Maybe you’re here because you’re interested in building out a website that doesn’t affiliate marketing. You’re ready to make extra money. Or you’ve got a business idea you need help formalizing. Since you think business, your first step forward, build a business plan.
What you’re going to learn.
- Why business plans are important
- Real steps to reduce risk and increase your chances of success
Why Build a Business Plan for Affiliate Marketing?
Real Problem
If you’re new to online marketing, then you probably think it’s a piece of cake to build out a very profitable online business. The last word, business, is an essential element. It is a business, not a hobby. If you’re blogging as a hobby, then keep doing what you’re doing. Have fun with it – seriously. If you’re interested in building real income, then you have to treat your blog or online business as a business. Companies fail all the time. And it’s not just online businesses, but all businesses fail.
We’ve been in business for a while, and like most entrepreneurs, we’ve failed plenty of times. But as we gained more wisdom and listened to our advisers, we always spend time building and managing to a business plan. Success started to follow more quickly. We had more fun build the business because we were more clear on our objectives and market.
But just because you don’t have a business plan, does not mean failure. A business plan purpose helps to focus you on the market and customer resulting in a streamlined and organized the learning process. Yes, you may very well be successful businss plan, but wouldn’t you like to be successful faster?
Benefits of a Business Plan
Here are several reasons why business plans help your business, especially early.
- Forces you to ask the tough questions about your business
- You spend more time on the customer problem before you build your site
- Helps you better understand how you target a market instead of shooting in the dark
- Keeps you thinking business
- Sets priorities
- Manages your financial growth of a website
- Help keep you aligned with your overall goals
If you think that writing a business plan is too much work, read our article on the Millionaire Mindset.
Your business plan should be dynamic, not static. Keep updating it as you learn more about your business and customers. But do yourself a favor, don’t skip it. Write assumptions in your plan that get proven or disproven as you learn more through the implementation.
Your Desired Outcomes
Before you consider your business plan, make sure you have a target market to address. We wrote out a detailed process for finding your niche. Read How to Find My Niche.
Your Affiliate Online Business Plan
We’ve made this so you can copy and paste into your desired document editor. Take the time to do the work.
Your Business Summary
Write out this part after you complete the rest of the plan
- What are your desired products and services you’re promoting on your website?
- Why will people be attracted to your site?
- What are you an authority for? Why would people trust you?
- What pain is your website solving for your market/customers?
Your Attitude & Your Commitment
Document why you’re committed to your website. Since many people lose interest, make sure you get personal on why this site is essential for you? Business is personal. I know, it’s different than what most people tell you, but we’re here to say to you, get intimate and motivated.
- Why are you building your business?
- Why are you passionate about your business?
- What will you do when you’re successful?
- When will you think you’re successful?
- When you’re bored, unmotivated, and frustrated, what would you tell yourself to get motivated?
Your Vision/Mission
A vision statement focuses on the future. A mission statement focuses on today. An example: Our Vision Statement is “Become the authority for affiliate markets who desire to become millionaires.” Our Mission Statement: “We provide our customers with honest education, and the very best advice to accelerate their online business to make millions.”
- What is your grand vision?
- What are your values, how do you want to treat your customers?
- What is your mission statement
Customer Problems
Document your customer’s problems. All of them, don’t try to wordsmith, use real words, quotes if you have them, or links to other sites that document it better. But make sure to internalize the problem.
- What are you customers problem?
- What proof do you have these are real problems?
- Would people pay money to solve their problem? Do you have examples?
- Why can you help solve their problem?
- Out of all the problems, what are the top 5 issues?
Product & Company Overview
What are you going to be offering your customers? During this section, we like to have you break down your offering into three segments: initial, future, and potential. It allows you to stay focused early, but have an outlet for future ideas. For example: Initial Offering – Affiliate Products to Make Money; Future Offering – Podcast with Corporate Sponsorships; Potential Offerings: Training Program.
- What are your Initial Offerings?
