Ever heard of affiliate programs? These are forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates for driving traffic to the advertiser or for other transactions. The advertiser pays the affiliate to place a link on their website, and the affiliate sends traffic to the advertiser in return. Simply put, it's about paying commissions to people who help you make sales. It's that easy.
Affiliate marketing has its ups and downs. It could be draining if you are not armed with updated information and the technical how-tos. But this article's sole objective is to reach out to you and not to badmouth affiliate marketing.
Here are the following reasons on why web marketers go gaga over affiliate marketing as a form of Internet advertisement.
1. Low cost
Many are scared to go on a home based business because of the capital required. In affiliate marketing, you don't have to spend much to start raking in moolah.
2. Inventories not included
Product management fuss could be very stressing. An inventory is not asked to be maintained. The merchant does the maintenance required.
3. Unlimited income through leverage
When you have a paid job, your monthly income mainly relies on whether you go to work or not. With affiliate marketing, your affiliates could all just lead traffic to your site without having to lift a finger after providing them your ad copy and links. Though not every web marketer earns limitless, it still is a fact that all the necessary matters for the advertiser or Internet marketer are all there to be successful.
4. Go worldwide
With affiliate marketing, you are dealing with a global market place. All you have to do is choose a niche product and prepare all the necessary tools for your affiliates to lead traffic from just about anywhere to your website.
5. Low risk
The very main reason for Internet marketer's enthusiasm with affiliate marketing is its having a low risk factor. Especially for those with low budget set aside for advertising, affiliate marketing is just the way to do it.
6. No closing time
With affiliate marketing, your business works every single second of the day while targeting a worldwide market! What could be better than that?
But all of these will be put to waste if you don't have the right niche product and all the other important tools to make it big in affiliate marketing, i.e., well-SEO-ed website. So better work on this first before ever considering those benefits.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways for home business owners to promote their companies. But at the same time, affiliate marketing is a great way for anybody to start a home-based business. So as you can see, affiliate marketing works from both sides of the business world. If you have never heard of this sort of marketing technique you are not alone. Generally speaking, it has just become popular among the masses over the past couple of years. And even though there are a lot of people that are using this technique, there are still many more that are out in the dark.
The most common reason that people do not get started in affiliate marketing is because they are not aware of what it entails. They are afraid to give it a shot because they simply think that it will be a waste of time. The good thing is that affiliate marketing is not hard to understand. The basic definition is that affiliate marketing is a method of promoting websites in a way that affiliates are rewarded for sending visitors or customers to other sites. As far as affiliate marketing is concerned, compensation varies depending on the type of program that you are involved with. In some cases you will get paid or have to pay for each visitor that you send or receive. In other cases, compensation is based purely on customers buying products or services.
If you are looking for a way to promote your home business, affiliate marketing can help. What you will do is find affiliates that are willing to promote your site to others for you. The good thing about this is that you do not have to pay them unless they meet the specifications that are set forth; this usually includes pay per click, or pay per sale. This means that you will get a lot of promotion without having to do any work on your own. Most people prefer pay per sale programs because they will never have to pay out any money unless they get a sale.
On the other side of things, there are many people that make a living by affiliate marketing. The way this is done is by getting involved with as many programs as possible. You can then set up different websites that will drive traffic to your affiliate’s sites. When this happens, you will get paid!
Affiliate marketing for a home Internet business is a great way to get promotion. You do not won’t be one of those people that overlook this option because it sounds too complicated. Affiliate marketing is worth a shot. Who knows, it may be all you need to take your earnings to the next level.
If you are interested in affiliate marketing programs you have thousands of options available to you. By searching the Internet you will literally find tens of thousands of affiliate marketing programs. This can be both good and bad for people that are interested in this type of marketing. All of these options are beneficial because you will be able to find something that you are satisfied with in no time at all. On the other hand, you will have so many options at your disposal that you may have a hard time choosing the ones that you want to work with. But then again, this is a great problem to have.
Finding the best affiliate programs is all about finding who pays the best commission, and which programs you will work best with. If you have a site that is promoting money transfers, you will be better suited working with the Western Union affiliate program. By attempting to work Good Time Entertainment on a site that promotes money transfers you will probably get nowhere.
Most affiliate marketers unconsciously create an invisible “glass ceiling” that curtails the growth of their own affiliate business. They do this by failing to create a substantial, positive profile on the Internet.
Are you reluctant to “stand out from the crowd”? Do you feel more comfortable being invisible on the Internet?
Most people experience a natural reticence to be “out there”, to “stand up and be counted”. How often are the front rows of a course or meeting left vacant because most people would rather be invisible up the back!
The same is true on the Internet, particularly with affiliate marketers. The noun “affiliate” means “connected as a part or an associate of…”, and the verb “affiliate” means “to connect to” or “join oneself to”. It does not, however, mean “lose oneself in…”
When you join an affiliate program, there is a tendency to lose your own personality in the “personality” of the program and its owner. Yet the really successful affiliate marketers are those who are able to place their own unique identity on what they do. They stand out by being themselves, showing who they are and what they have to offer.
Think about your last visit to an affiliate program forum. The people who most likely left an impression on you were those who showed a strong sense of humor, an uncanny insight or a way of viewing the world positively and energetically. These people leave their mark and their impression. Their forum postings are like “footprints in the sand” — they are not afraid to be different, to let their personalities shine through.
If you are going to develop a distinctive profile, you need to understand your own strengths and capacities. Your distinctiveness as an affiliate marketer derives from your unique life history and skill set. You need to find an affiliate program that will build on these strengths and enable you to realize your potential.
