A lot of people are making a killing with affiliate marketing, even in 2023. But many others just can't ever get the hang of it, but all hope is not lost until you try the alternatives.
A lot of people have constantly asked me this question, “What are the best alternatives to affiliate marketing?” well, affiliate marketing is not the only way to make money online.
It is one of the most sustainable ways to earn consistent income from the internet, no doubt. Still, there are countless other alternatives that can generate the same amount of money as affiliate marketing would, or even more.
Below are the Top Ten best alternatives to affiliate marketing that any beginner can jump on and hopefully get better results than affiliate marketing:
- Content Marketing
- Information Marketing
- SaaS Websites
- Influencer Marketing
- Drop shipping
- Drop Servicing
- Sell your Own Product
- SEO Consulting
- Crypto Arbitrage
- Futures Trading
In the above list are the Top ten best alternatives to affiliate marketing, and the first on the list is content marketing, and for the benefit of those that would like to try out content marketing, I will now give a thorough explanation of the concept of content marketing below.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is simply the act of consistently creating very useful, and valuable content that is very relevant to a particular niche or topic, with the intention of growing a target audience in that niche. Apart from the money, they make from sales, advertisement, and sponsorships, content marketers make their money by selling reusable content like stock images and audio samples to other content marketers.
There are different formats that can be used for content marketing in 2023, thanks to the evolution of technology and social media.
Content marketing can now take several different forms, aimed at different audiences, and based on different criteria.
Contents created in each of the content types can be sold as reusable content or can be prepopulated by the creator for the purpose o sales and advertising.
Below are 7 types of content marketing that are ideal for different scenarios and different kinds of audiences.
Types of Content Marketing
Below are the 7 major types of Content Marketing:
- Video Contents Marketing
- Audio Contents Marketing
- Ebook Content marketing
- Blog Posts Marketing
- Email Content Marketing
- Slideshows Marketing
- Utilities Marketing
- Video Contents Marketing:
Video content marketing is the act of creating video content around a specific niche for the purpose of marketing and advertising products around that niche.
Video content can be long-form or short-form. An example of long-form content is a tutorial video of about 15 minutes in length, and an example of short-form content are youtube shorts, WhatsApp statuses, and Instagram stories that are usually under 3 minutes in length. Video contents are very interactive and can be used to build a very targeted audience for sales and advertisement purposes. - Audio Contents Marketing :
This is the act of creating valuable audio content around a specific topic or niche for the purpose of growing a concentrated audience in that niche, for the purpose of sales and advertising in the nearest future.
Examples of Audio content are audiobooks, podcasts, Twitter spaces, and other audio hosting platforms like youtube music and Audiomack. These platforms pay the content creator for ads directed to his or her audience. - Ebook Content marketing :
This is the act of creating a very helpful Ebook that covers a specific topic for the purpose of becoming an authority, or an influencer in that niche.
When a good ebook is published on publishing platforms like amazon KDP, it can generate huge earnings for the author, apart from that, The ebook will lead to the author having a very large following on all his social media platforms.
The author can then become an influencer in that niche. This translates to a lot of ad revenue and sponsorships for the author. - Blog Posts Marketing :
Blog posting is one of the oldest forms of content marketing.
Here the content creator writes meaningful articles around a specific topic and publishes them on a well-optimized website that gets massive organic traffic based on search relevance and how helpful their blog posts are, on average.
Bloggers make most of their revenue from ads and sponsorships, and there is no limit to how many views a blog post r could get every single month. - Email Content Marketing:
Email marketing is the act of sending out bulk emails to a categorized email list of people that are interested in a specific topic, for the purpose of sales and advertisement of helpful products and brands to the email list members.
Email marketing is one of the most important skills to learn in order to become a successful affiliate marketer, but is not limited to affiliate marketing.
Email marketers make money from sharing members-only information with their email list members. An email newsletter is very similar to blog posts but is usually based on timely content around a specific topic, event, and niche.
The content is usually very useful, so useful, that people are willing to pay the content creator for access to the newsletter. This is known as recurring membership to an email list, I do have one myself. - Slideshows Marketing:
Slideshows are very short but helpful ways of conveying information on a certain topic. Usually, slides do well on Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Skillshare, and even Facebook. - Utilities Marketing:
Utilities are a collection of very useful tools, usually hosted on a website. Tools such as SEO tools and site auditing tools are good utility tools, they can help audit people's websites, to generate useful reports and analytical data.
Utilities are static, they are not dynamic, but can be used and reused for different scenarios by the audience of the creator.