- What are your Future Offerings?
- What are your Potential Offerings?
Market Overview
Your market overview helps you to understand how big and the potential of your market. For example, if you’re building a blog for dog owners, maybe it would be good for you to understand dog owners.
- What are your market size and prospective growth potential?
- Where are you targeting (specific state? country? demographic?)
- Who is your target customer?
- Male, Female, ? Married, single? Age group?
- What does your customer like to do?
- What do you offer that’s unique?
- Try to offer up why you think your product/service would benefit your market
- What trends are you leveraging?
- What’s happening in your market and customer right now that is a trend you can leverage?
- What other potential markets/customers would benefit from your services?
- What other market/customer would benefit from your service? For example, if you’re marketing dog sweaters? Could the dog owner buy a person version of the sweater?
Market Entry Strategy
Your market entry strategy is how you plan to get your products in the hands of your customers.
- What is your blogging/content strategy?
- What are your top 10 keywords to target right away?
- What is your social media strategy? What social media platforms are you targeting?
- How will you get traffic other than content creation?
- Paid?
- Join platforms like Wealthy Affiliate?
- Are there any partnerships that could help you gain sales?
Competition
First off, never be afraid of competition. We’ve built businesses in the past that have beaten the big players in the market. The critical thing about competition, use it as a learning platform.
- Who are your top competitors? Or who is doing what you’re planning on doing? What blogs could you reference?
- How are your competitor’s offering different from yours? How are they inferior? How are you better?
- What strategies do you have to beat them? Why would a customer come to you instead?
- What is your advantage?
We decided not to introduce a SWOT analysis. But if you want a format for competition, search SWOT. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Team
Team? Maybe it’s just you. That’s fine, but we like to have you document your team because it helps you understand what your strengths are and where you have weakness. For example, if you need a graphic artist, but you can’t draw, that may be a capability you want to outsource.
- Who is on your team?
- What capabilities/experience does that person have on your team? Yes, that means you too.
- What help would you need as you grow?
Financial Projections
Managing a business means you’re tracking your costs and income, or revenue and expenses. But have you put together a growth plan? What could you make, what are your goals financially? If you want to make money, you need to forecast what you could make.
- What would you want to make over the next three years?
- Where would you want to make your money? What is your percent per offer? Affiliate revenue versus Product sales?
- What are your expenses over time?
- What is your profitability?
- When do you expect to be profitable?
- How much money do you need to be profitable? (Investment?)
Investment Overview
Investment? Yep, we mean real investment. It doesn’t necessarily mean investors like those you watch on Shark Tank. But it could mean your own wallet. If you’re building out a blog or affiliate site, you need to consider how much you plan to spend on your site.
First: Read our post: How Much Does It Cost to Start a Blog?
- Who much have you invest so far?
- How much would you invest without making any money? It can also be used for advertising.
- How will you use the initial investment?
- If you need more money to accelerate your growth, when would you need to make that additional investment?
- What is your maximum amount to invest without any returns?
Resources Needed Beyond Capital
What other resources do you need other than money? For example, have you set aside what days a week you plan to work on your business? What are you willing to give up?
- Do you need coaching and mentoring?
- Do you need to join a community?
- Do you need training?
- How much time can I spend on your blog per week?
Exit Strategy
The exit strategy is to make sure you understand when you’ve had enough.
- How would you get out of your business?
- Would/could you sell your site?
- Would you shut it down?
- What happens to your customers?
- Why would you get out of your business?
Conclusion
It seems like a lot doesn’t it? It is. Running a business is fun, exciting, and rewarding. Here’s how we use our business plan. First, we wrote it; it wasn’t long at all. Then as we start working and building our business, we continuously refine it and modify it. We don’t change the vision and missions. And we don’t change the objectives. But we make assumptions, and we call out those assumptions on target customers, market overview, and other sections. As we learn, we update those assumptions. We learn more about the needs of our market, and refine our future and potential offering.
