creative marketing ideas

Becoming an Affiliate Marketer: A Step by Step Guide

January 23, 2021 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

In 2022, the affiliate marketing industry is on track to be worth more than $8 billion! If you're looking to make passive income online, become an affiliate marketer. This is a simple way to share the brands you love with your own community and make a percentage each time they purchase.

Learn all about affiliate marketing programs and affiliate marketing jobs right here.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

In affiliate marketing, the marketer themselves earns a commission from promoting another company. Whether that's good like an athleisure brand's new leggings or a service like an online yoga subscription, affiliate marketers can earn supplemental or entire income just from sharing brands they love.

Affiliate Marketing Definition: Promoting a brand's products or services on your own social media or internet presence in exchange for a percentage of the sales you drive.

How To Become an Affiliate Marketer

To become an affiliate marketer, you'll need to do a few things before you even start looking for affiliate marketing jobs. Use this step by step guide to starting your affiliate marketing journey.

Choose Your Niche

Before you even consider your choice of platform, it's important to have an idea of your niche. The aesthetic for your brand and platform will follow.

Start with what you already know. What are some products you love and use religiously? Are there any services or subscriptions you really believe in? Make a list and draw comparisons between your interests and these goods or services.

Be sure your niche is something that you enjoy talking about each day. Here are a few examples of successful niche ideas.

Hobby Niches: Photography, Reading, Travel, Sports, Art, Beer, Coffee
Business Niches: Money, Investing, Budgeting, Bitcoin, Home Ownership, Marketing
Health and Wellness Niches: Fitness, Healthy Eating, Veganism, Yoga, Nutrition
Lifestyle: Self-branded (Moving on from another niche or expanding niches)

A lifestyle niche may evolve after you've decided on the main niche like fashion. Those followers trust you and may start looking for your opinion on other things, too, like home decor, skincare, or anything!

Build Your Platform and Gain Followers

Social media is the best way to start with affiliate marketing. These platforms allow users to be creative and have access to the most crucial part of affiliate marketing: an engaged audience.

Starting with Instagram is a great way to see how well your brand takes to the masses. To gain organic followers, you'll need to use keywords and hashtags that your target audience is following.

For example, if you're interested in building a following that loves to travel, each time you post using #travel #traveling #traveljunkie, or similar hashtags.

You can discover which hashtags are the most popular by digging into analytics and using the platform yourself. Instagram will promote your content on other people's feeds according to an algorithm, and part of that is engaging with other people's content by liking, commenting, and sharing.

Use this guide to learn more about keywords and search engine optimization for Instagram.

If you're more into longer-form videos, YouTube might be a good next step, and it is possible to make millions from the platform. Lastly, you'll eventually want a blog or website to aggregate blog posts and affiliate links. While this can be done through links in your Instagram or YouTube bios, having a landing page for people to engage with your content is crucial.

Create Content and Start Marketing

Now that you've gained some followers and posted some content, it's time to start the money-making part! Start writing reviews for the products you love and share them via a linked blog on Instagram.

A great example of this is taking a product you love, like a skincare product, posting a beautiful photo of it on social media with a description, and how it's changed your life.

Tag the company in the photo, and be sure to add the new post to your stories too. Often, brands have employees scanning Instagram and other platforms daily for mentions. If they reply to your story, ask about getting an affiliate link!

In other cases, you can visit your favorite brands' sites and see if they already have a link made for people interested in sharing. Although affiliate marketing is relatively new, many companies have embraced this and word it as “share with a friend!” or “share and save!”.

If the benefit is a discount on your next purchase instead of a commission, definitely reach out to the company and see if there's an opportunity for a partnership.

Know The Regulations

Before you get started, it's important that you do everything ethically and in line with the law. The Federal Trade Commission has laws to protect American consumers, and therefore, there is a certain language you have to use as an affiliate marketer in your posts.

You can't be deceptive in your marketing, and you should always be transparent with your followers by saying you may earn a commission from their purchases. Using #ad is a common courtesy now on Instagram posts too, but make sure all your language is compliant.

Plus, you should always read the lengthy agreements for becoming an affiliate for a new brand. They will likely have guidelines on what your content should look like and the timeline in which your followers need to purchase in order for you to make a commission.

The fine print is worth reading here!

Ditching 9-5

Congratulations on becoming an affiliate marketer! Now that you work for yourself, how does it feel? Being an entrepreneur and making your own way in the world by sharing the things you love is a great way to earn cash.

If you're feeling a little lost on how to get started or simply need some guidance, check out our array of products to help build your business. Our Affiliate Marketing Business Blueprint is an affordable guide that will help grow your work opportunities and make you a truly successful affiliate marketer!

Would you like to find a profitable business you can do from home so you can bring in much more substantial income? If so, I recommend you watch this free video which will walk you through our #1 recommended way to earn money online from home.

How-To Guide: Launching a Successful Business Model

January 23, 2021 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Did you lose your job during the pandemic? Or are you fed up with working in an office or for a company? Many people have dreams of working online but no idea how to turn them into reality.

Fortunately, choosing the right business model can make that dream more achievable. We have a few ideas and strategies you can use to start a profitable business no matter your experience.

But what is a business model and which is best? Keep reading to find out!

Choose a Niche

The most successful business model for you will center around something you like or are good at. You should focus on a specific industry or customer, and this is your niche.

By narrowing the focus of your business model, you can see more success early on. Consider what you like doing or talking about. Perhaps you like cameras and photography, so you start a business around that.

Or maybe you did really well on standardized tests, so you create a business that helps people take tests. Whatever it is, consider what you like, but make sure there's also a need for it.

Research the Market

Next, you should do some market research to figure out what problems people have within your niche. Then, you can determine how to fill that need. If you're a photographer, you could see if people need photoshoots.

But maybe you realize that people need more help in selecting and using cameras. So you can switch your business idea to a business model with more potential.

If you're good at standardized tests, you could see if people prefer tutoring or workbooks to use on their own time. Both can make for great business models, but they can serve slightly different needs.

Find Your Competition

As you research the market, you'll probably come across some people with similar businesses to your idea. That's okay, and it can be even more validation for your idea.

But don't just skip over your competition. Take a look at what products or services they offer and see how customers react to them. Maybe there's something you can do a bit differently to stand out.

You don't need a totally unique business model, but you also shouldn't avoid copying your competition. Perhaps your competition focuses on helping beginners, so you target more advanced photographers or students.

Operate Online

The most successful types of business models don't take forever to see a profit. If you want to start making money soon, you should consider starting an online business.

You can start quite a few different online businesses with little or no money. With an online business, you don't need to worry about finding or paying for a storefront. You don't need to hire a bunch of employees.

If you can keep your startup costs low, you can find business success more quickly. You can also determine if your idea is profitable, and you can choose a different business model if yours isn't making money.

Start With Profit

If you want to start making money from the start, you should consider a simple way to bring in revenue. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money when you first start your business.

You don't have to create a product or service. Instead, you can sell someone else's product or service and make a small commission on each sale that comes through you.

Affiliate marketing doesn't need to take a ton of time. You can share links to products in your niche on your website through a blog and on social media.

Then, you can use the rest of your time to build out other revenue streams as part of your entire business model.

Use Two Revenue Streams

While you can make a lot from affiliate marketing, you should also create a second revenue stream. You can create digital products, like eBooks, online courses, and other digital downloads.

If you want to offer a service, you can also do that through your website. You can use email and video conferencing apps to communicate with clients.

Consider if you're willing to schedule part of your day for clients or if you'd prefer more flexibility. Online courses can be a great alternative to coaching, and you can make more money without having to work more.

Having at least two revenue streams can give you more security. If your affiliate income dips one month, you can make up for it with more product sales or vice versa.

Productize Your Services

If the best business model for you involves services, create packages based on your offer. Instead of having to create a custom package for every client you get, you can direct leads to your services page.

Your clients can choose from your options, streamlining the sales process for you. That way, you can book clients more quickly.

You can also offer services as products, such as coaching or teaching as an online course. If you're good at graphic design, you can sell templates instead of custom services.

Selling products will give you more control over your business model. You can only work so much in a day, so selling products can get rid of the income ceiling that comes with offering a service.

Build a Marketing and Sales Plan

No matter what business model you plan to start, you need to create a marketing and sales plan. Social media is one of the best places to market your business.

You can interact with people in your target audience to build relationships and a following. Facebook and Instagram are two popular options, but TikTok is quickly gaining traction.

You can use your social media profiles to direct people to your sales pages. If you write the sales copy well, it can help sell your products or affiliate products for you, saving you precious time while making you more money.

The Best Business Model to Choose

You can choose from many different types of business models out there. But if you want an easy way to make money without overworking yourself, make affiliate marketing part of your business model.

Then, you can combine affiliate marketing with creating and selling your own digital products. Both revenue streams are easy to scale and have no limits on how much you can make.

Are you ready to start a profitable online business model? Watch this video to learn more about our top way to make money online.

What Is Affiliate Marketing and How Does It Work?

January 18, 2021 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Did you know that affiliate marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry? Yes, a passive form of income for bloggers, vloggers, and other creators is now generating several billion dollars worth of profit.

