Well that wasn't helpful, was it? LOL.
The TL;DR version is that I wish I had not created a formal business, at least, not at first. I think once your affiliate marketing business gets rolling with a steady passive income, then yes, it becomes convenient to have a business structure with all of its benefits. Let's compare the Pros and Cons:
PROS
1. When you have a home-based business, there are some tax advantages such as writing off portions of your computer, office supplies, internet usage, phone bill, mobile device and laptop, square footage of office space.
2. Once you decide on a brand for your company, it is easier to set up legitimate business profiles on social media.
3. Affiliate aggregate sites like CJ.com will often prefer that you are incorporated than not.
4. Likewise, but not always, some affiliate businesses will only work with marketing companies, not individual marketers.
5. Incorporating can have a protective effect to your assets and person in the event of a negative event. Home-based companies can choose to have its income separate from your career wages. They can also purchase business insurance to cover for damages, accidents, or misunderstandings.
CONS
1. If you form a formal corporation, you will need to register it with the IRS.
2. So long as your business is active, you will need to file at least an annual report and pay a fee to register it. The report simply has to describe who your officers are (if more than just you), and what you have been up to. You could include a description of your expenses, income, and cashflow.
3. Typically, it is expected that most beginners will operate at a loss for several months to a year before getting enough commissions to cover costs of running the business.
4. The costs of running an affiliate marketing business can range from very little to thousands. Mostly what you are spending on at first is education - learning the ropes. Then, you may have to pay for some subscriptions or memberships to the companies you want to promote, so that you can understand how to promote them. Then, you can advance to vlog products and marketing accessories.
5. You will still have to report your commissions as income to the IRS, but without the tax benefits of owning a corporation and running your expenses and income through it.
Below are some articles you will find helpful as you think about your Business name, logo, tools, etc. But we will get into a LOT more detail on the rest of our site as we break down affiliate marketing strategies in step-by-step tutorials! :)
View the Online Business Tools Gallery below where we have hand picked content marketing tools that you can use to create and promote your content or favorite projects.
Or, you can click the button below to find out more about Affiliate Marketing Training.
Sprout Social is a great social media tool that links to various profiles and tracks engagement, enables single post creation for all profiles with an editing capability, and recommends optimal times for posting based on your own traffic analysis. Sign up for a A 30-day free trial and manage all of your social media campaigns on this all-in-one platform!
If you are looking to formalize your venture as a real business, consider incorporating with LegalZoom. With them, you can write off start up costs against your ordinary income, write off business expenses such as office supplies, travel, and lodging; you can also get tax deductions for your expenses. Additionally, they provide varying tiers of service including all manner of legal advice and paperwork. So why wait? Sign up with LegalZoom today and make your venture into a real business!
Starting your online business can be as simple as creating content for a blog site like Medium.com, or setting up your own website using services such as Wordpress.com and GoDaddy.com. You can also use LogoWorks.com to create a logo and brand name, or Canva.com to design social media posts and websites - all of which are essential components of a well-planned online business that will bring you success in the long run!
Who needs marketing training?
I'm pretty sure EVERYONE needs marketing training. Even if you don't have an online business, I have found that what I am learning about digital or online marketing can be applied even to my "day job".
Anyone can shoot a video or write a blog, but who is going to teach you how to write content, how to write ads that pay, how to promote your content to increase viewers, how to design sales funnels, how to monetize web links, how to effectively manage an email list, and how to expand your business.
Well, it just so happens I found a website that does ALL of that and more. It's called Legendary Marketer and they have a neat little challenge called the "15 Day Online Business Builder Challenge".
This Challenge guides you in a step-by-step process how to effectively launch an online business correctly. At the time of this writing, they were offering this challenge for just $7.
I took the challenge and was so hungry for the incredible content, that I watched all 15 videos in 3 days! Within 1 week, I launched my own website, and within 2 weeks, I was starting to write content and monetize links.
But not to be mistaken: this is not a "get rich quick" scheme. It will take time to watch the videos and do the tasks that they ask of you. But, by doing them, you will learn how the process works in promoting your business.
Now, they do happen to have an affiliate program too, but I was blown away by the amount of content that I learned from that challenge. You could literally stop at the end of the challenge and get started, but they do have other tiered services to learn even more.
You will learn the most from their Business Blueprints - accessible through the 15-Day Challenge. The Blueprints is a template for promoting just about ANY affiliate or crypto platform. Simple follow the steps to create a sales funnel using your Affiliate ID that they give you, and start linking all of your social media promotions to that!
If you want to learn more about Legendary Marketer and how they can help you launch and promote any online business, CLICK HERE.
What is a "Sales Funnel"?
This is like a guide for your site visitors or blog viewers to entice them to hang around and read or view your content. You can offer free and useful content.
There are a number of websites that can do this, ClickFunnels.com has the most education, tools, and step-by-step guides on how to use a sales funnel to monetize your social media content.
A sales funnel is often a MISSING KEY INGREDIENT in most attempts to launch an online business. This tool allows you to have viewers opt in with their email address for future content and offers on subsequent products or services you would like to offer them. Without that, you would lose access to repeat customers.
Technically, you could have a sales funnel for any affiliate link, however, keep in mind that not all affiliates have a reasonable payout. So, there are "small ticket" commissions which are either low commission rate or commission on a low cost offer. Then there is "high ticket" commissions which would be high rate of commission on a product or service.
So, in your search for affiliates, look for high ticket affiliates to make it a little more worth your while to provide content and drive traffic to these partners.
Another website where you can create funnels is Builderall. This web platform is an all-in-one where you can create funnels, full websites, ads, and includes email lists, newsblasts.
I use this website to create sales funnel web pages for the various affiliates that I like to promote. I also use this platform to manage some of my subscriber lists.