Keeping an updated business plan allows you to think about your business differently. Matching up finances with your affiliate marketing goals keeps you targeting the right customer. Reviewing the problems of your customers keeps you worried about helping them.
Here is a great follow up article.
Tracking Your Profitable Online Business Model
We’d love to hear from you. Please comment if you found this post useful. Ask questions, we reply.
This is going to be really helpful for me because I’m currently in the middle of (trying to) starting up a blog and I’m all over the place really – no experience in the subject.
Do you feel you should have a list of articles you are going to write before you post anything to your blog – i.e. have at least ten article titles in the bag ready to cover?
Also – are there any legal requirements I have to meet as a blog owner?
Great questions.
First off, it helps to start out with a list of ten articles. Then map those articles to you customer’s business problems. That way you’re always thinking about how your articles and keywords help your customers. But keep in mind, as you learn more about your customer needs, make sure to keep re-prioritizing.
Second, nothing legal to start. As you grow your business, that’s when you may want to consider if you create a LLC or stay as a Sole Proprietor. I would say, once you generating a few thousand dollars a month, consider a business structure as you benefit. Check out this article on a few resources for you. How Much Does It Cost to Start a Blog?. I have some resources that may help.
Hello, I’ve never thought about online business as a real business, meaning it didn’t even occur to me to have a business plan. For the last year I have been kinda all over the place trying to get started and this was a good example of things I was missing. I really enjoyed the layout of the information and I was wondering do you have a pdf of your sample business plan? I would like to print this out so I can refer back to it as I move forward with my online business! thanks a bunch
Hi Kelly, I’m glad I could help. Let me create one, I’ll respond to you in directly when I’m done.
It does seem like a lot! I have been a blogger for a good 2 1/2 years now, and I hate to say that I don’t have a business plan. It is probably about time I take a few steps back and consider everything. Just as you have pointed out in this post…I am not doing this for a hobby, that is for sure. It is a passion, but I really want to monetize this. You have me thinking!
I’m glad you could find value in the post. Business plans are meant to help us think about our businesses critically.
Hi Brian, this post has really left me with a lot of homework to do! To be honest I have a book full of random notes that I’ve made over the course of the past year but no actual solid business plan. This is because online marketing was such a new thing to me when I first started out that I would simply have had no idea where to start. I was just poking around in the dark back then, and still am to an extent now.
However, you have really made me realise that I need to make some proper plans moving forward if I want to make a full time business out of my website… which I do. So thanks, I’m going to use your brilliant template for this 🙂
I”m glad I could be helpful. Taking your time to think about your business can truly accelerate how you make money. Let me know if I can be more helpful.
Hi JB, this is a really great post on business plans!
I took a business foundations class last summer before I started reconsidering affiliate marketing. My plan at the time had been to start a bookkeeping business which I wasn’t at the time very enthusiastic about but I really have always wanted to work for myself. One of the key ideas addressed in every class was having a business plan. In fact, the class was structured around putting the business plan together along the way.
I’m really glad I did it too! That plan for the bookkeeping business showed me how much I had going against me trying to start it. Coupled with not really being that into what I would be doing, I ended up dropping it. What came out of it was affiliate marketing where I could put my actual interests and talents to use for once. So out of what seemed a failure, came something I really wanted to do!
As far as my experience with the format and questions someone must answer when putting together a decisive plan, you hit every key component I’ve seen or done myself. In fact, this post is reminding me that I should take another look at it soon. It’s been about a year since I put the original together. I will have to add and amend my plan because so much has changed since then.
I’m bookmarking this page and see if my plan answers your questions. Thanks!
What a great class you took. I’m a huge fan of making sure people are truly passionate about their business. And I’m glad I could help. My first business failed because I wasn’t updating my plan. But now I’m in a better groove to look over my plan, update it, and keep managing too it. It’s amazing how businesses change, and people stop thinking about how it changes. Thanks! Ask if you ever have more questions.