If you're anything like us, you want to learn more about affiliate marketing and how you can become an affiliate marketer. Whether you're interested in making passive income or genuinely interested in becoming a marketer, you can work with an affiliate program.

To learn more about what affiliate marketing is and how affiliate marketing works, keep reading. We're going to cover all of the basics that you need to know if you're interested in affiliate marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Simply put, affiliate marketing is the process of earning money by marketing another individual's or business's product or service. Basically, affiliate marketers recommend a product or service that they've used and liked and receive a small commission for advertising that product or service on a platform like YouTube or Instagram.

We should be clear that you are not entitled to a commission if you happen to mention a product. The company does not magically pay you for sharing your love of their product or service with your audience.

You have to sign up for a business' affiliate program to make that ‘passive income' that everyone is so excited about. If the business that you're looking to work with doesn't have an affiliate program, you need to sign with them independently. This means that you have to strike a deal with the individual or company that explicitly states how much money you'll be receiving for mentioning/advertising their product or service.

That part is a little bit more complicated.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

When it comes to actually getting started with affiliate marketing, there are a few more steps to take into account. Affiliate marketing isn't a quick and fast process.

A few things need to happen before you're paid that sweet, sweet cash that you're looking forward to.

Someone has to read or see the post/advertisement that you made about the product or service.
That person clicks on a link that you've provided. This is known as an “affiliate link.” It brings that potential customer to the merchant's website to look at the product or service that you recommended in your post.
The person decides to buy the product or service (or complete whatever desired event that you advertised).
You are paid a small commission for that purchase (or completed event).

Do you see what we mean? A lot of things need to happen in order for affiliate marketing to work.

While we're on this subject, we should note that affiliate marketing doesn't just have to be about shopping (although it often is).

An affiliate marketer can advertise a public event and get commissioned for every attendee that mentions his or her name. That marketer could be advertising views on a video or comments on a post.

This is why we refer to the consumer's action as a “desired event.” It's not necessary for the desired event to be a sale, although this is typically the case.

What About That “Affiliate Link?”

If you've been thinking about becoming involved in affiliate marketing, it's likely that you've heard the term “affiliate link” already.

This coveted link is the envy of so many baby vloggers and bloggers. Luckily, it's not that difficult to get.

The company or business that is compensating the blogger or vlogger for showcasing a product or service is usually the one to give out the affiliate link. For example, if you were the affiliate marketer, the company that you're advertising for would give you the link.

In turn, you would then use that link as a part of the post, video, blog, or other forms of advertising. Without this link, you won't get credit for the sales that you caused.

How Do Affiliate Links Work?

It's time to get techy.

If you're wondering how these affiliate links work, you need to understand just a little bit about how website links work. All websites are tagged with the HTTP protocol. This tag that appears at the front of every web address makes the website visitor stateless.

By “stateless,” we mean that the website won't have any personal information about you. However, in order to credit an affiliate marketer, the website they're marketing for has to have a way of knowing where you came from on the Internet. In other words, the website has to know that you came after reading or seeing the affiliate marketer's post.

To do this, the business tags the special affiliate link with a cookie. Unfortunately, these aren't the kind that you eat.

These cookies are tags on the website address that allow the website to see that you came from an affiliate marketer's post. In turn, the business can then identify that there was a successful sale due to the advertisement. Therefore, the affiliate marketer gets paid.

It's important to note that this cookie won't be attached to the link forever (unless the affiliate marketing company has wired the link to work for a very long time). Usually, an affiliate link works with the cookie attached for about 30 days. However, this depends on the company and what their affiliate marketing policies are.

As an affiliate marketer, you'll want a longer cookie duration. This means that someone who reads your post years from now can still give you credit for a sale. Without long-lasting cookies, you may be limited in how many sales you're personally credited for.

More on Affiliate Marketing

After reading all of this information about affiliate marketing, we bet you're excited to get started! There are lots of things to be excited about, so get ready by picking out the products you want to showcase and the businesses you want to work with.

For more about affiliate marketing, check out this free video to learn the tools you need to get started as a successful affiliate marketer.

How To Grow Your Affiliate Marketing Traffic By 10x

January 9, 2021 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Spencer Mecham is a client who has not only mastered having multiple platforms to work off of, but has also mastered bringing income to those multiple platforms. We recently interviewed him on our morning show, Wake Up Legendary, to learn about how he turns his multiple streams of traffic into income.

From the very beginning of Spencer’s affiliate marketing career he found himself worried about his social media accounts being shut down. He decided that after an Instagram account along with a Youtube account being shut down it was time to work off of multiple platforms.

When Spencer finds a new platform to work off of, he masters the platform to the best of his ability and then writes down a system for it. Once he’s written down how it works and what he wants out of it, he then passes it along to someone he’s hired to work on his account on each platform.

Outsourcing Quality People To Help You Create Quality Content

He can’t operate a Youtube channel, instagram account, Tik Tik, blog, Facebook group, email list, etc. all by himself. He typically hires multiple people to help him do things like edit videos and thumbnails. When hiring someone on, Spencer says to not be afraid to move through people. He likes to have weekly meetings and follow up with the people he has hired. He wants to make sure that anyone he has hired is on the same page as him.

Spencer will typically give practice tasks for anyone who he is considering for the job and makes sure they know what they’re doing. He typically hires three people at a time. Two of them work full time and one of them works part time.

Outlining And Scripting Videos To Cater To Youtube’s Algorithm

Spencer outlines each video before filming it, and has passed on the outline job to one of the editors he hired. This creates less work for him so that he has more time to focus on other tasks in his day. The outlines he makes for his videos aren’t just what topics he’ll be speaking about, but includes an entire script for the video. He caters to Youtube’s algorithm by scripting the video and deciding what A roll and B roll go into each video.

Youtube tracks how long each person who views a video is watching it for. If someone is viewing a video for just a moment and clicks out of it, Youtube won’t push it into the algorithm. If a video is watched most of or all the way through often, it is more likely to come up first in the search results or be suggested to watch next by Youtube. “A high click rate and a high watch time equals a viral Youtube video,” Spencer said.

In order for Spencer to keep his videos from being clicked out of too soon, he began using a tactic that would keep people watching until the end- curiosity.

When scripting videos, Spencer spends a lot of time planning. He plans out how they’re going to generate the curiosity factor that runs throughout the video that keeps people watching. “A high click through rate and a high watch time equals a viral youtube video,” Spencer said. Since catering his videos to Youtube’s algorithm, he has grown his Youtube channel to 43,000 subscribers.

Create Unique Content That Generates Value And Curiosity

Spencer says that in order to get more views on videos, take a unique approach to the videos you create. Instead of doing ‘10 ways to make money with x’ Spencer says that a more unique approach would be to spend 8 hours clicking through sites, or take surveys for 5 hours straight and do a video on that experience. That generates a story with the videos and gives the viewer something more to connect to rather than a generic video.

Spencer says to get comfortable on camera it’s okay to go generic videos but as you get more into it to begin throwing in the experiment style videos where you document the process of something like taking surveys or watching a particular type of video.

Don’t Waste Time Editing Videos If You Can Outsource A Skilled Editor

When he first started making Youtube videos, Spencer spent a lot of time editing them. He found that it was easier and a better use of his time to hire someone to edit his videos for him. This way someone else who had more skill than him could do ten times what he could edit on a video.

He watches a bunch of videos and writes down what he likes about them. Then he hires someone and gives them that list with five example videos he’s found that he likes. Spencer has found the cheapest video editor for himself has been about a hundred dollars, but there are sites like Fiverr where you are able to hire someone for cheaper, though the quality may differ.

Videos that you create can still blow up without a bunch of fancy editing. When Spencer was starting out, he did a few videos where he shared his screen and those have gotten over 300,000 views.

Spencer’s Youtube channel @Buildapreneur

Visualize What Your Business Can Grow To And Move To Multiple Platforms For More Income

Spencer’s Tik Tok, Youtube, Facebook group, and blog are his main streams of income. His project manager does the pictures, categorizing, and outline for his blog and then sends that over to his blog writers.

Spencer turns his Youtube videos into blog posts and bases posts off of certain keywords to drive in more traffic. When repurposing his youtube videos onto his blog, he also re-purposes his Tik Tok videos into Youtube videos. He edits the Tik Tok logo off of them and turns them into something called Youtube Shorts, a new program similar to Tik Tok. By doing this he grew more subscribers because once you hashtag a 60 second or less Youtube video with #shorts it is pushed into the algorithm. Youtube is testing Shorts in the United States and pushes videos into the Shorts algorithm to test how well they are performing.

Structure Tik Tok Videos To Hook Your Viewers

Spencer’s Tik Tok @spencerhacks

The Tik Tok algorithm is very similar to the Youtube algorithm. Spencer uses the same curiosity factor from Youtube to keep his viewers watching his videos. He structures his videos so that the viewer doesn't really understand what he’s trying to tell them in the video until thirty to sixty seconds in. Once the viewer has reached that point, they’re been watching the video for so long that it doesn't matter if they scroll out of it.