It also includes handy-dandy tools like URL shorteners. This comes in handy when you are posting to social media like Twitter where you only have a limited number of characters that you could use.
One feature I think is especially cool, is their Website Chatbox. Enable this for your website or funnel, and it is like a little AI receptionist for people that want more information or would like to contact you. An email will show up in your inbox telling you that you have a message. Simply answer it in the email, and it sends it to the customer!
So, I've told you that a key component that is often missed by newbies is a sales funnel. This is because it allows you to capture "leads" by including some kind of opt-in page for visitors' email addresses for follow ups. People that arrive at your funnel are people that are interested in what you have to say.
Ok, well now what?
Glad you asked! Some sites have email list management included. But there are some services that specialize in email management including a feature of being able to schedule content follow ups on certain days and times!
Check out Aweber.com for more information. What I like about this website is that it has design templates so that your email newsletters appear professional and enticing.
They also have a nice feature that will automatically take people off your lists when people unsubscribe, so that your content emails don't become known as spam.
I use Aweber as my main email management system due to their robust tools and compliance. There are some laws against SPAM, so I like that they have already integrated that when you start setting up lists, campaigns, and email blasts.
The new trend these days are short videos that people can swipe easily. This comes in the form of TikTok, and Facebook and Instagram Reels.
Pictory AI is a powerful video creation platform to assemble SEO optimized videos in minutes!
What you do is you create a script with either Jasper.ai or Automatic script (both featured on this page), and paste it into the platform.
The platform will then use its AI to search for short, professional-looking video clips to match each portion of your video. You have the option to change the video or the script to your liking, or even use your own images. The video clips are all safe to use without copyright infringement.
They also have an assortment of music overlays.
For the beginner, you could stop there. But, what I like to do, is combine ALL of these tools to create a complex but custom video for my promotional efforts. I do this by assembling the various components, like from Automatic Script or Jasper for the SEO content, then the video from Pictory, Doodly, or Toonly, then overlay that with custom voice AI from Synthesia, and top it off with sound effects and music from Camtasia!
Here is your link for a FREE TRIAL - No Credit Card Required
Writer's block?
Writing articles that engage readers can take a lot of time. Most of my blog articles about crypto take 4 hours to write because of the research needed to "back up" the story.
But, for the most part, I use Jasper in many ways. I like using it because it can optimize it to rank well on web browsers. The platform AI can write for you anywhere from blog articles, social media posts, to sales funnels and website content. It says 1 hour on the ad, but the fastest article I've ever written was 10 minutes - and remember, the more content you get out there, the more likely you will be noticed!
They have organized their platform with templates. Simply click on the one you want, and it will ask you for a subject, keywords you would like to use, and the 'tone of voice' - educational, witty, friendly, and more!
A new feature is their Jasper Art. This tool will scour the internet, based on your search criteria, to construct custom images ready to download. Many of the images on my website are from Jasper Art!
Here is your link to a FREE TRIAL - Use this link to claim 10,000 Words FREE!
This is one of my favorite platforms. It is an AI Avatar person with variable voiceover technology.
Synthesia allows you to enter any script, like from Automatic Script or Jasper (featured on this page), and paste it into something like a slide show. For now, you can have a maximum of 6 slides, but you can generate multiple videos and link them together in a video editing software like Camtasia if you want a longer video.
Then, you can select from a library of people avatars and a wide selection of voiceovers and languages. You can choose any voice for any character! They even have one that is Santa Clause! LOL
This is a great tool to create "faceless" videos where you do not want to show your own face. Instead, use this computer-modified version of a real person, speaking the language you want, and mouthing the words to the script you just entered!
What I like to do is download the video. While I sometimes use the avatar, many times I will use Camtasia to separate the audio from the video, and just use the voiceover. I do this because it gives the video a clean, stutter-free narration ... no more "uhhh" and "ummm", LOL
Here is your link to create a free AI video with Synthesia!
Have you heard of the term SEO?
It stands for Search Engine Optimization. This pertains to making your website, ads, or social media posts rank well with internet search engines.
You'll be glad to know that there are easy tools out there to do the 'heavy lifting' for you!
Automatic Script is one of them. This platform has SEO templates for generating written content that you can use for websites, blogs, sales funnels, and social media posts. You can even use it to generate scripts for videos!
The way that it works is they have sections where it gives you an example of what to write for each section. For instance, it will say "enter a common problem in this niche that most people have". It will then give a random example of that. Then it will ask you what obstacles are commonly faced, again with an example. Then, it might ask you what you have to offer and how it will provide a solution to that problem.
Then, the platform will generate an SEO optimized script that you can download and use for your various marketing campaigns!
I think video Reels and Tik Tok are the way to go for social media marketing. Even YouTube has come out with a short-video version of their own.
The Tik Tok videos are between 15 seconds and 1 minute, so it's easy for viewers to quickly scroll through various videos of interest.
So, what I like to do is introduce principles on Tik Tok, then ask viewers to check out my website and YouTube channel where I am creating playlists of various videos promoting my content.
I learned to do this with a marketing training course called 15 Second Free Leads and has specific training on how to maximize your Tik Tok channel for content marketing.
They discuss how to create content and strategies to cross-link with your other social media "properties", how to format your Tik Tok channel, insider hashtags that are getting success, and expert tips on how to cater to Tik Tok viewers.
Click the link below if you would like to know more about maximizing and monetizing your Tik Tok channel. The course is only $1 and it also INCLUDES access to the 15-Day Online Business Builder Challenge where they teach you how to launch a commission-generating webpage or social media page in just 15 days. Normally that Challenge is $7, but (as of this writing) they include it with this training course! Priceless!!
15 Second Free Leads course For Just $1
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