search

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Affiliate Programs : Golden Opportunity or Waste of Time?

Now that the idea of doing business over the internet has been firmly established, many potential internet businessmen are searching for the best way to do business. Usually the choice comes down to whether you want to set up your own business and online store, or sign up for an affiliate program.

First of all, let's define what we mean by an affiliate program. An affiliate program is basically an internet business set up by someone else. They could be selling physical goods, education, information or any other products that can be sold online. By signing up as their affiliate, you are helping them promote their business or store. In return, they will pay you a commission for each sale you bring them. The amount of commission varies between different affiliate programs. Examples of affiliate programs include Amazon.com and Wordtracker, which you can visit at:

http://www.onlinebiz-help.com/links/wordtracker.html

1) EARNINGS

So how does an affiliate program differ from starting your own online store? Let's start by looking at the potential earnings. (After all, the main reason everyone wants to start an internet business is for the money). When you sign up for an affiliate program, you will be paid a commission for each sale you refer to the online store. This commission can range from 5% to 15% for physical products, and possibly up to 50% or more for virtual products such as subscriptions and ebooks.

On the other hand, if you start your own store, your profit can be much higher. For virtual products, your profit can be 100% of your selling price. After all, once the newsletter or ebook is created, you do not need to spend any more effort. When someone buys your ebook, they just download it from your website. If you are selling a physical product, your profit depends on whether you are manufacturing the product yourself, or buying from a wholesaler or dropshipping company. Your profit in this case could easily be more than 40% or 50%.

So, if you only consider the potential earnings, starting your own business is more lucrative than joining an affiliate program.

2) LOGISTICS

However, money isn't everything (Or so they say). When you are starting your own internet business, there are a number of logistic issues you need to look at. Here are a few things you would need to take care of:

a) Create your website
b) Design your product (if you are selling new products)
c) Create your product (if you are selling new physical products, or any virtual products)
d) Set up an online store
e) Set up a merchant account or payment gateway
f) Set up a warehouse or storage space (if you are selling physical products)
g) Have procedures and staff ready to fulfill orders
h) Set up an affiliate program to get others to market the products for you
i) Monitor for fraud
j) Monitor stock levels

As they say, "No pain, no gain". Having your own store pays very well, but requires a substantial time investment from you.

On the other hand, if you sign up for an affiliate program, all you need to do is set up a website to promote the program. All the ads, banners, marketing text etc will be provided to you by the affiliate program. Your only responsibilities would be to get people to visit your website, and hopefully click on the affiliate links to buy the products that you are promoting.

3) CONVERSION

Whether you have your own business or are promoting an affiliate program, the bottom line is the conversion rate, or the percentage of visitors that actually buy something from you. A number of factors influence this conversion rate. Factors as quality of the product, quality of the website, customer support are all important. However, I personally believe that the most important factor is trust.

When a potential customer arrives at your website, he will need to trust your site enough for him to be willing to buy from you. After all, on the internet you are just a faceless salesman. He doesn't know who is actually running the site and whether he will actually get the goods that he orders.

Having said that, one of the key methods of garnering trust is by recommendation and referral. If a store is being referred to or recommended by another website, the potential customer will feel that the store is trustworthy. After all, if the store is not trustworthy, why would the other website recommend it?

This is where affiliate programs shine. When you refer a potential customer to the store for which you are an affiliate, the customer will feel more relieved, since the store is being recommended by your site, a 3rd party. The customer will be more likely to buy from the store, benefiting both the store, and you as well.

There are both pros and cons to joining an affiliate program. You might earn less with an affiliate program compared to starting your own store, but I believe the benefits of not having to be responsible for the logistics makes affiliate programs are very viable "passive" source of income.

For more information on affiliate programs, do visit http://www.onlinebiz-help.com

About the Author

Steven is the webmaster of http://www.onlinebiz-help.com - Your Guide To Internet Business. His website contains various resources on affiliate programs and internet marketing advice to help you succeed in your internet business.

source:
http://allarticles.c.la/

Vital Things To Check At Any Affiliate Program

Affiliate programs are now one of the most popular ways for webmasters with lot of traffic to their sites to earn good money.

There are many factors which influence the amount of money earned by an affiliate. The most important is the quality of the affiliate program. So if you want to make lots of money, you must know how to choose an affiliate program.

First of all you should look for a web site that has been on the net for some time. That's how you know that you can trust them and you will receive the money you make. There are many untrustworthy programs that fooled a lot of webmasters with promises but they never sent the money.

