Internet Marketing for Wealth CreationLesson 7: Affiliate Marketing BusinessWhen you do not have your own product to sell and if you are not good at writing articles (for Adsense website), you may promote someone else's product. All you have to do is, find a product, signup as an affiliate (free-of-cost) and then promote their product. Almost 90% of the online businesses make use of affiliate marketing program (also known as reseller program or associate program), in addition to their own marketing system. They are known as 'vendors' and those who join them as dealers are known as 'affiliates' (or associates or resellers). Affiliates benefit from this system, as they don't need to create a product and no need to provide customer support after sales. They have no commitment to promote a specific product or minimum quantity. They are free to promote multiple products from various vendors and have freedom stop or switchover at any time they decide. For the vendors also it is advantageous as their business grows without their efforts. Most of the vendors are individuals and are not expert internet marketers. For them appointing a marketing team or a consultant would be very expensive. By appointing affiliates, they save time, energy and lots of money. And there is no risk for vendors, as they pay commission to their affiliates based on an action i.e. per sales or per lead. Some vendors appoint affiliates directly from their website. But many of them prefer to operate through a company that function like an agent between vendors and affiliates, known as 'Affiliate Program Providers' or APP. The Process When you become an affiliate for a verndor, you will be provided with a special (unique) URL. You can promote them either from your website or without a website. When a visitor clicks on your link they reach the vendor's website. The vendor takes care of selling their products. Even if some visitors do not buy during their first visit, the company keeps track of them and you get credited when they buy the product. Usually vendors place a small file called 'cookie' in the visitors' computers when they visit for the first time. They will track the visitors by reading the cookies when they visit again. You will get paid for your visitors' purchases - as long as the cookie remains in their computers at the time of purchase. Most vendors pay commission on 'per sale' basis to their affiliates. Some companies pay 'per-lead' or 'per-click' basis. In the 'pay-per-lead program', affiliates are paid for giving a lead to the vendor, i.e. when someone reaches vendor's website through affiliate link and asks for a quotation or downloads a free demo or registers for a free program, etc. In the 'pay-per-click' program, affiliates are paid whenever a visitor reaches the vendor's website through affiliate's link. Choosing the Right Product If you are planning to start an affiliate business and are planning to promote products from a website or blog, you need to choose a theme/topic before you choose the affiliate products. If you did the product research (explained in lesson 5-a), your theme mut be ready by now. If you choose to promote many products from your website, all products must be related to each other. For example, if your website is about parenting, you may promote various products like baby care products, baby clothing, books on bringing up children, etc. You should never promote a product that does not complement the theme of your website. Secondly, if you already have an opt-in list, you should only promote the products that your subscribers are interested in. For example, you had advertised about digital camera and they subscribed to your list for more information about digital cameras; you must not try to promote teak-wood furniture to them. Finally, I personally suggest that as a beginner you must avoid products related to internet marketing. The profit is good but because of competition, you will end-up spending lots of money in promoting. Please use the process mentioned in the lesson 5-a) to choose a product that has demand. Choosing a good vendor (website) Once you have decided about the kind of product to promote, you need to find the right vendor. You are not concerned about the vendor's talent or qualification. But you must ensure that the vendor's website is capable of selling the products, and of course, the product must also be good. In the lesson 5-b, you had seen the sales process and learnt how to plan your website to sell a product. You had also seen how to write a sales copy. You know that a good website is NOT the one that just looks good with lots of attractive graphics, audio and video, but should convert visitors into customers. You may consider a website to be good if it contains all or most of the following:
Becoming an Affiliate Joining an affiliate program is very simple and easy. You need to find a vendor with good product and a good website and register as an affiliate. In most cases, it takes just 5 minutes and you don't have to pay any fee to become an affiliate. As mentioned earlier, you may register directly at a vendor's website or visit APP's website and register. There are hundreds of affiliate program providers around the world. Strategies to Promote Affiliate Links In the chapter 9 you are going to learn various methods to promote any business online. Using one or more methods, you can create various strategies to promote affiliate products (links). Using those strategies, you may promote either from a website/blog or without even a website. Contents: Once you have chosen the kind of products to promote, create your website with lots of related articles. On each page (above, below or on the side of the articles) you may display the banner provided by the vendors. Or within the articles you may recommend the product and provide the text links (your unique affiliate URL) to the vendor's website. Squeeze Page: This method is widely used by the super affiliates (those who are experienced in affiliate marketing and are capable of promoting any product they choose). A squeeze page (also called opt-in page) is a page on the website with web-form to collect the visitors' email addresses. The visitors will be given access to the rest of the website only if they enter their name and email id. This strategy is useful if you want to filter the serious visitors who are really searching for the information you are promising to give at your website. In this method you will promote one main product. The visitors on entering the email id, they will be automatically diverted to the vendor's site (using your unique affiliate URL). And if they make purchase there, you will earn commission. In addition, you have their email id in your database. Later on, you can either promote the same product or various other products through email (email marketing!). As you have seen above, you must create your own strategies by combining various ideas like this! Promoting affiliate products without a website will be explained in a later chapter. The Facts about Affiliate Marketing Business This is the fastest way to earn money on the internet, provided, you are an expert in pay-per-click marketing or you possess a huge subscriber base (opt-in email list). If you are starting your online business, especially the affiliate marketing, you must first master the pay-per-click marketing, especially Google Adwords. If you do not learn pay-per-click marketing properly, you will end-up spending more money than what you earn through this business. The efforts required to promote an affiliate product is the same as that of your own product. But the profit you get on an affiliate product will be less than that of your own product. In my opinion, if you are just starting your online business, consider creating your own product. Later on, once you gain experience, start promoting affiliate products as secondary products. However, it was just my opinion. You must consider your current situation before you decide about your business. Note: You will learn how to promote your website in the chapter 9 and you will learn how to promote affiliate products wihtout a website in chapters 11 and 12.
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Previous Chapters Lesson 1: Introduction to Internet Marketing Lesson 2: Online Business v/s Conventional Business Lesson 3: Major ways of Earning Money On-line Lesson 4: Understanding Legal Aspects and Scam Lesson 5: Online Business to "Sell Products" Lesson 6: Online Business Automation
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