This really hits home for me. I started an online business about a year ago, and you have really made me think about whether this is a hobby or a legitimate business I am trying to build here. I can now see the value of a business plan to take my “hobby” to the next level and turn it into a real business.
The points I really like are that a business plan makes you set priorities and helps you better understand your target market, two things I have been struggling with. How often should a business plan be updated? I don’t know if there is a time-frame, like once a year, or every six months.
Thank you for sharing your insight, I really needed to read this. I think you have hit on a LOT of great points for anyone starting a business. Success certainly doesn’t happen overnight and it definitely won’t happen if you don’t have direction.
Steve, great question about how often you update your plan. I like to update it fairly often in the first 6 months, because I make all sorts of assumptions within the plan. Momentum is key to success in a blog, but to get to another level, that’s when the plan is essential. But once I close out the assumptions, I will review it every quarter to 6 months. That timing has worked for me. Once you’re making bigger dollars like $25k+ a month, you probably have a great target market and your managing growth. Another rule of thumb, if you add a product or service, update the plan. Good luck!
Greetings JB,
I have really enjoyed reading your article about the value of creating a business plan for an Affiliate Marketing based business. I have had the experience of starting a business (a restaurant) and was so grateful in the long run that I took the time to research and develop a thorough business plan. I have had a general plan outlined for myself with regards to my current pursuits in Affiliate Marketing but I haven’t created an in depth plan addressing all of the areas you have suggested. I have bookmarked your page and will take the time to do myself a favor and create a thorough plan. thanks for reminding us that Affiliate Marketing is still a business and as such it needs a cohesive plan. It’s easy to put the cart in front of the horse, especially creating content that’ll are passionate about. I found the Market Overview and Exit strategy components to be insightful and provide a really helpful template for building out my own business plan.
Great article, it’s given me an important reminder in the early stage of my new business venture!
Cheers 🙂
That’s great Connor! I appreciate the comments. Like you said, when you did it for you restaurant, it was helpful, but as people build online marketing companies we forget that it’s still a business. Good luck to you!
I absolutely love this article. You are making it quite clear that if you want to run a business you have to treat it like a business. Making money online in a business requires a lot of hard work and a well thought out plan like you have listed. Anyone thinking of starting a business on or off line should take a look at the words you have wrote here.
Thanks Dale!
This post is supremely useful! I think all the questions and topics you have provided are a great way to delineate your desired results as you build up your business. Having a list of questions to ask oneself as well as seeing the entirety of your intended execution for successful outcomes is imperative with knowing how you want to proceed in terms of how you will govern and manage any new business. I will sit with the insights provided here as I continue to develop my own online business as you have really dialled in a beneficial resource and tool for anyone who is seeking success as an entrepreneur. I am especially fond of the part where you speak about your attitude and commitment. I think when a person understands their personal intentions and the reasons behind why they want to launch any business that being aware of that aspect of oneself is hugely advantageous as it will determine whether or not you are seriously committed to succeeding and in it for the long haul. Knowing a path in which you are to take to your success is a good map to have. Thank you JB!
Thanks for the great comment! I’m glad you called out the attitude, with the right attitude and focus, everything is a process and happens as a result. Good luck with your business.
Great article laying out the principles for affiliate marketing.
One thing that’s really important, but few people actually do is creating a business plan. People have to approach an online business with the same attitude as they would need to do with a physical business. You need to have a business plan to really succeed and achieve your goals.
Absolutely. If it’s a business, the best thing anyone of us could do is put a little thought and plan, it makes building it go smoother and easier. It’s still a lot of work, but thoughtful work.
You have broken down the core elements of a business plan quite succinctly. People often overlook this when they start their online business, but it is definitely a key step in getting your mindset in the right place.
Looking at your points, it might be a point where I review my business plan and make sure I have got it covered.
thanks
Great John. And let me know if you have more questions as you review your plan.
These are very valid points, with clear directives and ideas to keep one thinking. I am especially a fan of having a vision. Without vision, it’s hard to get anywhere.