Next step is to check the quality of the products the site is promoting. Don't advertise a product if you wouldn't use it for your self. You shouldn't be blinded by the high commissions an affiliate program is offering. If you join a program with bad products you will damage your image and you won't be able to advertise other products ever because people won't value your opinion.

Try to find an affiliate program with a good commission rate because you don't want to waste your time if you can make much more money elsewhere. A good commission would be a 20% to 25% of the product price.

We have discussed about the web site, the products and the commissions but none of this matter if the program doesn't have a great tracking system. You should look for programs that track visitors to their site using both CGI and cookies so you'll get your money for the sales you make.

It's also good if you can check your stats in real time. Before you sign up in a affiliate program you should first check how long do they track visitors for. There are affiliate programs that track a visitor only once and if they come back another day and buy the product you won't earn ay money. So best for you is to find programs that track visitors for 30 days or more.

Then you should be interested on how often the site sends your payment and if you have to earn a fix amount of money before they send them to you.

So these are some tips in choosing an affiliate program that will bring you a high income. If a program has most of the things mentioned above then it's worth trying.


About the Author: Check http://www.30daysinjuly.com if you are interested in having a 'coach' that will guide you to Internet Success and will show you how to create a profitable online business.
Source: www.isnare.com

How to Become an Online Affiliate Marketer

What is an "affiliate marketer"? Until about a year ago I had no idea what an internet affiliate marketer was. A friend of mine introduced me to online marketing and this unique form of sales and the rest is history. What I mean by history is: no more boss, no more commutes, no more stress, no more work place politics, no more lay offs, no more dead lines, etc...

An affiliate marketer is someone who uses various resources online to promote and sell other companies products and services. That's it! Affiliate marketing has changed my life for the better. By promoting other peoples products and services, I have reached a success level I thought only imaginable.

The key to this type of marketing is knowing your products or services and what type of advertising will bring you great returns. The best part of affiliate marketing is that you are responsible for nothing! No products, no shipping, no building, no customer service, no employees, no health insurance for employees, no manufacturing, ect....

All of the things I listed above are the responsibility of the companies you are promoting. That is the beauty of this type of marketing. You "poach" off the success of other peoples trials and tribulations creating a "win, win" situation for both parties. They pay you handsomely for creating them new business.

Has any of this got your attention? What if I told you that you can get started as an affiliate marketer online for less that $50? Now do I have your attention? Well it's true and I will!

The first thing you need to do is find a company that is willing to pay for your help. For example we will use ABCproducts.com. Let's say this company is a membership program offering you $20.00 for every member you bring to them that signs up for their program. The membership costs $40.00 a month so you get half or $20.00.

Here is the beauty to this program! If you sign up 100 members the first month that is $2,000 dollars into your bank account. In the next month you sign up 100 more for an additional $2,000, but don't forget about the 100 members you signed up in month 1. Every month they stay on the program you still get the original $20.00! So now after 2 months your making $4,000 a month.

This goes on and on and on! If after 6 months you have 4,000 members that you personally brought to the program, you get $80,000 a month without doing a thing. Every first of the month the money is put directly into your bank account from all of the marketing you did in previous months. This means that you get paid if your at home, on vacation, shopping, at little league, etc...

I mentioned the cost to you earlier. The only cost to you is to go to "GoDaddy.com" and purchase a domain name for $9.99 for the year. You want to make you domain name very similar to the company you are promoting. In our example earlier I used ABCproducts.com. Try to come up with a domain name like "ABCproductsonline.com".

Once this domain name is yours. Simply go online to different marketing tools such as Ezine Articles or Isnare Articles and write articles promoting their products or services. You don't need a website! You simply set up your domain name to "forward" to the homepage of the company you are promoting. Sites like these will allow you to post your URL at the bottom of your articles for $9.99 a month which is minimal for the potential "hits" they create.

This is why it is key to have a domain name that is "very similar" to the actual domain name of the company you are promoting. When they click on ABCproductsonline.com (your domain name) they are actually going to be forwarded to ABCproducts.com. If they like what they see and sign up for a membership? You get paid not only for that month, but all of the months to follow that they remain a member. Thus, this can put a great deal of money into your bank account!

Take care and we will talk soon,
Bill Lasher

Did you find this article helpful? Than take a look at the video tutorials here! http://www.MaverickMoneyTalk.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=William_Lasher

How Much is Your Affiliate Marketing Program Costing You?