Spencer hooks his viewer and strings them along in the video. He shows his viewer the process and in the end explains the point. This allows him to keep the curiosity going as long as he can in the video. He uses terminology in his videos that keeps the viewer hooked and gives them something to think about while they watch.

It’s important to differentiate yourself from people on Tik Tok who make videos from similar videos. People don’t want to watch the same video over and over again. When starting your video, say that it’s something different than what your viewer has seen before. That way they want to keep their eyes glued to the screen in suspense.

If you enjoyed this article and want to learn more affiliate marketing secrets like the ones Spencer shared with us here, watch this free video while access is still free.

How I Grew To 200,000 Subscribers! Step-By-Step Youtube Growth Plan

January 7, 2021 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Ryan Hildreth is a client who started off working a 9-5 straight out of college. He stumbled across affiliate marketing and found it to be the best business model for himself. He started his Youtube channel in 2017 and now has over 240,000 subscribers on Youtube and over 250,000 subscribers on Tik Tok.

When Ryan first started out he was finding videos on Youtube to replicate and turn into his own words. Over time it became difficult to find new videos to replicate. He wasn’t getting much done trying to come up with ideas every day. He was missing one key factor- structure.

Creating Structure And A Schedule In Your Process To Become Successful

Ryan began putting out two to three videos a week. When you’re just starting out, he recommends you make two to three videos a week so you don’t overwhelm yourself. In order to do this he had to create a weekly schedule for himself and begin planning out his videos one step at a time.

He says that getting ahead is important in case there is an emergency or something comes up that you need to spend time on. That way you have videos done that you are able to post while not working.

Ryan’s process starts on a Monday. The first thing he does is grab a notepad and a whiteboard. You can also use Google spreadsheet to organize and list your topic ideas. He lists ideas he wants to do videos on. He also plans out topics he wants to expand on and trending topics to make videos on.

Monday is his administrative day, which means no filming or content creation is done. Instead, he uses Monday solely for a planning day for idea generation. He plans out ten video ideas. He scours Youtube and finds trending videos in his niche.

Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday are the days Ryan creates, films, and edits videos. He creates three videos and edits them, and then uploads them each of the three days. He typically spends three days a week on Youtube related work and the remaining two days on his email marketing.

Ryan’s Youtube channel https://legendarymarketer.com/ryan-youtube

Outsourcing Thumbnails From Affordable Creators To Deliver High Quality Images That Stand Out

Ryan outsources his video’s thumbnails. He does this through FIverr, where he finds a nice inexpensive thumbnail creator. He sends the person creating his thumbnails thumbnails for other videos that he likes. Then he asks them to be made to look similar.

He typically keeps his thumbnails 3-5 words if he can. Videos that only have a few words in the thumbnail tend to perform better. He gives the creator the title of the video and then they create his thumbnail for him.

Finding Inspiration From Other Content Creators In Your Niche

In order to find videos to gain inspiration from, Ryan types in ‘make money online’ into Youtube and makes videos around the topics that come up. He isn’t looking for a particular time stamp on the videos. Videos can still be popular and relevant years after they are uploaded. Youtube will push the top trending videos for the keywords ‘make money online’ towards you. If a video is uploaded less than a month ago that means that it's performing really well and Youtube is pushing that towards you.

Ryan doesn’t use any Youtube video filters when finding videos to get inspiration from. He leaves on ‘sort by relevance’ to ensure that he’s getting the most relevant videos to his topic. A video has to be at least eight to ten minutes long to add revenue to it. However, don’t create a video that is too long.

Youtube tracks how long a video is being watched for. If it is not being watched all the way through or too many people are clicking out of it in the first few minutes, it may not rank well. Ryan waits for a video to hit a home run. If one video starts to take off and gets over 20,000 views he will create another one like that.

Ryan stays within the broad niche of how to make money online. He says that if you just do ‘make money with Facebook’ videos for seven days straight the topic may not still be trending. However, if you did ‘how to make money online’ videos, one of those may take off. You have to have a broad topic to create from.

Get the idea?…

There’s probably not going to be a lot of videos you come up with that are original ideas. But that’s okay. Finding inspiration from videos is a great way to take parts of other videos you watch and expand on them. Getting information from other content creators and videos is a form of inspiration. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t come up with an entirely original idea for a video.

Using Free Easy To Use Software To Create A High Quality Video

Ryan uses the free software that came with his Macbook when creating and editing his videos. He uses the screen recording feature on Quicktime Player when filming. He does this by going to ‘file’ on Quicktime Player and then clicks ‘new screen recording’. Quicktime Player is free and easy to use because it saves right to his desktop. This makes videos easier to find.

He also films himself as he’s screen recording with his Cannon T6i camera. He likes to have high quality video of himself. He combines the two in iMovie, another free app for Macbook. iMovie is an easy app for Ryan to use as well. “It’s all about what you’re comfortable with,” Ryan said. Showing a video of himself makes it more personal.

Another easy to use tool is Loom because you can record yourself and screen record at the same time. Loom is free to use for videos up to five minutes. Ryan says that over time it’s better to show your face. Showing your face links your viewers to your humanity. When Ryan films and messes up he keeps going. He takes out the parts he messes up on when editing. Each of his videos take about 20 minutes to edit.

Consistency Is The Key For Successful Results

Ryan schedules his videos to post at the same time every day at 8am. He posts at the same days and times every week because having consistency in your business is good. You will see results from videos you upload three to four months down the road, but with that consistency you will begin to grow.

Showing Humanity And Building Relationships With Your Email Lists

When Ryan adds someone to his email list, he likes to follow up with them for thirty days straight. The first two emails are conversational pieces. He likes to have a conversation with people who join his email list to get to know them and build connections. The third email he sends is typically when he pitches to them.

He doesn't send people on his email list his youtube videos. He doesn't want them to affect his watch times. This is only because he has so many subscribers and gets several thousand views on his videos within the first few hours. If you are just starting out, you should be emailing your Youtube videos to your email list.

Using Tik Tok To Generate Youtube Subscribers

When Ryan first created his Tik Tok, it took a while at first to build up followers. When he started, he started from scratch. He didn’t tell anyone about his Tik Tok and wanted to see how big he could grow it to challenge himself.

He posted at least twice a day and did mostly ‘make money online’ related posts. His posts were mostly previews of his Youtube videos. He put only his Youtube channel link in his Tik Tok profile. He wanted people to click on his Youtube channel from his Tik Tok videos to use it as a lead generation to his Youtube videos.

Ryan hit a record month in commissions the second month he was creating Tik tok videos. He was growing 1,000 to 2,000 subscribers each day on Youtube that were coming from Tik Tok.

If you would like to learn strategies to apply to your business just like the one Ryan applies into his business in affiliate marketing, including how to make multiple high-ticket affiliate commissions each month marketing valuable products people already want to buy, watch our brand new free webclass while access is still free.

The Exact Plan To Succeed In Affiliate Marketing In 3 Just Hours A Day

December 7, 2020 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Zeb Summers started off the year as an IT Manager, but after 15 years of hard work was laid off when Covid hit. Instead of deciding to go back to corporate America, he took the leap to turn his affiliate marketing side hustle into a full-time career. He wanted to do something that gave him full control of his time. As a 45 year old father of 2, he was looking to get some time back to spend with his family.

Zeb loves affiliate marketing and has grown a passion for it, which is why he decided to do it full time. By full time I’m not talking 8 hours of labor each day. Full time as in 3 hours of work each day, and the rest of the day to spend with his family and do whatever he wants.

We recently had him on our morning show, Wake Up Legendary to talk about his strategy for success. So what is Zeb’s strategy for success?

Planning A Month At A Time To Focus On Money Producing Activities

When Zeb first started his full time affiliate marketing career, he felt he wasn’t producing the results that he should be. He began focusing all his time on money producing activities. He plans out his schedule a month at a time, and makes weekly and daily schedules for himself.

He schedules everything he wants to do in his 3 hour work window in his planner. He does this by focusing on certain things each day. For example, one day may be a planning day for his Tik Tok videos, and the next may be a day where he creates his Tik Tok videos.

One key to this process Zeb feels, is getting a good night’s sleep. The human brain cannot function to its fullest potential without a good amount of sleep. Whenever Zeb feels like he has an idea for the next day, he always makes sure to write it down. By writing it down, it helps him to sleep better because he doesn’t have to think about it while he’s trying to sleep.

Zeb creates 3-12 Tik Toks to post throughout each day along with creating Youtube videos. He plans out each video and it’s headline. Planning is a huge factor in keeping his work day to only 3 hours.

Create Goals For Yourself To Accomplish And Create To-Do Lists To Keep Track of Them

Zeb takes his goals for the month and the week and divides them down into weekly, then daily goals. He creates an amount he wants to make for the month. He then decides how many emails he has to send, how many Tik Toks he has to create, and how many sales he has to make to get the commission.

Once he has created his monthly goals, he takes them down to weekly goals. Every week he knows he has to send out a certain number of emails each day, a certain number of Tik Tok’s, and a certain number of customers to follow up with each day.

But he doesn’t stop there…

Zeb says that once he breaks down his goals into daily goals, the magic starts to happen. Zeb says he has to tune into his daily goals and be self disciplined and present.