What is the best content marketing strategy?
A lot of content creators are usually enticed by numbers. They want to see more eyeballs on their content and most time to them it doesn't matter where the traffic is coming from.
Well, what if I tell you that a large following does not necessarily translate to large revenue, and this is based on a lot of factors like where your audience is watching from, and what your audience is interested in? And if your content marketing strategy is not the best, you will end up accumulating junk traffic, which will not necessarily be very valuable to brands and advertisers looking for a niched-down audience.
The best content marketing strategy is creating niched-down content that targets a specific audience, and not just creating content targeting a broad spectrum of audiences, this will translate to your content being very valuable to advertisers and brands.
The 2 Main Forms of Content Marketing
There are two major forms of Content marketing namely:
- Branded content marketing:
This is a type of content marketing done by brands for personal growth and the generation of personal sales and ad revenue. - Stock Content Marketing:
This is a type of content marketing where the content creator creates reusable content for sale to other content creators. Examples of these reusable contents are Stock images, icon packs, 3d models, 2d models, Sales copies, email swipes for email automation, and more.
Content marketing is the most effective way to market to a target audience, but requires consistency and, creating a lot of very helpful content. But what if I tell you that you can gather data online, analyze the data, and sell it to businesses for a very good amount at a recurring fee, this brings us to the next alternative to affiliate marketing, known as Influencer Marketing.
Information Marketing
A lot of people often interchange information marketing with content marketing, but there is a difference, and I will explain that in the next paragraph.
Information Marketing is simply the act of collecting statistical facts and data, based on different studies, research, and surveys, organizing the collected data, and selling the data to people that need them for their business.
The major players in the information marketing business are data analysts. Data analysts collect years of collated data and make sense of the data, then sell them as useful information to businesses in different industries.
Here are good examples of Information marketing websites that are not so obvious:
Examples of information marketing websites
- Similarweb.com:
Similarweb is an analytic website that scrapes other websites' data and makes useful information based on the scraped data. They sell this information to other website owners, so they can use it for competitive research and analysis for search engine optimization. - Ahrefs:
Ahrefs is a tool used for keyword research and SEO. They collect web search data and use it to estimate contents that would rank better in search engines. - Google:
Google is a search engine that scrapes websites and serves information to its users for free, and in return, they get to serve them helpful suggestions in form of ads.
SaaS websites
SaaS stands for “Software as a service”. This is when a website is set up for the purpose of solving problems using inbuilt tools. SaaS websites make their money when customers use their online services, and they also earn ad revenue from google.
A good example of SaaS websites is Ahrefs, Canva, Clickfunnels, Rebrandly, and many more websites that offer different services online.
Owning a SaaS website is always a great idea if you have the initial capital. But for those that don't have any money to set up a SaaS website, Influencer Marketing is the way to go.
Influencer marketing
Influencers are individuals with an insane amount of people following them on social media.
Influencer Marketing is simply the act of growing a huge amount of followership on social platforms, with the purpose of advertising and promoting multiple brands.
A typical influencer is anyone with up to ten thousand followers on any platform. While some influencers are more popular than others, your area of influence matters a lot. It could determine how much a brand is willing to pay you for a shout-out.
The major difference between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing is that an Influencer will get paid whether they make a sale or not Most influencers are paid upfront for their promos. Aside from influencer marketing, another very promising business model that is a good alternative to affiliate marketing is Dropshipping.
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is a very good alternative to affiliate marketing because just like affiliate marketing it doesn't require any capital to start. In dropshipping what the marketer does is copy and paste products from one website to another website, slightly increasing the price in order to make a profit.
In dropshipping all the fulfillment is done by the original owner of the product, and all the drop shipper has to do is track the delivery of the product.
For example, let's say I want to dropship a laptop that is currently being sold for $1000 on amazon, the first thing I would do is search the internet for that same product, identifying another marketplace that sells it for a higher price.
Then I would simply list the product on the other platform, let's say $1200, I would list the same product for $1100, on the website, and whenever anyone buys from me because mine is relatively cheaper, I would make a profit of $100 for that sale.
Just like dropshipping, there is another alternative to affiliate marketing that does not require capital to start, and it is none other than Dropservising.
Dropservicing
Dropserviving is simply the act of buying a freelancing service from one freelancing platform and reselling the same freelancing service on another freelancing platform.
I uploaded a youtube video showing exactly how drop-servicing can be done the right way, you can check it out
Apart from drop servicing, another alternative to affiliate marketing is selling your own product, and in the next paragraph, I will briefly explain how you can start selling your own product even as a beginner.