One problem that has caused more people to fail in affiliate marketing than anything else is the lack of an initial investment. You can join virtually any affiliate marketing program for free. However it can end up costing you more than you realize. In this article let's talk about how much your affiliate marketing program is really costing you right now.

And affiliate marketing program can end up costing you in three different ways.

1. Time

To be successful as an affiliate marketer you must invest your time. This will vary from one affiliate marketer to the next because everyone has a different lifestyle they lead.

However one thing that does not change is selling products online as affiliate marketer takes a consistent effort. Many people fail because they do not understand how difficult this will be and do not invest the proper amount of time to be successful.

2. Expenses

Building an affiliate marketing business will end up costing you money eventually. You will either pay people to do things for you which is known as outsourcing. Or you will purchase things such as advertising or software to automate your business.

To sell any affiliate product online you need visitors coming to a website. As the Internet continues to grow it becomes more competitive and imperative you spend money promoting your product.

Today affiliate marketers do primarily pay per click advertising, social networking, or article marketing as their three primary forms of promotion. All of these are expenses that you will incur in your attempt to drive customers to your website.

3. Commissions

If you do not represent the right affiliate programs you can lose a lot of money. For example the difference between one affiliate program that pays 40% and has a one tier affiliate program and another program that pays 50% on personal sales and 10% on second tier sales is huge.

Super affiliates are people who earn unbelievable amounts of commissions selling products for their merchants. They are also people who have are earned the right to a higher commission.

If you become an affiliate that demands respect you can earn a higher commission than an average affiliate. Therefore it's important that you become successful so your affiliate marketing program does not cost you thousands of dollars in potential commissions.

In summary this is three ways to view how much your affiliate marketing program is costing you. The commission you earn ultimately comes down to your amount of time and effort, as well as money you spend promoting your affiliate products.

Charles Chege is a Webmaster and owner of AffiliateChampions.com, which promotes top-notch affiliate programs in niche markets to aspiring home business owners. He shares his knowledge about affiliate marketing business and effective marketing strategies.Subscribe to our Affiliate Newsletter for FREE and obtain proven home business tips and tricks. http://www.affiliatechampions.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charles_T_Chege

Affiliate Marketing - Tips on How to Choose the Right Affiliate Teaching Program

Things to consider before you start

So you have made a decision to get into Affiliate Marketing? Before you start make sure you have considered the following:
· What is your goal?
· How much time are you prepared to spend on learning each day?
· What is your budget?
These are serious considerations. Why?
If you do not have an ultimate goal that you have set yourself to achieve within a time frame, you will end up wasting your time.

If you are not prepared to invest your time, on a daily basis, to build on your skills, you are wasting your time.
Be clear about the money you are prepared to invest and be disciplined about managing your budget.
If you are committed, you are halfway there!

Finding the right teaching program for you

Be prepared to spend a certain amount of time researching various programs. Consider the following criteria:
· What do they offer in terms of teaching materials?
· What do their existing clients say about them?
· How much does it cost?
· Can you get out of the program i.e. is there an exit point?
· Will you get your money back if you exit?
· Search on the internet and find articles about the program
· How old is the program?
· Was it written years ago with no recent updates? If yes, stay away. The internet is a very dynamic environment that changes daily!

Personal Insight

Personally, I made quite a few mistakes and wasted time and money this is why I can honestly promote a specific program to you. I would still urge you to do your research for your own peace of mind.
Typical mistakes I made:

· Initially joined a program that was a once off fee of $77. Big mistake. The program was old (6 years!!). The material has not been updated since then and the free tools they promoted, existed, but have been updated since the program material was written, which caused untold frustration and confusion on my part.
· After a few weeks I gave up on this and started researching again.
· I found lots of "free" programs, but there was always a catch to it. The material was never comprehensive enough for a "rookie" like me to understand and learn.
· I then thought I could do this on my own with my limited skill set. Also a mistake. I ended up trying to market products that I had not researched properly, where the commission structure was appalling, payouts poor and on top of it I was spending too much money advertising. The result was a very poor ROI (return on investment)

Choosing the "Right One"
I eventually found the teaching program that is run by Mack Michaels, called Maverick Money Makers Club. This program I can personally vouch for. The teaching materials are excellent and the material is kept up-to-date.
Do not waste time and money. Choose and join the millionaire's club www.MavericksTopgunClub.com as the affiliate program that will teach you everything you need to know and much, much more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ingrid_David

A Simple But Powerful Marketing Strategy For Affiliates

I would like to share a very simple but effective marketing strategy for affiliate marketers that generated me about $20,000 the first time that I used it and actually still earns me about $500 to $1,000 dollars every single month without doing any additional work on the promotion other than sending a few emails to new subscribers on my list.