I wish you nothing but success going forward. Keep up the great content.
Thanks Holly! I appreciate the positive word of encouragement.
Hey JB,
What a nice article on planning your business. You rightly said that you need to treat it like a business and it needs a lot of hard work and planning.
You mention some of the important aspects of a successful business like making a business plan, finding out your customer’s problems and how can you solve them, making marketing overview, investment overview, financial projection and so on.
It really shows that building a business online or offlline, you have to take into consideration ton of things. I bookmarked your site for future reference. I like the theme of your website, can you pl let me know what is the theme, if you don’t mind.
Regards.
I don’t mind at all. The theme is extra by elegent. Here’s the link. Elegant Themes
I do have a business plan or I think I have one but this post has really got me thinking. I need to put my pen to paper once more and write out a detailed plan putting in all the important details I missed out. I will definitely be looking at my market overview and market strategies?
Great Juliet! Remember that plans need reviewed periodically.
Good afternoon JB,
That is sound advice to have a detailed business plan, especially if it is your first try to create a business.
I agree, that having a plan will make it easier as most things in life need some planning and some rules you have to put yourself. Having a plan written down and sticking to it will make you lose less time, advance more smoothly towards your goal and during the journey stay focused.
I like your easy to understand explanation, it is a good guide for when one starts a new business.
Regards, Taetske
Thanks for the feedback!
This is a very helpful and well written article!
I had started a business plan when I first started my online business a couple of years ago, and had found some sites where they give you pointers and bullet points to include in your plan, but it never mounted to much of anything except gather dust in my drawer.
I wish I had something like this article to follow back then. It is what every entrepreneurs (online and offline) should follow!
It has the questions and the reflections that we should all ask ourselves when starting a business. I especially like that it is all divided in sections, so that all we really have to do is answer the questions pertaining to our own business. This is brilliant!
My online business is in it’s early stages and I have bookmarked your article/website for future references and to follow your lead! Thanks!
I’m glad it’s helpful! I with you, I’ve written business plans, but it’s the process of answering the questions that proves the most useful, not the end result. And the reviewing process is just as key.
This was such a great article!
I really wish I had tIhis when I first started out my online business, especially for the part about targeting a specific audience! I just recently learned the importance of this and had to delete some posts and pages that weren’t relevant anymore when I did choose a specific audience!
Those posts and pages I deleted probably took me a month to create…but I now know, since I am more focused it will be better for me in the long run!
Thanks for such great information!
All the Best,
Chris
That’s a bummer, but what a great focus you now.
My experience is that the desperation of earning money on remote is way too high and even though this is true; one does not need to become millionaire. As long as they have a medium high class; not millions per say though. Or at least millions in the eyes of what someone really spends.
You’re right Linda. Each person needs to understand their earning potential. But happiness is internal, not financial. Becoming a millionaire is for people that want a next level, it takes a different skill set and organization skill to scale. Sometimes that is not want people desire, and that’s ok. Other times, people just need to have a map on how to navigate a higher earning potential. I appreciate your words!
what’s up JB?
How great are you doing?
So here I was actually working internally on my business, and I came across your article within a platform I have access to as a premium member at an online university, and coming across your website is probably one of the most fortunate things that ever happened when it came to finding something useful that I can learn from the valuable information that you provide; this is gold!
How long have you been working as an affiliate marketer?
Experience in your area of expertise is very important and you nailed it on the importance of making a business plan!
I thank you for further stimulating my subconscious with the right kind of programming so that I further set myself up for success! It’s as if you were meant to be there so that I can keep the ball rolling, so thank you for being inspiring!
I will take your advice and please do continue to provide great content, I bet you’re on fire!
To your success,
Jose
Thanks for the kind words. I’ve been in business for many years in all different businesses. I always find that building a plan helps to people make great decisions. And I’m having fun, and doing great! I hope you’re on fire too!