“It’s not about taking action, it’s about taking daily action,” Zeb said.

He starts off each day writing emails to his email lists. Sometimes he spends up to an hour writing emails and interacting with his email list. He creates a goal number of emails to write and sticks to that goal.

He wants to humanize himself to his customers and stay present because that’s something that is very important in affiliate marketing. The more authenticity you show, the more your customers can relate to you and build trust with you.

He also creates a goal amount of Tik Tok videos and Youtube videos to create. Once he’s planned out and created those videos, he spends his 3 hour work day creating those videos to be readily available to post throughout the day.

[Image description] Zeb’s Tik Tok @zebsummers

One great tool for this that Zeb uses, is Trello. Trello is a planning website that allows you to create to-do lists and organize different lists to check tasks off of. Trello also shows you a percentage of how much you have completed each day and can refresh so that you have a clear list of tasks to plan for each day you’re working.

Zeb typically uses a pen and paper for his planning. For more tech savvy people, Trello has a mobile app. Another useful tool is the notepad or calendar on your phone or computer.

Becoming The Creator And Tracking Your Progress

Zeb always says that at the beginning you can’t focus on the money. He says to focus on creating the foundation and creating content. Once you create the content, the money will come. At first, it’s hard to figure out where to start. He says that when starting out create goals for yourself and get out of your comfort zone.

He says to take 60 to 90 days and track the progress that you are making. Focus on your goal and track the progress of your videos and work. If you aren’t meeting your goal, take a few steps back and figure out what exactly you need to do to meet that goal.

The money might not flow in at first so it’s important to make a realistic goal for yourself that you can track. Once you’ve reached your goal you can assess what you did that month to reach that goal and continue to repeat and tweak that process.

In the beginning when you’re creating your baseline, it’s important to consistently do content creation in a channel or two, such as Youtube, Facebook, Tik Tok, or your email list. Once you’ve succeeded in making content, you can track what is working and do more of it.

When Things Don’t Go As Planned, Keep Moving Forward

When a day doesn’t go as planned, Zeb says to always keep moving forward. “You’re going to be on top of the mountain and you’re going to be in the pit of despair,” Zeb said. It’s important to move forward and try your best to not let the little things bother you.

You don’t have to get analytical to keep track of your progress. Just simply writing things down and keeping track of them is enough when starting out to monitor what’s working and what isn’t. Don’t give up even if it feels like you’re not being successful. Behind an unsuccessful day could be a thousand dollar day, but you won’t know unless you stick it out.

How To Start Getting Leads And Sales With No Ad Budget On Facebook

November 25, 2020 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Aaron Szczotkewycz is a client from Melbourne, Australia. He comes from a construction background that eventually took a toll on his body and he felt like he was burning out. He knew he needed to do something for work that wasn’t so physical. He felt he was destined to do something else, and stumbled across online marketing.

For Aaron, there hasn’t always been good days. There have been hard days and hard times since he started working remotely from home, but it has all been worth it for him.

“Wondering my whole life if this could have worked out was so much worse than not taking that risk,” Aaron said. Now both Aaron and his girlfriend work from home and are able to spend more time together and less time straining their bodies at a physical job.

When Aaron first started marketing online, he played around with a few different things at first, like blogging. He spent a lot of time on his blog and even paid someone to do his blog for him, but still doesn't get a lot of blog visits. He eventually realized that blogging just wasn't for him, and he wanted to do something more active online.

He ran a few ads and decided he needed help, and that was when he found himself here at Legendary. Since joining Legendary Marketer he’s been able to generate leads and sales with no ad budget on Facebook, amongst other things. We recently interviewed him on our morning show Wake Up Legendary to guide us through how he does it.

Step 1: Build Your Facebook Friends List With Highly Targeted Buyers From Your Niche

Facebook is a very active site for organic marketing. When Aaron began Facebook organic marketing, he deleted his friends and family from his Facebook page and built on that. Now, you don’t necessarily have to delete your friends and family but there are ways to organize who sees your posts so that you can separate your family from your business, such as segmenting your friends list. Here’s how to do that:

On the far left menu of your Facebook homepage select ‘see more’. After this, click ‘friends list’ and from there you can create a list of friends and select which of your Facebook friends goes in it.

Adding Facebook friends is key because this is the best way to build connections with your customers. You can add friends from Facebook groups, Facebook pages, and Facebook ads. “It’s important to know who it is you’re looking for,” Aaron said. The best place he’s able to find people within his target audience is in groups that are specific to his niche.

To find groups that may have your target customer in them, go to the Facebook search bar and type in phrases that are relevant to your business.

In this example, since Aaron is an affiliate of many programs that teach affiliate marketers how to b3 more successful, we typed in the search term affiliate marketing and tons of results came up within that niche.

[Image description] Facebook groups for ‘affiliate marketing’

Now, you may be thinking how do I make more room to add more friends and how can I remove people who are not engaging with my posts?

It’s important to go through old friends and refresh them when doing organic Facebook marketing. Adding Facebook friends never stops when you’re in organic marketing.

A lot of organic marketers use automation software to find out who hasn’t been engaging in content to keep their friends lists refreshed, such as FB Social Accelerator. Others try to keep up with it manually.

The bottom line is even though you can only have 5,000 friends, an unlimited number of people can follow your Facebook personal profile so at the end of the day it’s not mandatory that you remove absolutely anyone who’s not engaged with you.

It is however important that you’re constantly attracting fresh people to you. How? By using attraction marketing.

Step 2: Use Attraction Marketing To Build Credibility And Deliver Value That Makes People Want To Do Business WIth You

Attraction marketing is providing value to a customer rather than just pitching them a product. “Organic marketing doesn’t work if you’re just pitching on the first message or making offer posts constantly on your wall,” Aaron said.

Instead of pitching products to just anyone, Aaron builds trust and relationships with his audience by only pitching the product to someone who needs it and who is a good fit for it. This way he knows exactly what the customer is looking for and isn’t recommending a product that is unlikely to help them.

He also only sends affiliate links to people once he’s begun a conversation with them in messenger, to avoid publicly selling on his Facebook wall.

Step 3: Building Authority In Groups Using Value Posts

The best way to build authority in Facebook groups is to create value posts. A value post is a post you make that offers value like tips or teaches them something they didn’t know before without asking for anything in return.

However, some group moderators don’t always like the value posts that are made in their groups. This is due to one simple unspoken rule: never outshine the master.

When joining any Facebook group, make sure you are always respecting the group owner if it’s a group that has a leader on Facebook. One way to sometimes get around this is to thank the group owner in your post or to just make an entire post in the group acknowledging the owner and thanking them.

Not all people will get results with this, but the better you get with wordsmithing and framing how you share your results, the more you will attract people who respect you, rather than people looking at you as a piece of “money meat”, meaning if you can’t help them make money then they don’t care about you.

Step 4: Consistently Make Posts On Your Timeline To Build Authority And Attract Your New Followers To Reach Out To You

If you make a great value post in a group, or answer a question on an ad, or even comment something positive on someone else’s post in a group…

You’ll have people begin to friend or follow you. This is when you need to continue to deliver value to them by simply posting to your posts Facebook wall so your posts show up in their newsfeed.

Now that they’re a friend or follower of yours, you can make a post that gives them a call to action at the end to reach out to you.

There are a few different types of posts you can create. The first is a results type post, meaning you share your results from a technique, tip, or strategy with your friends and followers.

The other type of post is a lifestyle post, where you make a post with a photo of you in your day to day life doing something. This offers a look into who you are as a person so that you can humanize yourself to your audience.

Take a look at this example from Aaron.

He gives away some value in the form of explaining that doing high ticket affiliate marketing isn't as difficult as some people might think. He then adds a picture of himself to help humanize the post so it doesn’t feel like a sales pitch. He then adds a call to action at the end of the post for people who resonated with the post to reach out to him via direct message.

The only goal is to chat with your audience and get to know them, it all starts with building a relationship and engaging with your audience. It is very important to engage with your audience, especially the people who are commenting.

They have taken the time to read your post and leave a comment. It’s important to build that relationship and trust because if they continue to comment and you don’t reply, they won’t keep commenting.

When building a connection to your audience, it’s important to build rapport and find common ground. Be super clear with where the person is at and what they’re struggling with so that you can help them. If you can find out what their goal is and where they want to go, fill in the gap with the product that you think is going to help them the most, then you make a lot of money with this technique.

Step 5: Supercharging Your Organic Marketing To Multiply Your Results

Ads aren’t able to be run from a personal Facebook profile, but they are able to be run through a business page.

So if you have a post that does really well on your personal page, you can take that post, put it on a business page, and then you can run it as an ad.

At the bottom of your post, add a call to action similar to this:

If you want more info, here’s what to do next:

Step 1) Comment “MORE INFO” below

Step 2) Click my profile pic above and go send me a PRIVATE MESSAGE telling me you want more info.

By adding a line on your post that asks people to comment “more info below” it creates a lot of social proof and interaction and people will feel like they’re missing out on the information you’re offering them.

It will also make your ad post blow up with comments which will make it convert higher due to so much interaction on the post.