Selling your own product online
In affiliate marketing, not needing to have your own product was seen as a big advantage, but what if I tell you that it is all a matter of perception?
While affiliate marketing gives you the flexibility to market whatever product you want to, actually launching your own product, and having other affiliate marketers promote it for a commission is even better, than being an affiliate marketer.
Imagine all the skills that will be put into making sure that your product sells well, by all those very skilled affiliates. Well if you ask me I would say at this point it is very clear that owning your own product could potentially make way more money than promoting other people's products as an affiliate.
Apart from selling your own products through the help of affiliates, another very good alternative to affiliate marketing in 2023 is SEO Consulting.
SEO Consulting
Seo Consulting is the act of giving professional SEO advice to website owners and business owners in general. To do SEO consulting, you must have cracked the secrete to SEO, and how the algorithm works.
A lot of people are now into content creation, especially in 2023, which is why the demand for good SEO experts has skyrocketed. In my other article, I listed the best SEO tools that can be used for youtube and blogs as well, you can check it out. And even if you are just starting out as a beginner in Seo, Simply getting the right SEO tools will give you an edge over other content creators, you can then test the tools, and based on your usage you can give SEO advice, as a consultant and get paid handsomely for your opinion.
Apart from SEO consulting, another very lucrative alternative to affiliate marketing in 2023 is crypto arbitrage.
Crypto Arbitrage
Crypto arbitrage is the act of taking advantage of the difference in the price of a crypto asset, by actively tracking the price of that asset on different crypto platforms or crypto spaces. I have a playlist on arbitrage on my youtube channel, you can go check it out, to have a perfect idea of how arbitrage is done
There are different types of arbitrage trading and I have covered most of them in the video above but for the purpose of the reader of this article, below are the types of arbitrage:
Types of arbitrage trading
- Card arbitrage:
Card arbitrage is a type of arbitrage that is executed using debit or credit cards. It has to do with buying crypto with a card and selling via the p2p section on Binance. Cards are used when the transaction is not of a high volume, due to the limits placed on cards by banks. - Cardless Arbitrage: Cardless arbitrage is employed when the transaction exceeds the card limit. It has to do with third-party platforms that issue virtual cards with very high spending limits or no limits for online purchases.
- Coin arbitrage: Coin arbitrage is simply buying one crypto asset, swapping it with another asset, and transferring the asset to another crypto platform where it can be swapped back to the original asset for more.
- Triangular arbitrage:
Triangular arbitrage is a type of arbitrage that involves two crypto assets and one stablecoin, or three crypto assets. - Market coin arbitrage:
Market coin arbitrage is the act of buying an asset in one market, switching to another market, and selling the asset. Let's say on Binance you buy from the spot section and sell at the p2p section, or you buy at the spot section and sell at the futures section, due to irregularities caused by sharp market moves. - Platform coin arbitrage:
Platform arbitrage is simply buying low on one crypto exchange platform, and selling high on another crypto exchange platform
As much as I love the arbitrage game, it is not always sustainable as every arbitrage opportunity closes a few moments after discovery. A more sustainable way to make money in the crypto space is futures trading.
Futures trading
Futures trading is one of the fastest ways to make money online, but a lot of people fail at it due to poor risk management, before I speak more on risk management I will define futures trading below, for the benefit of newbies.
Futures trading is the buying and selling of crypto assets based on prediction. Unlike normal spot trading where you are either bullish or bearish, where you must buy first to sell later, in futures trading you can sell first to buy later, the most important thing is to sell higher than you bought or buy lower than you sold. Check out this video of me explaining a new strategy for futures trading that will allow any newbie to trade profitably irrespective of the direction of the market.
Final Thoughts
A lot of people have failed in affiliate marketing simply because they were told it was easy, or because they went about it the wrong way.
Affiliate marketing is a very profitable and sustainable way to make money online but it requires you to put in the work.
I have written some very helpful articles on affiliate marketing for any beginner that is looking to start off on the right foot, so check out my article about how to start affiliate marketing as a total beginner.
maybe after reading through the article, you might change your mind about quitting affiliate marketing, but if your mind is already made up, here are some perfect alternatives to affiliate marketing:
Alternatives to affiliate marketing
- Content Marketing
- Information Marketing
- SaaS Websites
- Influencer Marketing
- Drop shipping
- Drop Servicing
- Sell your Own Product
- SEO Consulting
- Crypto Arbitrage
- Futures Trading
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