As the internet continues to expand in the world of business, so does our options as to how to make money with it. The most common options-to-date for making money online is affiliate marketing and e-commerce/drop shipping. Here in this article, I will attempt to explain the two business marketing platforms, the “do’s” and “do not’s” of getting started, and how to make your e-commerce/drop shipping and/or affiliate marketing website a big success.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is partnering with companies to help sell their products via advertisement, website, and/or social media. When you agree to be an affiliate for a company, you are agreeing to sell their product for a % commission in return. Often people who do this usually have already a subscriber base where they either email to their subscribers periodically and solicit that way, place a banner and link on their own website to promote the product, and/or place an advertisement of the product with Google Ads, Facebook, Pinterest and other social media platforms linked to a landing page to their website and receive a commission once someone purchases that product. 

Partnering as an affiliate can be inexpensive because there are (usually) no membership fees nor upfront products to buy. What companies normally require the interested partner do is subscribe to their product site, and in return, the affiliate is granted access to their links and banners, email promotion scripts, drips, etc. A lot of them will also send tips and other useful information to help the affiliate succeed in selling their product. When a product is sold, everything is taken care of on the end of the company. The affiliates only job is to collect the commission which is usually alerted to the affiliate by either email or their affiliate dashboard, and payment is made via Paypal account or check.

Becoming an affiliate partner is usually free to join. In many cases, you can type into the search engine “company name/affiliate” and the link provided will take you to the company affiliate’s page where you will be instructed to join.

Once you’ve entered the company’s portal, you will gain access to their promotional images, banners, links, and tools that can be embedded into your website. To learn more about how to become a successful affiliate marketer, subscribe to affiliate marketing educators, Clickbank University or Wealthy Affiliate   .

What Is e-Commerce/Drop Shipping?

E-Commerce/Drop shipping is a little different compared to affiliate marketing. With both, you do not need to store real, physical products, nor need to worry about spending any upfront money for inventory. You are strictly just the promoter who will advertise the product via your website, advertisements and/or social media. What makes e-commerce/drop shipping and affiliate marketing different is that when you partner with a drop shipping company you are often charged a one-time, monthly, or yearly membership fee ranging from $20-$150 or more, depending on the company. 

What also sets e-commerce/drop shipping apart from affiliate marketing is that instead of only using banners and promotional links to promote a product on your website, you will be encouraged to set up your own products page. To set up your products page, simply copy and paste or upload an image of the item you wish to sell along with the item’s description, weight, price, and “add to cart” or “buy now” button(s). You will be solely responsible for setting the prices of the item, its taxes, and shipping. When a customer has placed an order on your website you will need to place the same order on the company’s website that you are promoting. Once the company has received your order, it will take care of all of the shipping to your customer with the name of your company, logo, and address on the product label.

To make things a lot easier for those who wish to drop ship, there are several pre-designed, e-commerce stores such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Weebly, Squarespace among others that have already built in product pages, cart, checkout, as well as a smooth transitional set up that automatically uploads the products from drop shipping companies onto your website. And when a customer orders from your website it automatically registers the purchases being made from your website to the drop shipping company’s website. Again, the drop shipping company will ship all products to your customer with your company name, logo, and address on the product label. 

Not Sure What To Do?

Here Are Some Ideas On How To Make Money From Home

How Do I Select The Perfect Affiliate And Drop Shipping Products For My Website?

Just like most things in life is trial and error, finding the perfect affiliate and drop shipping products can also come with a lot of trial and error, especially if you are expecting to get rich off of just the concept of finding products online to sell. In order to prevent yourself from experiencing a quick burnout, find out which niche market you are most passionate about, create your website and fill it with wall-to-wall content related to your niche, increase traffic to your site then choose your products once you’ve established your brand. From there, you can make better choices that will ultimately get you closer to selecting the perfect affiliate and drop shipping products for your website.

Having a website where you’ll be selling affiliate and drop shipping products requires a lot of work and if you are not passionate about what you do then most likely you won’t be passionate about the products either.  Customers can usually tell when your sole aim is just to sell them something or if you’re genuinely wanting to help in some way when you are sharing a product. So if you are investing your time into trying to get others convinced about a product that you yourself are not convinced about, you will become very frustrated about your business and simply give it all up. 

How To Turn A Passion To A Profit

Once you’ve found the niche that you are passionate about and you are continuously creating lots of informative content, you are learning the ends and outs of marketing to increase your website’s traffic, you are establishing your brand, you are choosing the right fit and feel of a product to promote instead of choosing it just because it is a product. It is now extremely important to learn how to master the art of writing persuasive copy.

