Affiliate Marketing vs. Product Launch

Affiliate marketing is a rewarding business. After all, you get to set your own schedule and make a limitless amount of money promoting others’ products. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about fulfilling or responding to customers’ question. But here is the thing. Most affiliate marketers often end up making their own products. In reality, an affiliate marketer is a freelance marketing executive. You get to promote products based on a set of rules put forth by the merchants, and you don’t have to show up for work everyday. If you don’t deliver leads, you won’t get paid unlike employees, and you are not covered by the merchants’ health insurance programs. Still sounds like a job to me.

Don’t get me wrong. I love affiliate marketing, and I think it is a wonderful career to pursue. But, I’d rather be the rule maker than follower. That’s why most top affiliates make the transition to the other side and start their very own affiliate programs and push their own products. There is simply more money in owning your product than just being an affiliate.

I’d like to consider affiliate marketing as a test. If you can pass the test with flying colors and promote others’ products, chances are that you are going to have success pushing your own creation. And let’s not forget that you are going to learn product launch techniques from super-affiliates in the process. I know a lot of folks claim that they intend to stay affiliate marketers for life, but in reality, most folks who are somebody these days have their own products. As much as I’d love to think that pulling in 7 figures every year is easy as an affiliate, it really isn’t. But having your own product opens many doors for you (JVs, recognition, …) which makes it that much easier to pull that kind of money in on an annual basis.

What do you think? Are you an affiliate marketer for life?