Saturday, February 14, 2009

Why You Should Promote Affiliate Marketing?



Who ever designed the business model of affiliate marketing must have been a genius.  This is one model of business where you do not waste your energies in creating a product.  There are creative people who are skilled in creating digital products but may lack the temperament to market them.  All you need to be a top affiliate is to be a savvy marketer and promote in various ways and sell the product.  You may reap 25% to 75% of the product cost as commissions.   If you're seriously interested in knowing about Affiliate Programs, then pay attention and learn the fundamentals.

Are you a start up entrepreneur looking to establish a well paying business?  Or are you planning to set up an online home based business but you still don't have any product to sell?  If so, affiliate marketing may be the ideal solution for your problems.  With affiliate marketing, you won't need to worry about creating the products you have to sell.  All you need to have is a website with sufficient content that are related to the products of a certain online company offering affiliate programs.  By becoming a member of the program, or by becoming an affiliate, you can start earning money right away!  There is no gestation at all in affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a business relationship established between a merchant and his affiliates some what akin to a sales agent.  In affiliate marketing, an affiliate agrees to and works towards directing traffic to a merchant's website.  Whenever such traffic is converted into some kind of action, like a visitor purchasing a product on the merchant's website or a visitor becoming a lead for the company, the affiliate who directed the traffic will be compensated.  Compensation may be in  the form of either a percentage of sales generated or a fixed fee predetermined as per the compensation plan of the merchant's affiliate program.

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular online marketing methods today promising a lot of benefit for both the merchant and the affiliate..  In fact, almost every merchant or retailer site today offers an affiliate program that any one can join up.  Most retailers now offer an affiliate program by promising great benefits like large commissions, lifetime residual incomes, click through incomes and even tutorials to teach you how to market the affiliate program.  But would all these affiliate programs bring off the same benefits?

Most affiliate programs pay the affiliates, a one-time commission for every sale or lead they bring to the merchant's website.  Commissions for this kind of affiliate programs are usually large, ranging from 15% to a high of about 75%.  Other affiliate programs would pay you a fixed fee for every click through or traffic you send to the merchant's site.  Programs like this often pay a smaller fee for every click through, usually not getting any larger than half a dollar.  The good thing about this kind of program, however, is that the visitor won't have to purchase anything in order for the affiliate to get compensated.  One such well known program is the google adsense. 

Then there are the residual income affiliate programs.  Residual affiliate programs usually pay a very small percentage of sales commission for every sale directed by the affiliate to the merchant's site.  Generally paid membership sites offer residual affiliate programs.  The commission often comes only in the range of 5% to 20% of the monthly membership fee collected by the merchant.  The conversion is also lower since many people do not want a monthly payment commitment.  Because of this, many people ignore residual affiliate program and would rather opt for the high paying one-time commission affiliate program. 

Are these people making a mistake, or are they making the right decision?  Its up to one’s own business perspective.  Whatever type of affiliate program you choose, the money making potential of joining affiliate programs are very large.  Affiliate programs have spawned their own multi millionaires and online entrepreneurs who are living their dream life.

Are you ready to start your affiliate marketing journey?  Then you may require some excellent tools which can be downloaded right now for free.  Check out these affiliate and online marketing tools to put your business on the fast track.  

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