Wow what a great article, I have never truly sat down and created a business plan for my online business but after reading this and all the great points that you have listed. I have sat there and worked on figuring out problems within my customer base but have never broken it all down like this. I am going to bookmark this for future reference.
I’m glad this was helpful. I think it’s going to help your business! An ask questions along the way, we’ll help if we can.
Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for. Building a business plan is so important and something I’ve been struggling with, trying to get information on exactly how to do it in the most productive way. I want to treat my online business like a business, not a hobby, and a business plan is critical to that step. You give me so much food for thought, I cannot wait to dive in and create this finally. Thank you so much.
I’m so glad this is helpful! It’s so important to think about your blog as a business.
Wow this got me thinking that I have not adequately plotted a road map for myself. I find that I have chopped and changed so much since beginning my blog and started new ones when I get bored of old ones. Your post sets it out clearly that I really can’t afford to keep doing that if I am expecting to have a very successful blog. I have been making money, but not what I would like to be making and not with the clear vision that you set out here. Thanks for the inspiration-I will be referring back to your site as an anchor to ground my ideas.
I’m so glad this could be helpful!
You actually hit the spot. These are the important points that often overlooked, specially the beginners/newbies, so they tend to quit in the middle of the battle as a result.
You have covered things, that I myself should be reminded of. Which is about “Competition” and I like it when you said, “to use it as a learning platform”— I think that’s my take away after reading your article.
Please continue writing this kind of stuff, it is helpful to both experienced and non-experienced online marketers out there.
Thanks and wishing you success.
You bet Mina! People should never be afraid of competition, but learn watch, and find out what they do and how you can do it better.
This is an absolute great information. I started with blogging a few months ago, and I am wanting turn into real business. But I haven’t come out with plans. Here is a good place to start! It would be really exciting journey like you said. Thank you for providing theses critical questions for me to think and come out with a plan!
Cheers
Give your business the best chance of success!
Oh my … reading your article has given me a little bit of a rude wake up call. You’ve made me realise I’m still going about my online ventures like a headless chicken instead of approaching it in a methodical manner with proper business practices.
Addressing the questions you’ve posed are crucial and I should make the commitment to documenting my answers.
I will have to refer back to this to keep me on track. Great article! So clear that it is a template in itself.
I’m so stoked this could be helpful! It’s your business, success follows. It becomes critical as it helps you focus, helps you think about why you’re business is important. I think you’ll find it’s amazing how your future customers will react to your focus!
Thank you for this article, you have given me food for thought.
I thought I did not really need a business until I saw this article and looking at the questions that you have here, I now think that it is a good idea to have a business plan in place. Your question are very thought provoking.
The questions aimed a exit strategy I found really useful and helpful because selling my website one day is now a real possibility.
Thank you for giving me a lot to think about and for inspiring me to actually write my business plan
Jennifer
I’m so glad that building a business plan has been thought provoking! You’re blog is your business, treat it like that and managed to it. Success follows a plan with motivation.
Dear JB,
Thanks again for another detailed and informative post.
I just had a basic idea and I know the importance of Business planning. To be honest after reading your post I said to myself what I knew was nothing. Very helpful and vital information on Business planning.
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” ― Benjamin Franklin
Wow thanks for the definition and explanation on Vision and Mission “A vision statement focuses on the future. A mission statement focuses on today”.
EXIT STRATEGY – Is out of blue for me never thought of that. Thanks again.
Your post is a blueprint for business planning and I will come back again to read it.
Paul
I’m stoked this could be helpful. And I love your quote! Business planning is a way for people to think about their business with a critical eye. And remind themselves, why are we doing it.
Your take on affiliate marketing is amazing! I’m pretty sure 99% of the people haven’t even thought about creating a business plan before they jump into the online marketing.
Most of the newbie bloggers don’t realize that blogging is an actual business. And as such, should be treated as one.
I especially enjoyed your thoughts on how to deal with the competition.
Do you think you can write for us another article specifically focused on just that?
I would really love to read it.
Thanks for sharing this post!