Local Marketing and SEO Specialists

Make Money Basics: What IS Affiliate Marketing?

Companies that sell products or services often have Affiliate Programs where people (you!) can sign up as an affiliate.  You are basically an independent sales person – you advertise and recommend that company’s product or service.  When a customer purchases that product or service through YOU…you receive a commission payment!

How Does it Work, exactly?

Ok, so you have decided on a product or service that you would like to promote.  Now you sign up as an affiliate for that person or company by filling in a simple form with your basic information.  In return you are given a special website URL, called an affiliate link, which can track when someone clicks on it and is sent to the product site to review the offer.  If they like it and decide to buy it, you will receive a commission for each sale that is made.

Good or Bad…there are LOTS of different types of affiliate programs available.  You can find programs for physical products, digital information products and even for services and membership sites.  You can find all kinds of affiliate programs listed in networks like Clickbank, Commission Junction, Paydotcom, etc.

How Do You Know If This is the Best Business Model for You?

The reason so many people love Affiliate Marketing is its ease of use.  It is profitable because YOU do not have to put in the time, effort and money to create a product, graphics, sales letter or support for buyers!  You are only in charge of generating traffic!

1. Product.

As always, the first step is to properly research a great product (and program!) to promote.  There is a very wide range of products and services to select from as an affiliate, but you need to learn to spot the ones that will make you money.  So…roll up those sleeves and do some niche research to make sure that your niche is popular, has a fair amount of competition, has good sales copy and graphics and is something that you would purchase and use yourself.  This is the part that you don’t want to rush, take your time to make sure that it is a product that will sell and is needed.

2. Prospects.

Keep in mind that, although it is not your product that you are promoting, you still can establish a relationship with customers by building YOUR own list.  This is really important and often overlooked by most affiliate marketers.  While the product creators are capturing their customer names and emails, you should be building your own list as well.  You can do this by offering a free report on your squeezepage before you forward the customer on to the sales page.  Everyone likes Free Stuff!  By building your own list, you can create a long term relationship with the visitor and offer them additional value and point them to awesome products.  Help them, and help you!

3. Promotion.

There are as many ways to promote a product as there are products to promote!  It can get a little overwhelming, but setting up a blog like this one is one of the best ways to promote affiliate programs.  Having your own site, while not necessary, does open up different ways of promoting different products for the same niche.  Multiple sales are necessary in order to really be successful as an affiliate marketer.  A blog is a perfect platform for linking several affiliate products for one niche into one money making opportunity.

For Example…

Find a hot topic by researching current promotions and events online.  Let’s say you settle on solar energy – You can start a blog on “Do It Yourself Solar Energy.”  On the blog, you write articles related to solar energy and link them to several solar energy products that you found on Clickbank.  As a way of getting traffic and building your list, you could also write a small report on “5 Tips for Smart Solar Energy” and then give it away for free.

To your business,

Glenna Garcia

P.S. Want to know more step by step ways to get your Affiliate program up and running fast? Check out Affiliatenaire™

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Tags:affiliate,business model

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