When people begin to reach out via private message, how you answer (and how fast) is key. One cool thing Facebook allows you to do on your page is set up Saved inside your Business Page inbox so you can reply to people who are messaging you faster. You can add new responses as well as add their name to the response for personalization.

Conclusion, Plus How To Learn More Strategies Like This

If you are trying to get organic marketing going, always put value first, expect nothing in return, and don’t put a value post up expecting to make a sale out of it. Always lead with value and make a commitment. Any marketing strategy can be great if you can make the commitment and stick with it. Organic marketing is the same way. You need to be consistent and make a commitment to see it through until it works.

Building up a successful business from Facebook can take time and patience. It requires dedication to your customers and is a great way to build relationships and earn money at the same time. It doesn’t require working a 9-5 that might stress your body out.

How A Car Sales Manager Grew A Profitable 117K Sub Youtube Channel Part-Time For Free

November 17, 2020 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Learn how this full time manager built an online business while working it part time.

Victor Paredes has been the general manager of an automobile shop in Texas for 24 years and was looking for a challenge. He loves his job, but he wanted to challenge himself to branch out and do more than just his normal nine to five because he wanted to grow more. He started in online affiliate marketing on the side and found himself learning from other affiliate marketers from Youtube on how to become successful. He started learning the ins and outs of affiliate marketing as he went along and soon enough, created a Youtube channel and was making videos himself. We recently interviewed him on the Wake Up Legendary show to hear how he balances his nine to five job with his affiliate marketing side business and finds success in both.

For Victor, Youtube was the last thing people thought he would find success in, but it’s become his #1 source of traffic. He has over 360 videos and over 123,000 subscribers. He also uses his Youtube channel in his business for motivation for his team and to help with their training. All of his employees are subscribed to his Youtube channel. One great thing Victor loves about his working with his affiliate marketing business and his 9-5 combined is that he can choose when to retire. “The plan is to not retire right away but to retire when I choose to retire,” Victor said. He loves working both jobs and still has time to spend with his family.

[Image description] Victor’s Youtube channel

Victor said that one thing that stands out to him the most in his affiliate marketing business is the growth he’s had with the people he’s connected with. He’s connected with a lot of inspirational people and not just the super affiliates but also the people who are just getting started in the Legendary community. “I have the best of worlds. I still am able to go to a job and interact with people on a one on one basis and I have my online business where I’m learning so much, and I’ve made some incredible relationships online with people that I never would have met had I not decided to start an online business,” Victor said. He says that it has helped him grow more by supporting other people and have others show the same support for him.

Victor says that you shouldn’t be ashamed or embarrassed about what you’re trying to do. “Don’t ever quit, chase your dream, go after it, hold yourself accountable, make a commitment, verbalize it to yourself. Make a commitment that you are gonna see it through and then if you don’t you’re lying to yourself and that’s the worst thing that can happen,”Victor said. People now ask Victor for advice with their online business now and he says that has really stood out to him. Now he gets to help other people grow that are in the same position he used to be in not too long ago.

One message Victor gives is to never give up. “Don’t ever quit, chase your dream, go after it, hold yourself accountable, make a commitment, verbalize it to yourself. Make a commitment that you are gonna see it through and then if you don’t you’re lying to yourself and that’s the worst thing that can happen,” Victor said. If you run into hardships and obstacles, you can overcome them with the right support from your community. He says to find a mentor or a program like the ones we offer at Legendary Marketer, that can help guide you in the right direction when you are feeling stuck. “If you have a mentor there’s no reason anybody can’t get results unless they decide to quit,” Victor said.

When it comes to creating an online business, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It’s something you can ease into and do part time and still get somewhere. Victor is an example of that. If you want to learn more successful marketing tips just like the ones Victor uses here to grow your online business, check out this video while access is still free.

If you want to be notified every time we go live, text WUL to (813)-296-8553

5 Tips From A Million Dollar Super Affiliate Marketer You Should Know

November 16, 2020 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Learn what tips this affiliate marketer from Finland used to grow his Youtube channel of 36,000 subscribers.

Roope Kiuttu is a client from Finland who currently lives in Costa Rica. In 2015 he started learning little by little about affiliate marketing and by 2017 he became really serious about it. He didn’t want to work the 9-5 job anymore, he wanted more out of life. He found Legendary Marketer through another client who was getting good results and felt he should give it a try.

In the beginning he was super skeptical, as there are so many different scams on the internet, but soon he found that there was nothing to be skeptical about. “I was positively surprised by everything,” Roope said. He loves the Legendary community and how there are people from all over the world who are active in it and support each other.

Roope has been doing blogging and email marketing but really found that he has both the ability to work and also have fun with Youtube. He enjoys the audience and connections he has built with his viewers. He posted his first video 4 years ago and after a few videos, he gave up and felt he wasn't getting the results he wanted. He picked up Youtube and blogging again in 2017 and has become more serious about his Youtube channel during the 2020 pandemic.

Roope listened to advice from other Youtubers and realized that he needed to get into the mind of the viewer. He started to focus more on being interested and less on being interesting. “You should always create the content for the people who are watching the videos, not for yourself,” Roope said.

He wanted to show people what he had learned through Legendary Marketer and myself (David Sharpe) specifically and made a Youtube video titled David Sharpe Review: 5 Lessons I Learned from Legendary Marketer ($250,000,000 Earned Online!). We recently asked Roope to join us on our morning show Wake Up Legendary to talk about his video and the things he learned.

[Image description] A screenshot of Roope’s youtube channel Learn To Make Honest money online from Roope’s interview on Wake Up Legendary

Tell Stories

The first thing Roope learned is to tell stories. At first, Roope thought he wasn’t a good story teller. He realized that he could learn to become a good story teller. A story connects to people on a more personal level and gives them something to resonate with. When teaching a lesson it may help to absorb the information if they have something to remember it by. “Maybe some people get it, maybe some people don’t but if you tell your story then it somehow hits better,” Roope said.

Roope always tries to add a little bit of his life story here and there in his videos. He wants anyone viewing it who may be going through something similar to be able to relate to it and realize that they can make a better life for themselves. He also feels it will help make the point he is trying to make more memorable for them.

Never quit on yourself

The second lesson he learned is to never quit on yourself. “Instead of what is the most you can achieve, it’s how far can you go?” Roope said. Most people give up within their first 5 years. If you don’t give up you can go far and be successful. Roope plans to stick with affiliate marketing for at least a decade.

Just doing it is 99% of your success

The third lesson Roope learned is that just doing it is 99% of your success. If you keep testing new things you will find something that works for you. Everything is in the mind when it comes to obstacles and your worst critic is yourself. “Ee always need to eventually take some action,” Roope said. There’s so much training out there but eventually you have to take action and apply what you’re learning from your training to your business.

When you have an idea, just do it. That’s how you’re going to find out if it works for you. Follow through with what you know you need to do. Instead of just thinking you need to get something done, actually take action and do it. Don’t let the fear of making mistakes hold you back from getting things done. Mistakes happen and if they’re made, they’re just something to learn from.

Make your message simple

Roope said that the fourth lesson he’s learned is to make his message simple. Instead of always trying to add more, focus on the most important things. If it’s simple, it can’t confuse anyone. “The confused customer doesn’t buy anything,” Roope said. Focus on simple messages. Clear communication is key. If it is simple, it is more understandable and anyone can understand it.

Honesty and integrity is more important than short term profits

Roope said that the fifth lesson he’s learned is that his honesty is more important than his profits. There’s so many companies promoting scams and making claims that aren’t true. When a customer invests in something that tells them one thing, like that they can make a hundred dollars from clicking a link and it doesn't work, they aren’t going to trust that site anymore. “It really kills everything if one is not honest because it builds for the long term,” Roope said. You don’t want to be known as someone who isn’t honest to your customers and viewers.

If you enjoyed this article about the lessons and strategies Roope has learned and want to learn more affiliate marketing secrets just like it, like how to make high ticket commissions and supercharge your earnings, watch this free video while access is still free.

6 Steps To Earning Money With Affiliate Marketing Using A Blog

November 11, 2020 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Affiliate marketing is the process of promoting a product or service and connecting a buyer with a seller. If you are looking for a side hustle or a way to make some extra money online, keep reading. In this step by step guide I am going to walk you through the process of becoming an affiliate marketer using a free blogging platform.

Step one- create a blog

When creating a blog to use for affiliate marketing, a great blogging platform is WordPress. These blogs are free to start. You can customize your blog with background images, themes, different layouts, and widgets to add onto your blog.

When creating your wordpress blog, you’ll first sign up with email, choose a domain name and from there you’re able to choose what type of blog you want, such as .org, .com, .blog, or you can choose .wordpress.com which is the free option. Make your domain name something short and memorable. You want your viewers to remember your domain name when discussing the products they buy with other people so they can tell others to check out your blog. From there name your site and launch it.

Once you launch your site and begin customizing it, you want to choose a theme that will help you stand out and be pleasing to your viewers. Don’t choose too vibrant of colors, and choose a font for your site that is easy to read. You do want your blog to be pleasing to look at, but not distracting so that your readers are focused on your content.

Step two- Choosing a product and researching it

When you make your blog, it’s good to pick a theme. Your blog can be about anything you want. From laundry hacks to cooking recipes, you name it. Once you’ve chosen your theme, next is choosing your product. Choose a product you are passionate about. You will have to have a lot of knowledge on your product which will require research. The point of this is to talk about something you enjoy in your blog posts because you want someone else to enjoy it too. It is even better if you can obtain the product yourself and try it out to have an easier recommendation of it. You want your blog viewers to trust you and the product you are telling them to buy. If your viewers are not happy with the product you are recommending they likely won’t be back to visit your blog.

You need to identify your target audience. These are the people who are going to be reading your blog posts and purchasing the products based on your recommendations. Researching and finding other content creators who talk about topics similar to the ones you have chosen will help to give you a good idea on who the audience is and what type of products they will be looking for as well as what information will be useful to them.

A great way to promote your affiliate products is through comparison posts. You can use this in almost any blog theme. Examples are cooking with two different types of brands of food, two different recipes for the same food dish, two different brands of the same cleaning products, two different gaming consoles, etc. Comparing and contrasting products helps your audience make a decision on what product to purchase. Just make sure you include those affiliate links to each of the products in your posts.

When writing about your products you want to try to solve a problem with them. When a customer finds that a product will bring a solution for their problem, they tend to want to buy it more. If they know that the product you’re recommending helped solve a problem you had in some way, it’s likely they’ve had the same problem. For example, if you’re reviewing a window cleaning product, explain how the product really got the dirt that other products couldn’t get off of your windows.

Step three- Finding affiliate links

In order to get an affiliate link you need to sign up for an affiliate program like Amazon associates. From there you get the affiliate link for your product and that’s what you will use to link your customers and blog viewers to the products you want to talk about. Once they purchase the product from the link, you receive a small commission and make money from it.

If there is already a product you have in mind to purchase you can simply go to google and search the product name and “affiliate programs” and if there is an affiliate program linked to your product, it will usually pop up. If not, find the contact for the company and ask if there is an affiliate program for your product.

When inserting your affiliate links into your texts make sure that they are hyperlinked to words or phrases that pertain to your product. Add only one or two affiliate links per blog post to not clutter your posts. Add visuals to your content that will make it more appealing to your viewers. Adding photos and videos about the product will help keep your readers interested.

Step 4- Creating an email list

One important part of creating an affiliate marketing blog is your email list. This is where your readers will input their email addresses so that they can be notified about content you post. You always want to invite your readers back for more. There are a few strategies for doing this.

The first strategy is to offer them a free product. For example, if your blog is about cooking and recipes, you may want to offer them a free recipe for putting their email address in. The next strategy is to have an email pop-up where you add a tag line that says something along the lines of “want to stay up to date with my latest posts? Input your email here to never miss a post from me!”. A great way to do this is through a widget from WordPress called Mail Chimp. This plugin for your blog will help you collect email addresses through newsletter subscription offers.

Step 5- creating a newsletter for your email list

When sending out your newsletters for your blog, you want to keep it short and interesting. You don’t want to give away your entire blog post in your newsletter email. You want your reader to want to go to your website to read more about what you have to offer.

It’s great to start sending a newsletter about once a week. Do this whenever you publish a blog post and use it as an opportunity to really hype up your post. When you start your newsletter, establish the goals you want to meet. This has to do with the amount of traffic you want to your blog, the engagement you want with your readers, and how you want to send out your content. The more readers are interested, the more traffic you're going to have coming into your blog.

Write your newsletter with care. Regardless of whether your newsletter is going to new or existing readers you want it to be well-crafted and comprehensive. Check your letter for typos and use a conversational tone when speaking to your audience. Make sure you include your call to action. Ask your reader to click a button that says “click here for more information” or something along those lines. Your call to action is how you are going to get your readers to come back to your website and become customers.

Step 6- Repeat the process

Once you find a niche and content that works for you and starts to bring you sales, repeat your process. The more dedication you put into your work, the better. Making sure your newsletter is going out to people often, and readers are staying up to date with your content makes all the difference in the world. When first creating your blog, it’s normal to not get a lot of viewers straight away. Don’t give up. The more you promote your blog through other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, the easier it is for other people to find your blog.

WordPress has a lot of tools to help you begin your affiliate marketing blog and run it without a struggle. Even if you’ve never worked with any free blogging platform and are just a beginner you can easily create a blog page for yourself that will be efficient and simple to run.

If you’ve enjoyed this step-by-step guide on creating an affiliate marketing blog consider checking out this free webclass to learn more strategies to apply to your business including how to make multiple high-ticket affiliate commissions each month marketing valuable products people already want to buy.

Try These SEO Secrets for Instagram

November 4, 2020 by David Sharpe Leave a Comment

Instagram is one of the most useful platforms to take advantage of in your internet marketing strategy.

In fact, 70% of US businesses are already doing so. It's easy to understand why business are using it as a tool when Instagram has 1 billion monthly users.

With so much content being produced, it's a little overwhelming to understand how to make your content stand out. There are many great theories and strategies out there. What one is proven to work the best?

By creating an Instagram SEO strategy, you can reach your target audience easier than ever before. The saying is, “work smarter, not harder”, so let's get you started with a smarter SEO strategy.

Instagram SEO Strategy

Creating a winning Instagram SEO strategy doesn't have to be all business, it can be fun too! You may be wondering what SEO even means. Let's break it down for you!

What Is SEO?

SEO is an acronym that stands for search engine optimization. It's a fancy way of describing the practice of taking advantage of internet searches. By understanding your audience, using keywords, and sprinkling in some creativity, you can use an SEO strategy to drive traffic towards your website.

Search engines will scan your website for keywords. Let's say someone just entered a search for “interior design trends”. If your website has this wording, it will show in that search.

Instagram + SEO

How can you take this marketing strategy to Instagram? Take advantage of using keywords in hashtags. Creating a hashtag SEO strategy will generate more leads and more engagement with your audience.

Using the right keywords in your hashtags will help your brand become more visible. Combine that with some great content, and you've got a recipe for success.

Build Your Strategy

You are looking to build your own Instagram SEO strategy, but how do you know which keywords to choose? Building any successful marketing strategy starts knowing where you are at, and defining your optimization goals.

Define Your Goals

Having clearly defined goals for your SEO strategy is important in understanding whether or not it’s worth your time. If implemented well, it always will be.

Before you begin rolling out a new strategy, it's important to create a list of goals, or things that you’d like to see improvement on. Some great goals to have when creating an Instagram SEO strategy are:

Increased organic traffic
Increased social media activity
Increased sales

In order to ensure that you reach your goals, you will need to know your audience.

Know Your Audience

Marketing strategies begin with knowing your customer. By knowing your audience you can tailor each post to your unique customer's needs.

By analyzing your audience's interactions with your posts, you can learn about them, and get to know them. By interacting with your audience you can learn important things about them.

You can learn things like:

What things is your audience searching for?
Where are your customers located?
What motivates your audience to purchase something?
What hashtags are they using?

Knowing your audience will assist you with choosing a hashtag that your target audience is searching.

If your target audience is orthodontists in New York, you probably won't choose #redpanda as a hashtag.

Learn From Competitors

By looking to other leaders in your industry, you can learn a thing or two from their internet marketing. Analyze what they are doing. You can learn from it what works (and what doesn't).

Take the best of what they do and tweak it so it's customized for your audience. Pay attention to which hashtags they are choosing. Which ones are driving the most traffic?

Not sure how to tell which ones are driving traffic? Search the hashtags your competitors are using, to see which ones are used the most.

Keep It Simple

Keeping your hashtags simple will ensure that they are easy to remember for your audience. Being easy to remember means that customers will use them.

Not only will keeping it simple help build your audience, but it will also help the aesthetic of your Instagram post. Having long or complicated hashtags can make your post look messy or unprofessional.

Less is definitely more when using a hashtag.

Let the Fun Begin!

Now that you know keywords are important, and where to look for them, it's time to start creating posts! How do you create posts with keywords that look natural? We are glad you asked!

Use the Right Amount

Remember how we said less is definitely more when it comes to using hashtags? Research has found that Instagram posts with too many hashtags, is seen as “spammy”. So how many hashtags should you be using?

There are many different opinions on how many hashtags you should be using. Some people suggest using a maximum of 30 hashtags. Others advocate that using the maximum is too much, and 5-6 hashtags are sufficient.

Regardless of how many hashtags you choose to use, the important thing to remember is to choose hashtags that are relevant to what your posting, and to your audience.

Be Creative

There are many ways to be creative with your SEO strategy on Instagram.

One way to take advantage of hashtags is to look to the days of the week for inspiration. Not only will using the days of the week keep you consistent in delivering great content, but it's also something everyone can use (AKA a great way to expand your reach)!

Here are some great examples:

Monday: #MondayMotivation, #MondayVibes, #MondayMood, #

Tuesday: #Tuesday, #TransformationTuesday, #TuesdayThoughts

Wednesday: #WednesdayWisdom, #WednesdayVibes, #WednesdayMood

Thursday: #ThrowbackThursday, #ThursdayVibes, #ThursdayMood, #TBT

Friday: #FeelGoodFriday, #Frinally, #FridayMotivation

Saturday: #SaturdaySelfie, #SaturdaySunshine, #Caturday (if you're a cat lover)

Sunday: #SundayFunday, #SundayVibes

Another creative idea is to brand a hashtag. Create a hashtag just for your business. Some great examples are the State of Michigans hashtag #puremichigan or REI's hashtag #optoutside.

Be Relevant

Remember to take advantage of those keywords! Take advantage of trending hashtags too – as long as they are relevant to what you are posting. If it isn't relevant to your post, your audience may view your choice as a spam attempt.

If what you are offering is keto coffee, you may want to choose hashtags such as #coffee, #keto, or #healthyliving. You wouldn't want to tag #starbucks just because it may be a trending hashtag.

Unless of course, it was relevant to your post. Maybe your business is partnering with Starbucks, and you are announcing that partnership. If that was the case, then using that hashtag would be appropriate.

Use a Hashtag Generator

Not sure which keywords to use for Instagram? Try using a hashtag generator. You can download hashtag generators for free on your phone. A simple one to use is #HashMe.

Once you enter in a keyword to search, the app will find you 30 or more hashtags that are related.

We tried it out and chose “cats” as our keyword. Check out some of the results below!

#cat #gato #meow #kitty #catofthedat #officecat #beantoes #purrfect #ilovemycat #catlovers

Work with a Marketing Firm

By working with a marketing firm you can learn the necessary marketing skills to thrive with confidence in the online marketplace. Working with an expert takes the guesswork out of creating a great SEO strategy.

A marketing firm can help you grow your business using online and cutting edge marketing strategies.

Inspire Your Audience

Using the right keywords is one way to encourage engagement from your audience. Your goal with an Instagram SEO strategy is to inspire your audience to take action.

Inspiring your audience could be as simple as getting them to share your post. It could be to get them to visit your website or buy your product. Inspiring your audience to action is also known as a call to action.

To make a lasting impression with your audience try something unique, like Disney.

Disney has always inspired us. They partnered with Twitter with the #ShareYourEars campaign for Make A Wish Foundation and raised over 3 million dollars.

Create a Winning Strategy

In order to create a successful marketing strategy in today's culture, you need to go where your customers are. That means going digital and interacting with your target audience on social media.

Instagram is a great landscape to grow your audience. There are many ways to incorporate Instagram into your SEO marketing strategy. One great way is to take advantage of the hashtags.

If you are looking for some more great marketing tips,

including how to make multiple high-ticket affiliate commissions each month marketing valuable products people already want to buy, watch our brand new free webclass while access is still free.

15 of the Best Stay at Home Business Ideas

November 4, 2020 by David Sharpe 1 Comment

Recently, at least 43% of Americans reported spending at least some time working remotely.

Many industries embrace remote work and view it as an opportunity to offer employees increased flexibility. Some studies show that these employees are more productive.

Due to the pandemic of 2020, more and more Americans started working from home.

If you are a stay-at-home parent, recent retiree, or an employed individual looking to make extra cash, a stay at home business could be an excellent way to improve your financial situation without confusing your schedule.

Here are fifteen of Legendary Marketer's favorites:

1. Freelance Writer

Perhaps you always got A's on your high school English papers, or maybe you simply have a knack for crafting a sentence.

Freelance writers can work from their living rooms, favorite coffee shops, or even on vacation. Any location with reliable internet service can serve as your temporary office.

In order to become a freelance writer, you will need a solid grasp of grammar and tone, as well as the ability to do research. Don't be afraid to write some articles for free when you are just starting out. Well-written pieces with your own byline will make for a great portfolio you can show off to potential employers.

It may help to find a niche that you have a lot of expertise or experience in. You may be an ace at finding online shopping deals, for example. Or you might have discovered a great way to teach kids about science.

It is important to know, however, that publications may be looking for articles on other topics. Don't be afraid to do a little research to round out your portfolio, and to develop your knowledge base. You may find that the topics you previously found boring are actually nuanced and engaging.

Many writers enjoy ghost-writing because they can earn money freelance writing, even if they have to forego a byline.

Knowing more than one language will make you even more marketable as a freelancer. It allows you to help your publisher reach new audiences both domestically and internationally.

2. Virtual Assistant

While administrative work can become routine, some of it pays very well. Busy executives are willing to save money on full-time assistants by outsourcing tasks to remote workers.

Virtual assistants need to be very organized. You may help with writing e-mails, scheduling shipments, setting appointments, organizing files, or booking flights.

It is important for virtual assistants to keep lists and work meticulously. Part-time virtual assistant work is great for stay-at-home parents, who can complete their work while the kids or at school or during playdates. They can still oversee their at-home duties without foregoing an income.

3. Marketing and Blogging

Blogging is a great way to earn money marketing from home. Some people monetize their blogs through advertising.

Others use affiliate marketing, a kind of product placement, to make money from their blogging skills. Through this tool, you can get checks from companies by advocating their goods or services.

The trick is not to make your blog sound too pushy or sales-y. People will appreciate an honest recommendation.

There is no limit to how much you can make affiliate marketing. Some skilled marketers make up to $100,000 a year.

4. Social Media Manager

You may be great at managing your own social media profile. You have a great presence, and folks are always liking or sharing your photos or words of wisdom.

Many people pay good money for experts to promote their goods and services on social media, a forum where making a good impression has become indispensable.

You will be responsible for making a good impression and sharing content appropriately. It is also important to respond quickly to comments.

5. Data Entry

Whether you are working with others or independently, data entry has never been considered an exciting gig.

It can, however, pay very well, and it does not require you to grapple with facts and figures. You can throw in some laundry and listen to music while you earn money filling out tables from home.

6. College Consultant

If you have any experience with the college admissions process, the job of a college consultant may be for you. You can earn great money helping students choose the best colleges for their career paths, fill out financial aid forms, and write essays. A consultant also advises parents on college savings plans and tax implications.

This job requires some knowledge of colleges and financial aid options. Preparing for it may involve some experience advising students. You can market yourself to high school guidance departments, tutoring services, libraries, and universities.

7. Teaching or Tutoring

If you have a background or degree in a field such as music, English, math, or art, you can earn great cash as a private tutor. You can schedule students around your own availability, making it possible to have another job or a family.

While many tutors go to student's homes, it is possible to work from home over Skype or Facetime. Be certain that you are prepared for each meeting and ready to give students your best encouragement and attention.

8. At-Home Thrift Shop

A thrift shop is a great way to start an at-home sales business because you won't have to pay anything for your inventory until it is sold. Once you sell it, you can split your profits 50/50 with the person providing the items. Sometimes the split is 60/40, with the higher percentage going to the thrift shop owner.

Recycled clothes are regaining popularity, and many people don't like to spend a lot of money on clothing. This is especially true for parents, whose children outgrow clothes almost every season.

Start by selling clean, well-cared for items on sites like Etsy or E-Bay. You can then create a brand or identity for your thrift store, and bring regular customers to your site. As you build a reputation, more sellers will come to you with quality items.

9. Graphic Designer

If you have an education or talent in graphic design, you can earn excellent cash from the comfort of your home.

Many business owners would love to promote themselves through flyers, brochures, pamphlets, or catalogs, but have no idea where to start.

As a graphic designer, it is your job to create logos and artwork, as well as consult with printers about paper and cover stocks.

You can market your services to ad agencies, publishing companies, or manufacturers. Once you build a reputation, you will have more control about who you work for, as well as your deadlines.

10. At-Home Healthcare Worker

Working as an at-home healthcare aid does not require a nursing degree. As the baby-boomer population gets older, there is an increasing demand for professionals to help seniors with bathing, fixing meals, and cleaning the house. And with the costs of assisted living skyrocketing, private healthcare workers are becoming more and more employable.

As an at-home healthcare worker, you will have a flexible schedule that will allow you time for your family or another job. Be sure to check on your state's legal requirements for healthcare workers first, especially if you plan on administering medications.

11. Cleaning Business

Starting a cleaning service requires little overhead. All you need is a vehicle and the right cleaning products.

Build your reputation by listening to your clients and providing exactly what they want. Be sure that your service is detailed and professional.

Once you are well-known, you can begin charging more. Some house-cleaners make as much as $180 an hour!

12. Spa-Party Business

This is a great way to earn extra cash with little startup costs. If you have a knack for braiding hair or giving manicures, consider going into clients' homes to give at-home spa parties for children. All you will need are some great nail-polish colors and a lot of enthusiasm.

Some spa party professionals like to add extras such as foot tubs and fluffy robes. As your business grows, you can begin investing in more services to offer clients, which will, in turn, boost your revenue.

13. Pet-Sitting or Dog-Walking

Before starting a pet-sitting or dog-walking business, it is wise to check online and scope out the competition in your area. You may find that there are a lot of people in your community offering dog-walking services, in which case you may want to consider a different avenue.

If, however, you look on social media and discover that a lot of people seem eager to find a reputable pet professional, you are in a great market. Know that you may have to get a general business license before you start.

