Thursday, November 30, 2006

Affiliate Marketing - Keeping Organized

I have been working online as an affiliate marketer for about 3 months now. I can tell you that I have has success with it. I will also say that it is a lot more time consuming then I ever thought. All of the advertisement for affiliate marketing make claims of working just minutes a day. I work a lot more then that!

One of my issues though is organization. There are so many different areas in affiliate marketing that you can get involved in and they all take work and time to keep track of. I was not born with any organizational skills. I need to constantly work at it. I love it when I actually do manage to keep everything straight, but it is a constant battle with myself to do so.

Keeping organized as an affiliate marketer is important for several reasons. First and foremost, you need to know how much money you have made and from what sources. This way you can concentrate your efforts on what is working for you and drop or redo what isn’t. Its also nice to know how much money you have coming!

You also need to keep track of your budget. You don’t want to spend more then you earn. Being organized and having all your information in one place that’s easy to find is important. If you want to keep your work time down, you want to be able to find your records quickly.

I also find it important to make a to-do list everyday. I can then check the items off as I complete them throughout the day. This way I make sure that every task I need to complete gets down before I go to bed at night. It also allows me to fix my kids lunch or pick them up for school and come back and know where I left off. Crossing items off my to-do list also lets me see what I have accomplished each day. It helps to keep me focused and cuts down on the time I get distracted and start surfing the internet!

I believe that in order to be a successful and effective affiliate marketer, you need to be organized. You should have all your paperwork in one place. Making lists of things you need to accomplish on a daily or weekly basis is also very important. Working at home is great, but the chances for distraction are also great and in order to accomplish your goals, it helps to have them written down. If you are unorganized, things in your business are likely to get missed and you can find yourself spending more money then you are making. Being organized will help your affiliate marketing business succeed.