Staying Productive as an Affiliate Marketer

Since beginning our marketing blog series for Delux Designs (DE), LLC back during the month of July this year, we have covered three different topics pertaining to the subject of marketing, specifically affiliate marketing:

If you have not already, click each link provided above and check out what we have discussed so far so you are all caught up with us. Don’t worry, if you click each link it will open in a new tab in your internet browser so you won’t lose this page. Once you are all caught up, come back to this post and continue reading below.

Today we want to cover productivity.

Affiliate Marketing consists mainly of working from home.
There are some positions in this field that require affiliates, or publishers, to work from an office at each merchant company, but 9 times out of 10 this is a position that is remote for most. Most believe working from home is very easy, but it is not at all. Working from home can be harder and more exhausting than working an traditional work position from a building or an office if you are not careful about how you go about it upfront. Let’s take a look at some ways you can make becoming an affiliate marketer more productive daily, weekly, monthly and yearly below.

Schedule

It is highly important to set a schedule as an affiliate marketer.
You may be working for more than one merchant at a time which can get confusing over time if you are not on a set schedule. Different merchants have different campaigns going on at different times and it is your job to keep up with all of them at the same time. This can be exhausting if you do not have a schedule for them. As a digital marketer, I have a struggled with this from time to time. It is doable however. First step in setting a schedule for your marketing daily is to set up a daily routine. Decide on how many hours you want to work daily and then set a routine for those hours daily. Just like with a traditional position, those work hours are set for a reason. Mainly so you do not overwork yourself each day and know when to stop working for the day each day, along with making sure you are productive throughout the day and reaching your goals weekly and monthly.

Routine

When working from home, you must set a routine for each day. Some believe you can basically get up whenever and get things done whenever and still make a profit just because you are working from home, which may be the case for a small amount of people but not most get things done productively this way at all.

Step one is to get up in the mornings.
The mornings will save you so much work and time later in the day. Mornings are typically when merchants you may work for send out the most important emails and messages concerning work assignments. Even if you do not plan to do any immediate work in the mornings, utilize this time for personal reasonings if you need to before you begin working. Whatever works for you use it, but try not to throw your mornings away sleeping in everyday.
Step two is set up an eating and drinking schedule.
Always make sure you take care of yourself no matter what while working from home as an affiliate marketer. Don’t get so caught up in getting the work done that you do not take a break to feed or hydrate yourself each day. Start off each day with a great breakfast, make sure you eat a nice lunch midday, and end the day with a nice dinner before calling it day for the night. In between meals and during them, make sure you are drinking water. It is important to stay hydrated. Dehydration can set in quickly when you are really busy on your computer all day long working from home and an affiliate is no good to merchants if your health is not up to par daily.
Step three is to get dressed.
I know this may sound crazy but getting up and getting dressed for the day means more than you know. If you get up daily and just lounge around in your pajamas all day long then you are more prone to drag the day away. When you wake up at your set time in the mornings, go ahead and take care of your personal hygiene and get dressed in your work attire as you would at a traditional work position. This not only will get you going fully for the day, but it will make you feel your best for your mental health while working from home as an affiliate marketer. You will feel more official as a remote worker overall.
Step four is to schedule breaks.
It is important to take breaks. You are not a robot or a machine, you need to take a break. Mainly so you can feed yourself and hydrate yourself, but also for your mental health as well. Your brain and mind needs to rest just like your physical body every once in a while. How many breaks you take a day is on you, but make sure you are still able to get work done productively.

Now these four things apart of the routine listed above are just some in general things to take care of each day. These do not pertain to everyone’s situation and living arrangements. For example, some may be able to get their day started at 4am each morning and some may have to wait until 10am and that is just fine. Some may have children to take care of and have to tend to them first before beginning work around 12pm noon each day, along with scheduling more breaks throughout the day for their child or children and that is just fine as well. Whatever works for you as long as you have a set routine in place that goes along with what you need to do daily do it.

Next, let’s add onto our scheduled routine by including some to-do lists.

Even if you are just an affiliate marketer for one merchant, you will need a to-do list of some sort. I first started off just writing things on sticky notes in different colors and that became a problem because I had notes posted everywhere. Nothing was organized, which we are going to get to later on in this post, and I lost a lot of those notes around the house being so busy. So I moved on to a legal pad. Now this is something that I still use to this day. It comes in handy when I have blog post ideas and that sort of thing so I don’t knock it, just make sure you go back and read it from time to time and don’t allow your notes on it to build up too much overtime. Now some use apps to help with productivity a lot and some even depend on them (I will have a post later on this topic) but me I’m old school. I’m still a pencil and paper type of person that way I can control things better plus with so many people being online there have been multiple issues with internet service so if it does go down, I still have my to-do lists and notes on hand. Even though you may take great notes it is important to make sure you’re organizing those notes as well.

Organization

Once you have your routine down, schedule set, and notes on hand, it is great to keep yourself organized. There are so many ways to do this and so many have their own methods of doing so.

Items to have on hand for Organizing:

Organization goes in hand with setting up your workspace in your home or wherever you are working remotely as an affiliate marketer. You can not just have all your notes and work stuff all over your bed. You are prone to lose things and it keeps you stagnant when you are more likely to lay down trying to get work done making you fall asleep. You should locate your workspace in another area of your home other than your bedroom, specifically in it’s own room if you can. You should have a work desk for starters, a space where you can work from with your computer, computer charger, and organization items on hand. Don’t forget healthy snacks and water for hydration. Provide yourself with a good and comfortable chair so you don’t lose your good posture.

Boundaries

When you are working, stick to working.
Don’t allow family members and friends to come over if you know you need to get work done. These are majors distractions that can hinder your progress while working from home as an affiliate marketer. You must set boundaries for yourself along with self-discipline so you do not miss important deadlines monthly while also making sure that you are consistently posting and promoting online daily. If you would not invite your friends and family to your traditional job position while you are on the clock as a traditional employee, you must have the same thought process with a remote job position while working for your merchants.

Focus

Each day remain focused on successfully completing your tasks, not on the outcome of each task being assigned by your merchant(s).
Sometimes we get so caught up on trying to see the results before the work is put in to obtain the results that we become counterproductive. If you focus your energy on producing great work each assignment, then the great results will naturally follow and come each time an assignment has been completed. You cannot expect to earn $5,000 USD each month if you have not put in $5,000 USD worth of work each day during each month. You can also not expect to make this amount each month upfront if you are just beginning affiliate marketing. This type of job position takes time to build a great standing overall in the marketing industry. It takes time to build a great following that is engaged with your posts and material daily overtime online. It takes time to make sales daily, weekly, and even monthly but that does not mean it is not doable. You just have to stay focused on your goals each day and work hard towards them.

Consistency

Stay consistent always when affiliate marketing. You can not start these steps of productivity for one or two days and then just stop and try to restart it weeks later and expect results. That is not how this works. That is not how anything works to be real. You have to work everyday, or at least the main days of the week. Always stay consistent with posting. Always stay consistent with assignments. Always stay consistent with meeting deadlines and achieving your goals and growth will naturally come.

Team Work

If you have to, build you a team to help you with your work. An example would be our sister site DeluxHair. We are a team of women with a goal of promoting the natural hair movement among minority women. We all each push for this cause and brands apart of this cause on our own with a common end goal. When deciding on who you want to be apart of your team, make sure you are picking individuals who are hard working and have knowledge on affiliate marketing.

These are just a couple tips and tricks to staying productive, there are a ton of other things you can do as well. But just remember that you are in control of your income when it comes to affiliate marketing. You will not get the results you want if you do not put in the work you need to achieve success. Check out our next post for Delux Designs (DE), LLC marketing blog series on the Difference between a Brand Ambassador & an Affiliate Marketer here.

Are you an affiliate marketer?
How do you stay productive?
Leave your tips and thoughts in the comment section at the end of this post.

Disclaimer: Affiliate links have been included in this post in which Delux Designs (DE), LLC receives a commission from any sales made through this post. We assure you, the products featured through DE from product reviews are products that we recommend based off of our own personal experiences from using them. The information given in this post is from a Certified Digital Marketer. Results may vary.