Have you ever wondered exactly what we mean by having an online business and what is it we do, exactly, to earn a sustainable income online?
The thing is we use the interchangeable terms ‘Online Marketing', ‘Internet Marketing', Online Home Business' all to frequently without explaining what they mean!
So to remedy that – we shot a video – standing outside a restaurant in Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts (Click the video to play)
So, we're dining at The Lobster Pot because a really good friend of ours recommended we try it out!
Have you ever done that? Ever tried a restaurant because someone said it was good, and they salivated over the food they'd ordered?
Better still – have you ever recommended a restaurant you had a delicious meal at yourself?
Anyway, we ‘took the plunge' even though neither of us are big lobster lovers (weird, we know, coming from an island nation!)
We've got absolutely no idea what it was going to be like but . . . we trust our friend, as we've been round to his house for dinner many, many times. He's a great cook.
So we gave it a go!
BUT . . . when we arrived, we learned there was a 45 minute wait!!!!
We were handed a plastic lobster and headed to a neighbouring bar for a pre-dinner drink.
Here's what happens next (click video to see):
That's our call up!
We're finally going to discover what the hype is all about.
When we're seated (by a window overlooking the bay), we're handed a massive menu each, and we see the restaurant is packed out. Which is a really good sign.
There's loads of social proof.
There's a lot of choice on the menu, so it takes us about 10 minutes to decide what we're going to eat. We can see it's really popular by all the people eating there. So we believe our friend really knows what he's talking about.
Cut To The Chase – The Point Is . . .
But what if our friend could have made money out of recommending that restaurant to us??
And what if we could recommend this restaurant to you and make money in the process??
Because The Lobster Pot isn't cheap. Hardly any of the main courses are under $30, yet it's still packed out. So it's obviously got a very good reputation (so they probably don't need an affiliate scheme to help promote it).
It certainly helps that the food was delicious – cleared plates all round!
But the point is: by recommending a restaurant, recommending a book on Amazon, recommending anything you love, is a way of making commission income.
And that's what affiliate marketing is all about.
Affiliate Marketing is recommending products you love and being paid for that recommendation.
As an affiliate marketer, all you do is you refer or recommend someone to a particular product – preferably something you've tried and love yourself because it's proven. It's so much easier to sing the praises of something you have first-hand experience of. Plus it's way more authentic.
All affiliate marketplaces have systems in place to be able to track your recommendation and to track your referees purchases, to ensure you get paid the commission you earned.
So it's a proven model, AMAZON do it all of the time, and it's just a way of referring people to something you love, and you make money in the process.
IMPORTANT: referee purchasers will pay the same price whether someone like you referred them or not!
So if you want to find out a little bit more about it, we've written a series of 5 blog posts on all you need to know about affiliate marketing and starting out as an affiliate marketer.
The five posts will take a bit of reading, which will take some time, but seriously there's a lot for you to learn in these blog posts.
You can be an affiliate marketer, just like we are, that's how we manage to live a laptop lifestyle.
We refer people to other products and services, just like The Lobster Pot, that we love that we've used ourselves – and receive a commission for our efforts.
So click the link below to read the first in our our series of 5 blog posts about Affiliate Marketing – and there'll be a link in the first post that leads to the next one:
ALERT: Embrace Affiliate Marketing For A Life That Matters
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Hi Greg and Fiona! That restaurant looked amazing! Affiliate marketing really is a brilliant model that complete newbies can take full advantage of and even build a 6 figure business out of! Thanks!
Thanks Hayley – what you say is so true – it’s a fab thing to learn about if you want to have a second income stream or want to replace your income entirely – no prior experience needed!