I want you to understand that this makes me between $500 - 1,000 a month and I haven't done anything extra to promote this product. Here are the three things I would recommend that you do when you're promoting something, whether you're using video or email or anything else:

1. Bring the pain. It sounds harsh, but people won't buy unless you make them aware of the pain of not buying, so talk about the pain. This is not a negative thing to do. This is just the real thing to do. You want to help them and the only way to help them is to tell them the pain of what's going to happen if they don't buy. For an example if you are promoting software that is designed to spin articles. The pain in this case is duplicate content penalty, getting banned by Google potentially, not getting enough traffic, being cast out as a leper by your family - whatever the pain is you have to make sure that they are aware of how much life sucks without your product. The pain is always whatever problem that your product solves.

2. The second thing I recommend you to do is, whether it's in a video promotion, or text that you're doing as an affiliate, it doesn't matter what the format is, it is extremely important to actually show the 'how.' How does this tool work? I don't care if it's an e-book, show what some of the tactics are. If its software show how it works. Show how fast and easy it is to use and install. Explain the process give some examples of what it is like during the process of actually using it.

3. After you've done that, show the proof, arguably the most important is the actual results. We can represent this by a graph. You can show a screen shot of how it helped your sales go up. How much your traffic went up your self-esteem will go up. Your muscle mass will go up, or whatever it is that this product is supposed to fix you've got to show the proof.

So the three things that I would recommend you to always use in your promotions are:

• Bring the pain
• Show them how the product works, as in this video. If you can't do that, do it in a case study.
• Show the proof. What were the results of actually using it?

If you apply this technique correctly then all you will have to do is set up your recommendation, set up some follow up emails in your auto-responder and put it on auto pilot. I am still seeing money trickle in from many small campaigns that I have set up using this technique and I haven't done any work on some of them in years. It is a very good proven technique and it will work for you.

For a step by step guide on how to implement very powerful marketing techniques that will cause your profits to skyrocket please visit Affiliate Millions

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anthony_Garay

Friday, March 13, 2009

Top 3 Characteristics Of A Super Affiliate

Making thousands of dollars in affiliate marketing is the dream of every affiliate who is trying to venture in the internet world. Becoming a super affiliate is not as complicated as you think. As long as you have the determination and you are committed to this goal, it is possible for you to become a super affiliate and make automatic income from the internet.

If you are serious to become a super affiliate, you must first adopt the super affiliate characteristics. Everything starts from your mindset. Once you have the characteristics of a super affiliate, you will then act like a super affiliate and become one in the end. This is how you can generate automatic income from the internet as a super affiliate.

Below are the top 3 super affiliate characteristics that you must adopt…

1. You must stay focused in promoting only one affiliate product at a time. If you try to promote too many affiliate products at the same time, you will diversify your energy and hence, creating less results for each of your effort. Every super affiliate knows the power of staying focused. It is just like a laser beam, when focused, it can cuts through anything that lies in front of it. And it is the same in affiliate marketing, if you are serious in generating automatic income, you must stay focused and concentrate all your energy in promoting just one affiliate product.

2. Create value for the people in your market. This is what many affiliates did not do. Creating value include providing quality information that will help the people in your market. The content you provide will then work as the pre-sell material and put the prospects into a buying mindset. Thus, you will get more sales if you create more value for the people in your market. Unfortunately, most affiliates only focus in generating automatic income and they adopt the money-first mindset. As a result, they fail to build trust with their prospects and thus make less money from their business.

3. The final piece of characteristic you must possess is that you must be serious in your affiliate business. Many struggling affiliates treat their business like a part-time hobby and that is why there are only earning the hobby-kind of income. If you truly want to be a super affiliate and make automatic income from the internet, you must be serious in your business. Treat your online business seriously and be 100% committed to it.

These are the top 3 characteristics of a super affiliate. Before you transform yourself into a super affiliate, you must adopt these characteristics. Once you have the qualities of a super affiliate, making automatic income from the internet will not be a problem for you.


source:
http://www.articlesbase.com/affiliate-programs-articles/top-3-characteristics-of-a-super-affiliate-816331.html
Search the Web: