You probably have toyed with the idea of affiliate marketing before, or maybe you are totally new to it. When you Google “affiliate marketing”, it surfaces literally millions of search results. You go through a few and you find a few that discourage you and you give up. Here in this short read, I’ve documented the top 5 myths about affiliate marketing that probably caused you to throw up your hands in exasperation. And I’ll walk you through the truth behind these.
#1 – Affiliate Marketing will make you rich in a week or a month.
False. This is the most prevalent misconception about affiliate marketing. Do not start affiliate marketing with the hopes of making rent day after tomorrow. Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick scheme. If anything, there is a significant amount of work that goes in before seeing satisfactory returns. The accounts you see on social media boasting 5k/10k/20k per day do not clarify this enough.
#2 – You need to spend a lot of money to get started with affiliate marketing.
False. You can get started with affiliate marketing with nothing more that a smartphone and an internet connection. However, in order to be successful and make progress quick, usually some investment is required e.g. buying a domain/hosting, software tools, content creation software etc. Again, note that a free version of all of these are available and can be used with some extra effort to still make progress but as the old saying goes “you get what you pay for”.
#3 – You need years of marketing and sales experience to be successful.
False. You do not need years of sales experience. All you need is a topic you are passionate about and don’t mind educating people about it. As long as you are bringing value to people, they’ll turn into your loyal customers. Focus on the topic, success will follow. The market is too broad, and the niches are plenty for any one person or a group of persons to corner the market.
#4 – You need thousands of followers before you can make any real money.
False. This is another major misconception that won’t go away anytime soon. Yes, having a lot of followers means you’ll get a lot of eyeballs to your website. But the conversion of the traffic into customers is a whole different ballgame. You can have much higher conversion rate with a much smaller audience with good quality content, contextual links, and a well optimized website.
#5 – Affiliate Marketing is purely passive income.
False. Think about it this way. Once you plant a seed, it’ll grow into a nice big tree one day that provides you with shade. But in the early years, if you don’t water it regularly, it’ll probably die. Same with affiliate marketing – you have to devote your attention, effort and time to it while you create a strong strategy and system. So if you think about it that way, affiliate marketing is not truly passive income.
So that’s the list of top myths about affiliate marketing. I hope you’ve gained a fresh perspective from this post. You don’t need all the hows figured out. Only the why – as in why you want to do this. For me, it’s to achieve my freedom from the norm and to break free from the 9 – 5. So if you are ready, and want to learn how to get started, here’s my step by step guide.
Remember, the most important thing you can do is to take action. And most importantly, show up for yourself – every. single. day.