The real challenge for you as an affiliate marketer is to find an affiliate offering that draws on your unique knowledge, skills and competencies. You need an affiliate program that enables YOU to “shine”!
What “image” or “Internet profile” are you trying to create? Are you able to be yourself through your affiliate program? Or are you being an extension of someone else?
You need to find an affiliate offering that aligns with your desired profile and your unique competencies. This is the way to create an affiliate business, not just affiliate checks.
To achieve this, you have to develop yourself. You will need to progressively develop self-awareness, the capacity to overcome fear of visibility and a willingness to continuously review what you are doing. A real synergy will emerge as you learn to integrate your affiliate offering, your profile and your competencies.
You will find that you will break through the glass ceiling as you make a real statement about who you are, what you value and what you have to offer. You will make a real difference because you can “add value” to your affiliate offering in a unique way. This is the only sustainable source of competitive advantage in affiliate marketing.
PAY PER CLICK
Pay Per Click Marketing is an affiliate marketing skill practiced only by successful affiliate marketers. The reason for this is that most affiliates do not fancy the idea of spending money every time there is a click on their ads and one can lose money if there is not a solid business plan in place. Pay Per Click Marketing in the right hands is the fastest way for anyone to get results online, in hours or days from the day the ad was placed.
Getting started in Pay Per Click Marketing is very simple. All we need to do is go to any one of the major search engine providers such as Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN Marketing and Google AdWords Marketing and setup an account. Setting up an account requires a debit or credit card. This is also a possible hurdle for some interested in online marketing but unable to get started because of lack of this tool. Many banks now allow their ATM cards to function as a visa card,
Pay Per Click Marketing never gets saturated. Compared to other forms of advertising such as ezine advertising that can generate sales...however one needs to place ads, or solo ezine ads to test if the subscribers to an ezine newsletter is responsive to an ad. So its either a hit or miss. For this same reason, PPC is especially good for affiliates in the MLM or network marketing arena that are looking for ways to generate leads for their business. For example, while your up line may have success advertising a business opportunity in a certain ezine with 5000 subscribers, over time that pool becomes saturated with the same ad and this resource pool will no longer be beneficial to the sponsors down line.
PPC however takes some skill and time to understand the intricacies of the advertising system. The best way to succeed in PPC is to have a business model that is long term, in other words, we need a business plan that either has got many products we can introduce in time, a recurring charge business model such as a membership site or a high ticket item. Once the business model is in place, we can send instant traffic with AdWords, Yahoo, or MSN.
So your home business blog is doing pretty well. Hundreds or thousands of visitors flock to your site each day, dedicated readers who return nightly to absorb your profound wisdom on life, foreign policy and the human condition. They’re receiving your priceless insights into the world, and you’re not making a dime. All that hard work isn’t doing anything for you except maybe making you feel good about enlightening the world, but come on! There’s got to be a way to also benefit financially from all your hard work.
It’s time for you to hear about affiliate marketing.
Simply put, affiliate marketing is a partnership with other websites. You put a link on your site to their site and get paid for each click, registration and sale. If you use affiliate marketing well, you can generate a high Return on Investment (ROI) with respect to the amount of time and effort invested in your home business blog. Used poorly, however, affiliate marketing can just be a waste of space on your site. Here are some tips on how to use affiliate marketing as more than placeholders.
1. Make the links relevant.
Your readers come to your blog for a reason. They come to read about your exploits in the jungles of South America or your forays into the vicious world of international politics. Chances are readers in these areas aren’t going to want to go to a site selling Barney toys. Things they might be interested in are products that will save the jungles of South America or a book about an international diplomat. You don’t have to totally exclude the random Barney toys, because maybe some tree-huggers are into Barney, but make sure that most of your affiliate marketing links are related to your content. Users will be more likely to click them.
2. Embed affiliate marketing links in your articles.
If you just discovered a great charity for saving the jungles of South America that has an affiliate marketing program, include the link in the body of one of your articles. Links on the side can get lost by resized windows or ignored completely as useless advertisements. Anything within an article, however, will be read and considered, because the author of the article, whose opinion the reader respects, feels that the other site is useful or worthwhile. The reader will be more likely to visit the link, and you’ll be more likely to make money.
3. Change the affiliate marketing links.
This is especially important if you have a returning user base. If your affiliate marketing links never change, people will not go to them because they will be old news. Always be on the lookout for new affiliate marketing opportunities that you can take advantage of. New links will add mystery and intrigue to your site. Users will be more likely to notice changes than to let the links simply fade into the background.
4. Make text of the affiliate marketing links exciting and inviting.
Most people aren’t going to click on a button that says ‘Click here.’ Other than pure curiosity, which admittedly should never be ruled out, there is no incentive for users to follow these directions. “Save the South American Jungle From Certain Slaughter” has a much more enticing ring to it, what with the alliteration and all, and is sure to get your tree hugging audience interested. Along the same lines of interesting and exciting, whenever possible include some kind of picture or banner with the links. A list of blue underlined words on the left-hand side of a page is tough to wade through; a banner with a forest fire draws immediate attention, and drawing attention to your links should be the goal of any affiliate marketing plan.
5. Don’t rule out unpaid opportunities.
Some affiliate marketing programs are simply an exchange of links, a ‘you link to me, I’ll link to you’ deal. While these don’t directly make you money, they do increase traffic to your site, and increased traffic means more money. While your marketing plan obviously can’t be using all this kind, they can be useful in boosting traffic, and through-traffic, revenue.