14. Transcriptionist

Many transcribing companies are willing to work with beginners. If you can pass a preliminary transcription test, you can get a job making up to $50 an hour. You do not need more background than a high school diploma.

General transcription is a great way to start. You can earn great money typing personal conversations, business meetings, or college lectures as quickly as you can.

Many transcriptionist jobs are work-from-home. As you continue to work, your typing will get faster and your work will become easier.

15. Personal Chef

If you're an ace in the kitchen, you can increase your income by serving up delicious cuisine in private homes. Consider setting yourself apart in a specialty niche such as vegan cooking or gluten-free dishes to cut down on the competition.

As with other flexible jobs, some experience or formal training will go a long way toward making you more marketable. Consider taking some cooking classes or using online tutorials to improve your skillset.

Start Your Stay At Home Business

A stay at home business is a superb way to increase your income without sacrificing your personal life.

If you would like to learn how to earn money from home watch this free video which will walk you through our #1 recommended way to work from home and bring in a substantial income.

Home Business Tips: Creative Marketing Ideas

May 9, 2019 by David Sharpe 4 Comments

Amazing fact: The United States is home to a whopping 30.2 million small businesses.

An even more amazing fact: 69% of startup businesses started right at their owners' homes! And of established small businesses, 59% are home-based.

So, if you've been thinking of starting your own home-based business, you're on the right track. You may even have started operations already! You have a well-stocked product inventory and you know what to say to close those sales.

But all that won't take you anywhere unless people know that your business exists.

That's why it's time you learn about the best creative marketing ideas to make a splash in the market.

But what exactly are these marketing tactics that will make people's heads turn your way?

Don't worry if you have no idea where to start. We'll show you how to do your small business marketing right, so make sure you keep reading!

Set up a Blog

Did you know that every month, some 409 million people read a staggering 20 billion blog pages? That means people read about 43,800 blog pages every minute! That’s how big blogs are, proving how crucial they are to catching the attention of consumers.

One of the best things about blogging is that it provides you a creative way to tell the story of your business. It gives you complete control over how you want to portray your business. You choose which keywords to use and follow your own creative processes.

More than that, it allows you to reach the 4.3 billion Internet users worldwide with a few clicks of a button. And it works because it already gives readers something of value — without them having to pay for it first!

But for your blogs to be effective, they need to contain information that your target readers can use. At the same time, it has to be relevant to your business. Otherwise, they'll only annoy your visitors once they find out that they're on the wrong page.

For instance, if you have a home baking business, then your blog posts should (for the most part) be about baking. A bit of cooking or other kitchen-related posts are also okay. What’s not is stuff about plumbing, air conditioning, or furniture-making!

Also, be sure you give your blog site constant updates. If you can, include at least one blog post a day in the list of daily goals you set for yourself. The more useful info people can get from your site, the higher your traffic can get, and the more leads you can covert.

Work SEO into Your Blog Posts

SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. It's the “free”, “natural”, or “organic” way to drive traffic to a website. It's how Internet users enter keywords in a web browser, and they get relevant search results.

Although that makes it free on a technical level, it's an industry said to be worth $80 billion by 2020.

Before objecting and saying “I don't have the money for that”, know that you don't have to spend big bucks to start with SEO. But you do need extensive target market and keyword research. From there, incorporate your findings into your unique, valuable, and high-quality blog posts.

You need to optimize your blog posts because this makes it easier for search engines to find them. By using the right keywords, search engines can “pick up” your site faster. This then gives you better chances of ranking high on search results.

There are more factors — like 200 more factors — that go into site rankings than keywords though. But as a newcomer to SEO, you can first focus on curating quality content and proper keyword use. Make sure you also link to highly-valuable resource sites as needed!

Keep Your Customers’ Eyes Glued to the Page with Video

The human brain is so amazing it can process an image in only 13 milliseconds.

No wonder then that people love images more than they do simple, written text!

It's also no surprise that people watch a billion hours of YouTube videos every single day.

After all, unlike images, videos move and come with a more complete story. Because it's a visual story, the brain can process videos faster than photos.

All these make videos some of the best creative marketing tools your new business should use. In fact, they’re a must-have to create the ultimate online marketing campaign.

Exceptionally-made videos can fuel your site visitors' interest faster than written text alone. They also allow you to highlight the best features of your products or services. Your potential customers will already have a better idea of what to expect when they pay for your goods.

Plus, it's not necessary to invest in video equipment that can cost thousands of dollars. You can use your smartphone, so long as it takes high-resolution videos. Take time in planning your video's storyline though, and make sure you edit it before you upload it!

Humanize Your Brand through Vlogging

Speaking of videos, another creative way to market your business is through vlogging. It's much like blogging, wherein you become a story-teller or an advice-giver. It's also a platform to disseminate valuable information your target market can use.

The main difference is that you share these pieces of information through videos. And that you – the storyteller – appear in the videos.

Since people will see you in your vlog posts, they'll have a face to attach to a name. That already humanizes your brand, making it appear more approachable.

You can also vlog in real-time, which makes you even more “human” in the eyes of viewers. Vlogs also have a more personal approach, since you speak to your viewers directly. People can relate to you (and your business) better, so you have better chances of engaging them.

Socialize (and Engage) on Social Media

In the U.S. alone, almost seven in 10 adults are on Facebook. Of these people, three-fourths log in to their accounts every day. What's more, 43% of them use the social media site to get their daily dose of news.

So, why not become one of those sources of information or news? As soon as you've uploaded a blog or vlog post, share it on your Facebook page. And if people comment on it, hit them back with custom responses.

Remember, people don't like it if they're ignored. So, make sure that you track your FB page's activity so you can send out prompt responses. It's also a good idea to be witty and funny, which can further humanize your brand and make it more approachable.

Give Them Goodies

When Krispy Kreme opened a branch in Cardiff, Wales, over a thousand people lined up for more than two hours.

The reason?

Free donuts.

That's only one example of how freebies can get so much attention. And let’s face it, everyone likes freebies, whether they're free samples or giveaway items.

That said, consider giving away free items, say, when people sign up for your newsletter. This can be any small but usable item that has your brand stamped on it. From pens to mugs to USBs and eco-bags, there's a lot of promotional items you can choose from.

Best of all, they're not expensive, especially if you get them in bulk. Which is great, because the more you “give away”, the more branding opportunities you have. But make sure you use interesting and creative designs when branding your freebies!

You may also want to offer discounts using creatively-designed online coupons. Don’t settle for regular or boring ones that only say “25% Discount Off”. Use witty descriptions, imagery, or bold fonts so that they can grab people’s attention right away.

Host a Contest

Humans are competitive in nature, and studies found several reasons behind this. There's the desire to win, which then motivates us to exert effort. There's also the satisfaction of performing well, and if we win, proof that we performed better.

Of course, there's also the possibility of getting a prize after winning.

Which is why contests should be part of your internet marketing campaigns. Since people like competitions, be it for the prize or recognition, they're likely to join or sign up. This can then lead to a spike in your online engagement rates.

Use these Creative Marketing Ideas to Get More Leads and Conversions Now

As you can see, there are various ways to use your creativity to get your target market's attention. At the same time, the ones we mentioned are also scientifically-proven. That combination is what makes these creative marketing ideas work so well.

So, as early as now, include them in your online marketing campaign! The sooner you do, the sooner you may see your home-based business' website and foot traffic rise.

Interested in advancing your marketing skills and know-how? Then be sure to check out our free course!

creative marketing ideas

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

How To Become an Affiliate Marketer

Choose Your Niche

Build Your Platform and Gain Followers

Create Content and Start Marketing

Know The Regulations

Ditching 9-5

Choose a Niche

Research the Market

Find Your Competition

Operate Online

Start With Profit

Use Two Revenue Streams

Productize Your Services

Build a Marketing and Sales Plan

The Best Business Model to Choose

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

What About That “Affiliate Link?”

How Do Affiliate Links Work?

More on Affiliate Marketing

Instagram SEO Strategy

What Is SEO?

Instagram + SEO

Build Your Strategy

Define Your Goals

Know Your Audience

Learn From Competitors

Keep It Simple

Let the Fun Begin!

Use the Right Amount

Be Creative

Be Relevant

Use a Hashtag Generator

Work with a Marketing Firm

Inspire Your Audience

Create a Winning Strategy

1. Freelance Writer

2. Virtual Assistant

3. Marketing and Blogging

4. Social Media Manager

5. Data Entry

6. College Consultant

7. Teaching or Tutoring

8. At-Home Thrift Shop

9. Graphic Designer

10. At-Home Healthcare Worker

11. Cleaning Business

12. Spa-Party Business

13. Pet-Sitting or Dog-Walking

14. Transcriptionist

15. Personal Chef

Start Your Stay At Home Business

Set up a Blog

Work SEO into Your Blog Posts

Keep Your Customers’ Eyes Glued to the Page with Video

Humanize Your Brand through Vlogging

Socialize (and Engage) on Social Media

Give Them Goodies

Host a Contest

Use these Creative Marketing Ideas to Get More Leads and Conversions Now

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Online Marketing Education
Delivered Simply And With Integrity.