommending Four Percent I would suggest joining for free here (you’ll need to click the join fro free tab from the top nav bar) and exploring yourself to see if the style of marketing and mentoring style resonates with you.
Hope this helps 🙂
Rather interesting to read about is all you have presented about affiliate ecosystem and the 4% program. To me, I’d definitely seek to know more about it because I see it as an opportunity to make more money online and clearly learn more. This is a welcome addition to me and a thumbs up. Thanks
You explained the system used by the Four Percent group and gave a good explanation of their business model. I actually clicked your link to check out the program. The training program really looks good. Have you completed some of the training. Which training program would you suggest that I start with or do you follow them in the order they are presented.
Hi Donnie I followed theFour Percent Success Challenge which is aimed at affiliate marketers promising to show them how sell $10k in other people’s products (affiliate products). The Challenge is a guided step by step program that will show you how to create your own unique affiliate brand and promotion funnel for whatever product you want to promote (I like to promote products I own so I promoted the program itself).
Though there are 30 days of training there is a lot to learn and implement. I would estimate it took me about 3 weeks to get my first affiliate funnel up and running (Four Percent Success Challenge case study here) and about 3 months to complete the training.
Note: I’ve actually gone through the training three times! and continually refine my funnel and messaging.
In all honesty, I would say I’ve only implemented about 85% of the system because I’ve yet to implement the recommended video content (I prefer writing).
If you’re considering buying this training remember you have a 30-day money-back guarantee period. I say this because this training isn’t cheap, and even though it’s aimed at beginners what you’ll end up with is a marketing funnel system well in advance of the usual beginner level stuff.
For me, the best decision I ever made 🙂
Hi
This is a very interesting article. I had never heard of the concept of an affiliate ecosystem before so this has been very educational for me. I’ve also had a look at the Four Percent group page that you referred to and it looks like a great resource too. Have you got any experience of Four Percent yourself? Is it primarily for people in the digital marketing niche or would it have potential for people building a business in other niches too?
Thanks again for introducing the ecosystem concept. I will definitely be reading up more about this.
Hi David, I hadn’t heard the ecosystem term used like this until I joined Four Percent Group. For affiliate partners, it takes matters to another level by providing both lifetime commissions not based on cookie duration, and GIVING partners all affiliate commissions from the recommended 3rd party tools.
Personally I’ve been a member for a couple of years, and have implemented Vicks affiliate training to the best of my ability (with greater success than I’m used to).
Four Percents Group objective is to become the go-to resource for entrepreneurs so I would suggest people join as free membersand see what they think. There is a lot of great free content available and I know that Vick is a believer in the value-led marketing model.
An example of this is the free course Wealth Building Blueprint which is about how to manage online earning effectively. Which I’ve found very helpful in terms of structuring my banking and tax accounts.
I like the whole idea of an affiliate ecosystem. It is based on cooperative effort rather than competition where if you gain there has to be someone who loses.
An entity like the Four Percent Groups gives fuel to this concept. It seems that it makes it a lot simpler to build multiple streams of income with a concept and platform like this.
I am going the check out the Four Percent website further. Thanks so much for this information. All the Best.
Hi Joseph 🙂 Multiple streams of income has been a game-changer for me, and Four Percent has made it very easy (via the transformational training of the Four Percent Success Challenge).
Thanks for commenting.
I have been following this course about affiliate marketing for about a month now. I did not know there were different systems, so this ecosystem is very interesting. Is it very different than anything else on the market for affiliate marketing and are you successful with this system ? thank you for the article, regards Lizzy
Hi Lizzy, yes there are many ways companies can set out their stall. For the bigger companies, the concept of calling all the parts an ‘ecosystem’ is quite recent for me.
Then looking at these companies through our affiliate lens really starts to get interesting as it shows us which companies do the most for their affiliates…
And in the make money space I’ve only found 2 companies that offer the 3 critical criteria (1. The products must work to create happy customers 2. The company must pay affiliates potentially lifetime commissions from multiple companies 3. Do the follow-up marketing tp the people you introduce for as long as they remain interested).
For me finding and promoting one of these companies (going to add the second into the mix v soon) has changed my affiliate fortunes (case study here).
Thanks for commenting Lizzy 🙂
Hello; very interesting post about the ecosystem. I am new to affiliate marketing and all of this. But I am interested in multiple streams of income. I would have to become a member of four percent to realize the benefits. What is the premium cost to join four percent? As a premium member, what will my work be, will it be content writing, etc?
DorcasW
Hi DorcasW, great question. Personally I’ve only found 2 programs that do all 3 elements that I describe. And Four Percent is the only one I’ve tested and promoted (I’m in the process of testing the other one).
So using the Four Percent Success Challenge as an example you would have to own and have completed up to session 4 to qualify for the Multiple Streams of Income affiliate (MSI’s) perk.
There is a free Four Percent membership and basic affiliate level that does not require any product ownership to promote it. But If you’re going to promote seriously you want to qualify for the (MSI’s).
I’ve created a Four Percent Success Challenge Review here that will cover off costs etc.
In terms of the work you’ll be doing, the training teaches what I call value-led Direct Response Marketing which is about building your own unique value-led marketing funnel and testing it initially through ‘fast results traffic’ (paid traffic) only going on to scale your marketing to include slower content-based approaches when you know your funnel works.
My case study shows what I did so you can get an idea of what this looks like 🙂
Hope this helps.