As a Spirit Health Coach, I’ve found a lot of useful products on the internet that has helped me along my travels of self-discovery that I also love sharing with my community. Everything that you see here on my website is a deep, rooted passion of mine and passion is a very important energy current to have in place if you want any business to be a success. But passion alone does not help develop in me the skill of being an effective copywriter. So, while I’ve set out to learn how to write great, effective copy, I’ve also compiled a list of 10 tips and tools that has helped me learn how to write persuasive copy that has ultimately helped to grow my business from making $200 a month extra earned income to making $1,000 a month and growing. But first, before I share with you the secrets to the universe, allow me to explain a little about what “copywriting” actually is.

What Is Copywriting?

I see copywriting as a learned form of writing that is designed to influence the reader to want to learn more about a service or product. Usually (but not always) good copywriting begins with “why” the reader should be interested in reading your ad. Next, it should explain “what” the reader is being offered (end result). Last, your copy should explain “how” the reader will gain access to your service or product, paid or free. Here’s an example:

“Are you often unmotivated and too tired to have a life outside of work?

Get the energy and motivation that you need to create the life that you deserve by doing this one, simple life-hack every single day.

No, it’s not another vitamin for you to take, nor is it another yoga exercise.

Just by doing this single, rhythmic pattern every single day, you will begin feeling more clarity in your mind, more energized in your body, and more motivated about your life.”

Find out more.

Add your email and get this free, ebook offer today.

Are you a little bit curious? Would you be willing to opt-in to my website to find out what this single, rhythmic pattern is that you could do to get the clarity, energy, and motivation that you’re seeking? I’m no expert at copywriting, but I’m definitely a fervent learner, and I can honestly say that I’ve learned and I am still learning from some of the best in the copywriting industry. Here’s one of the many helpful resources that I’ve used to help with writing great copy that I’d also love to share. You can click on the link, What Is Copywriting And what Is Its Purpose, to read about how to write great, effective copy or you can watch this short, entertaining video below.

10 Tips On How To Write Great Copy

If you are into sales of any kind, it’s extremely important to know how to write persuasive content that will help you in your intentions to market and eventually sell your products and/or services. Here you will find a list of tips that have helped me tremendously in growing in my affiliate marketing and copywriting techniques.

1. Find your voice – every company or brand has its own unique personality when it comes to presenting itself to the world. Find that distinctive voice that will set you aside from the rest. If you’re humorous then use it to your advantage just as long as your humor furthers your goal. 
2. Create a swipe file – at first, I didn’t quite get this one but over time it has become a true best friend. A “swipe file” is simply a file where you stash a collection of your favorite ads, emails or other content materials that you felt were very persuasive. Use this file to get the juices flowing again when you are feeling stuck and/or unmotivated. 
3. Don’t write with cliché phrases – it’s easy to fall into this trap. I’m guilty of doing this myself from time to time. Simple clichés pop up into our minds with ease and they sound good. Well, don’t use them because just as they are readily available in your mind for use these same phrases will also be a quick turn-off for your audience because they’re just too obvious. Your reader will know if you’ve put in a good amount of thought into your ad and will appreciate your efforts when you have. 
4. Give your reader a reason to listen to you – again this goes back to the use of answering your reader’s “why” at the beginning of all great copy. We all usually want others to get to the point of a matter because we’ve all got things to do, so why should advertising be any different? Get to the point and don’t waste your reader’s time.
5.  Research the word count – this was a great tip that I learned from Splashcopywriters. Study content of your favorite brand. Make a note of how the word counts differ regarding certain intentions, like what were they trying to sell. When an advertiser is given a short window to persuade in, learning how to focus on the right words is what’s important.
6. Be rhythmic in your copy – to create a good feel and rhythm for your copy you must come to master the use of punctuation marks. Placing punctuation marks too much, too little, or not at all can make a huge impact on how persuasive your copy can be. 
7. Know your audience – visualize your reader and switch places with them. Try to come from their perspective as they’re scrolling through their emails or on the search engines. Imagine the kind of day a person may have had and what you could possibly help them with to alleviate the pain and/or frustration. This practice helps me a lot when it comes to writing copy for a certain product. The product becomes much larger in its purpose when approached from this angle.
8. Write in present tense – when writing, using the past tense is often equated with using a passive tone. “We receive great feedback” is far greater persuasive than “We have received great feedback” if you are wanting to influence your reader that you are a business that guarantees satisfaction.
9. Write less words to say more – I have a tendency to overboard my message. Don’t know what it is, but I can find a million and one things to say about any given topic (of interest)… blah, blah, blah. This tip continues to help me out with discerning between not providing enough of the much-needed content for my readers to have and having too much of just “space-fillers” on the page. When I look over some of my older content on this blog and elsewhere, I just sit and grin. Oh well, here’s to growth!
10. Use words that trigger – whether you are trying to move someone to subscribe or purchase a product, or donate money, knowing the words that will help trigger the right emotion is very important to successful copywriting. 

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